Richard P. Jolley

The development of children's expressive drawing

Two studies are presented on expressive happy and sad drawings made by British 4- to 12-year-olds (n = 80 and 160, respectively) in which the drawings were assessed individually for the quantity and quality of expressive devices. Quantity was measured in the number of appropriate expressive content themes and formal properties evident in each drawing. Quality was rated on a Likert scale on the extent to which the drawing expressed the intended mood. Both the quantity and quality of expressive happy and sad drawings of predetermined and free topics increased with age. Improvements in content expression, but much less so with expressive formal properties, accounted for the development of quantity. A slower period of development between 6 and 9 years for both measures was consistently found, with a significant improvement often shown among the 12-year-olds. The finding that happy drawings were scored higher than sad drawings is explained in respect of adult and child expectations of pictures. Correlations between expressive scores and performance on a visual realism drawing task tentatively indicated that expressive and realism skills in drawing are only weakly related. The development of expressive drawing is considered in the context of the delivery of art education in schools.

The use of drawing for psychological assessment in Britain: Survey findings

The current study reports previously unpublished data on drawing as an assessment tool obtained from a survey of broader assessment practices of British clinical psychologists (Bekhit, Thomas, Lalonde, & Jolley, 2002). A questionnaire was completed by 158 clinical psychologists practising in Britain concerning their use of, and views about psychological assessment and the use of drawings in such assessment. The results were compared with those of a similar survey conducted in the United States by Lubin, Larsen, Matarazzo, and Seever (1985) and Watkins, Campbell, Nieberding, and Hallmark (1995). Drawing tests are used extensively by North American clinical psychologists despite controversy over their reliability and validity. In contrast, the current surveys results indicate that British clinical psychologists hardly ever use formal drawing tests, but approximately half of them reported using drawings as an informal assessment aid. The frequent but informal use of drawing as an aid to assessment by British psychologists is consistent with their overwhelming preference for clinical interviewing as opposed to formal testing in the psychological evaluation of their clients. The more widespread use of drawing tests by American clinicians is consistent with their greater willingness than their British counterparts to include projective testing in their assessments.

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.

Croatian children's experience of war is not reflected in the size and placement of emotive topics in their drawings

OBJECTIVES The claim that topics in childrens drawings convey the childrens emotional attitude towards those topics was investigated. DESIGN The influence of an emotional topic (neutral man, friendly and enemy soldier) and trauma group (child with father or father killed in war) was examined on the size of the topics and their placement relative to a self-portrait drawing. METHODS Sixty Croatian children drew a man, followed on a separate page by either (a) a Croatian soldier, (b) an enemy soldier or (c) a second drawing of a man. The childs self-portrait drawing was placed on each page. RESULTS There were no significant main or interaction effects on size or placement of topic. CONCLUSIONS There are unlikely to be reliable features of drawings that portray the childs emotional attitude towards the topic drawn.

The relationship between children's production and comprehension of realism in drawing

Two studies compared 2- to 14-year-olds’ production and comprehension of realism in human e gure drawings. In the comprehension task, children were asked to choose from an array of children’ s drawings the (1) most realistic drawing, (2) one they liked the best, and (3) one most similar to their own human e gure drawings. Both studies reported that children of all drawing levels typically selected a more advanced drawing than shown in their own productions for all three questions, except that the most advanced drawers consistently estimated their drawing level appropriately. In Study 2, children were also asked to place the drawings in an age-related developmental sequence. Performance on this task was positively related to the child’ s production level, independently of the child’ s age. It is concluded that production lags comprehension in drawing development, but that production level may have an ine uence on children’ s knowledge of the developmental sequence in drawing.

