Sophia L. Pierroutsakos

Grasping the Nature of Pictures

The role of experience in the development of pictorial competence has been the center of substantial debate. The four studies presented here help resolve the controversy by systematically documenting and examining manual exploration of depicted objects by infants. We report that 9-month-old infants manually investigate pictures, touching and feeling depicted objects as if they were real objects and even trying to pick them up off the page. The same behavior was observed in babies from two extremely different societies (the United States and the Ivory Coast). This investigation of pictures occurs even though infants can discriminate between real objects and their depictions. By the time infants are 19 months of age, their manual exploration is replaced by pointing at depicted objects. These results indicate that initial uncertainty about the nature of pictures leads infants to investigate them. Through experience, infants begin to acquire a concept of “picture.” This concept includes the fact that a picture has a dual nature (it is both an object and a representation of something other than itself), as well as knowledge about the culturally appropriate use of pictures.

The Origins of Pictorial Competence

Pictorial competence, which refers to the many factors involved in perceiving, interpreting, understanding, and using pictures, develops gradually over the first few years of life. Although experience is not required for accurate perception of pictures, it is necessary for understanding the nature of pictures. Infants initially respond to depicted objects as if they were real objects, and toddlers are remarkably insensitive to picture orientation. Only gradually do young children figure out the nature of pictures and how they are used.

Video Verité: Infants’ manual investigation of objects on video

In two studies, 9-month-old infants were shown a video of a series of stationary and moving objects. The infants directed the same kinds of behaviors toward objects on a video monitor as children of this age in earlier research directed toward color photographs: They hit at and attempted to grasp the items depicted on the screen. As with pictures, a decline in manual behaviors and an increase in pointing and vocalizing toward the video were found with 15- and 19-month-olds. These results support the notion that very young children must learn about the dual nature of depictions (that pictures are both objects in themselves and representations of something else) and the typical ways in which adults respond to such symbols.

From the innocent to the intelligent eye: The early development of pictorial competence

Publisher Summary This chapter deals with the two very influential theorist of Picture perception–the “innocent eye” and the “intelligent eye.” It argues that the process of developing an “intelligent eye” to interpret and understand pictures is a very complex and protracted process, a process infants begin with a relatively (but not a fully) “innocent eye.” Understanding and using pictures is not only a complex process, but it is also a very important one. Pictures are ubiquitous in most modem societies. It is illustrated that, aspects of picture-referent relations that seem transparent to adults are not obvious to young children, even when the picture depicts an array currently visible or even the child himself or herself. Young children do not even share the very strong, and natural-seeming, preference older individuals have for viewing pictures in an upright orientation. Thus, it is concluded that, an important part of the development of pictorial competence is figuring out how pictures and the reality they represent are related.

The Development of Early Symbolization: Educational Implications.

Abstract Research on the symbolic functioning of very young children has important implications for educational materials. We argue that there are no transparent symbols; one can never assume that what seems to be an obvious symbolic relation is obvious to young children. We have discovered that young children have particular difficulty understanding and using symbols that are themselves interesting objects. A symbol, such as a scale model of a room, that is salient and appealing as an object, requires a dual representation: To use a model, one must simultaneously represent both the model itself and its referent. Research on young childrens understanding and use of models indicates that they have particular difficulty achieving dual representation. This work has clear implications for the use of symbolic objects for educational purposes. We discuss several examples of commonly used symbolic objects, suggesting that they may be less helpful to young learners than is generally assumed.

What's Up? The Development of an Orientation Preference for Picture Books

The very strong, natural-seeming preference that adults and older children have for looking at pictures in their canonical orientation is not shared by very young children. In 3 studies with 18- to 30-month-old children, several different assessments were made of the degree to which the children behaved differentially to upright versus inverted picture books. The 18-month-olds in these studies did not exhibit a strong orientation preference: They usually (a) looked at a picture book that was handed to them upside down without reorienting it, (b) did not acknowledge or protest when an adult read to them while holding a book upside down, and (c) selected randomly between upright and inverted picture books. In addition, they were equally accurate at identifying depicted objects in upside-down and right-side-up pictures. In contrast, a group of 30-month-olds consistently preferred to interact with canonically oriented picture books. The 24-month-old participants generally behaved like the 18-month-olds, but gave more evidence of a preference. We suggest that these age differences in orientation preference may have to do with both conceptual and perceptual factors. The results, thus, contribute to the growing evidence that the development of pictorial competence is complex and multifaceted.