One Thing Behind Another: problems of representation in children's drawings

ABSTRACT

A series of five studies was designed to investigate children's representation of a depth‐relationship on a two‐dimensional surface. Subjects ranged from 4 to 10 years and also included adult samples. It was found that if a model is present and their attention is specifically drawn to it, young children do attempt to draw one object behind another. When simple objects are used, their technique is to place the two elements vertically, but separate, on the page. The ‘adult’ strategy of partial occlusion did not emerge until at least age 8. The tendency to separate the elements was not a function of a drawing task; ‘separate’ arrangements were also chosen in a selection task. Neither was it connected with a reluctance to represent a partially occluded whole object with an incomplete shape; a disc task also led to separation in the same way as the drawing and selection tasks. Finally, a task in which the idea of one object being partially hidden by the nearer was inherent to the task itself produced partial occlusion responses in both drawing and selection tasks.