The Development of Understanding Moods Metaphorically Expressed in Pictures A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Chinese participants, ranging in age from 4 years old to adult, were tested on their ability to select drawings to appropriately complete a positively or negatively charged drawing. Justifications for their selections were obtained, as well as their identification of the mood they perceived in the drawings. Comparing these responses with those of British participants on the same tasks (Jolley & Thomas, 1995) revealed that recognition of mood in pictures may be shown at an early age in both cultures. Performance on the completion tasks and reported justifications indicated, however, that Chinese children attend to mood metaphors in pictures at an earlier age than do Western children and have a less dismissive attitude toward scenes expressing sadness. Thus, comprehension of metaphoric expression may not develop at the same age across cultures. The greater emphasis on teaching technique within the Chinese art programme may facilitate the reading of pictorial metaphors.

The Development of Sensitivity to Metaphorical Expression of Moods in Abstract Art

The present study examined the development of sensitivity to positive and negative moods metaphorically expressed through the formal properties of paintings. Subjects aged from 5 to 17 years provided mood labels (happy, sad, angry, or calm) for abstract works that had been rated by adults as saliently expressing one of these four moods. Sensitivity to the expression of all moods developed with age, with correct assignment of moods above chance levels at 7 years and older. Performance of the 7‐year‐olds on the happy works was significantly superior to that on the sad works. Subjects also labelled abstract works that had been rated equivocally in terms of mood by the adults. Significantly more positive than negative feelings were read into the mood‐equivocal works across all ages. These findings are interpreted according to Parsons’ (1987) stage account of aesthetic appreciation. The combined analysis of subjects’ justifications for their choices on all the works confirmed that children can associate formal...

The role of inhibitory control in the development of human figure drawing in young children

We investigated the role of inhibitory control in young childrens human figure drawing. We used the Bear-Dragon task as a measure of inhibitory control and used the classification system devised by Cox and Parkin to measure the development of human figure drawing. We tested 50 children aged between 40 and 64 months. Regression analysis showed that inhibitory control predicted development in human figure drawing even after the effect of age was excluded. These data suggest that inhibitory control plays a role in the development of childrens drawing and imply a relation between the executive functions and representational change.

How Focus of Interest in Pictures Changes with Age: A Cross-cultural Comparison

British and Chinese participants ranging from 4 years of age to adult were presented with sets of drawings of everyday objects, and asked to match two out of three. The drawings could be matched on colour, subject matter, or visual metaphor. In both cultures there was a significant progression from matching on colour to subject matter, and then from matching on subject matter to metaphor. These age-related differences in the selected basis for matching may reflect age-related changes in focus of interest, and provide experimental data that is consistent with Parsons’ (1987) claims towards the development of understanding about art. The findings of broadly similar age differences in Chinese as well as British children suggest that this pattern of development is not culture-specific. Chinese children, however, showed an earlier and more pronounced progression to matching on metaphor than did the British children, which is hard to reconcile with previous suggestions (see, for example, Parsons, 1987; Winner, 1989) that a progression of interest beyond subject matter may not take place in Eastern cultures. The training Chinese children receive in monitoring detail in pictures and in Chinese characters may facilitate attention to the graphic devices that communicate metaphorical messages.

Expressive Drawing Ability in Children with Autism.

The autistic impairments in emotional and social competence, imagination and generating ideas predict qualitative differences in expressive drawings by children with autism beyond that accounted by any general learning difficulties. In a sample of 60 5-19-year-olds, happy and sad drawings were requested from 15 participants with non-savant autism and compared with those drawn by three control groups matched on either degree of learning difficulty (MLD), mental age (MA) or chronological age (CA). All drawings were rated by two artists on a 7-point quality of expression scale. Contrary to our predictions, the drawings from the autistic group were rated similar to those of the MA and MLD groups. Analysis of the people and social content of the drawings revealed that although children with autism did not draw fewer people, they did draw more immature forms than mental age controls. Furthermore, there was tentative evidence that fewer social scenes were produced by the autism sample. We conclude that the overall merit of expressive drawing in autism is commensurate with their general learning difficulties, but the social/emotional impairment in autism affects their drawings of people and social scenes.