Rigidity in children's drawings and its relation with representational change

Four studies tested the application of to the drawing domain. In particular, we tested her claim that young children are inhibited in their attempts at changing their graphic representations (representational change) due to being constrained by the order in which the elements of the representation are drawn (procedural rigidity). The first study required 60 children (4- to 6-year-olds and an older comparison group of 8-year-olds) to make three drawings of a familiar and novel topic. From these drawings each child was measured for procedural rigidity. In a further drawing the child was asked to modify their usual representation of each topic. Regression analyses revealed procedural rigidity levels were not predictive of manipulation performance. A second study, testing 75 4- to 6-year-olds and a third study, testing 30 3- to 4-year-olds, revealed that when young children were specifically asked to manipulate rigid sub-procedures on a familiar topic they were indeed able to do so. Finally, a fourth study (testing 40 5-year-olds and 40 8-year-olds) removed the notational trace in drawing (a possible aid for procedural interruption) but this still produced no evidence of a relation between procedural rigidity and representational change. We suggest how the concept of procedural rigidity might be re-interpreted for the drawing domain so that the RR model can remain as a domain-general theory of cognitive development. We also suggest the development of information processing may be crucial for flexibility in drawing.     

Cognitive aspects of change in drawings: A neo‐Piagetian theoretical account

This study reconsiders a series of drawing tasks ( Goodnow, 1978 ) in which children have to modify their stereotypical drawing of the human figure to represent a person in movement. Another task, in which children have to differentiate the drawing of a kangaroo from that of a person, is also considered. According to a neo‐Piagetian model of drawing development ( Morra, 1995 ), it is hypothesized that three factors underlie children's ability to flexibly modify their drawings: (a) the amount of attentional resources (M capacity) that a child can use to activate task‐relevant figurative and operative schemes; (b) automatic activation of figurative schemes from perceptual input that can be obtained by presenting a model; and (c) activation of executive schemes that set appropriate goals and monitor performance, which can be obtained by manipulating contextual variables, such as task order. Three experiments (with a total of 645 participants in the age range from 5 to 9 years) tested successfully the theoretical predictions about the causal factors of drawing flexibility.     

Angle discrimination in raised-line drawings

We investigated the angular resolution subserving the haptic perception of raised-line drawings by measuring how accurately observers could discriminate between two angle sizes under various conditions. We found that, for acute angles, discrimination performance is highly dependent on exploration strategy: mean thresholds of 2.9 degrees and 6.0 degrees were found for two different exploration strategies. For one of the strategies we found that discriminability is not dependent on the bisector orientation of the angle. Furthermore, we found that thresholds almost double when the angular extent is increased from 20 degrees to 135 degrees. We also found that local apex information has a significant influence on discrimination for acute as well as obtuse angles. In the last experiment we investigated the influence of depiction mode but did not find any effect. Overall, the results tell us that the acuity with which angles in raised-line drawings are perceived is determined by the exploration strategy, local apex information, and global angular extent.     

Chunking in recall of symbolic drawings

Three experiments explored memory for symbolic circuit drawings using skilled electronics technicians and novice subjects. In the first experiment a skilled technician reconstructed circuit diagrams from memory. Recall showed marked “chunking”, or grouping, by functional units similar to Chess Masters’ recall of chess positions. In the second experiment skilled technicians were able to recall more than were novice subjects following a brief exposure of the drawings. This advantage did not hold for randomly arranged symbols. In the third experiment the size of chunks retrieved systematically increased with additional study time. Supplementary analyses suggested that the chunking by skilled subjects was not an artifact of spatial proximity and chunk statistics, and that severe constraints are placed on any explanation of the data based on guessing. It is proposed that skilled subjects identify the conceptual category for an entire drawing, and retrieve elements using a generate-and-test process.     

Sexual ambiguity in children's human figure drawings

Four hundred sixty-one children in grades 5-9 drew a person and indicated the sex of their human figure drawing. A significant number (8%) of children were unable to classify their drawings as to sex; the frequency of uncertainty did not vary with grade or sex of child. Inability to determine the sex of one's own drawing is hypothesized to be a conceptual rather than a perceptual problem, and to reflect uncertainty about the essence of sexual identification.