Object categorisation, object naming, and viewpoint independence in visual remembering: Evidence from young children's drawings of a novel object

Abstract

A simple object-drawing task confirms a three-way association between object categorisation, viewpoint independence, and longer-term visual remembering. Young children (5- to 7-year-olds) drew a familiar object or a novel object, immediately after it had been hidden from view or on the following day. Both objects were shown from a full range of viewpoints or from just two viewpoints, from neither of which would either object normally be drawn after unrestricted viewing. When drawing from short-term memory after restricted viewing, both objects were most likely to be depicted from a seen viewpoint. When drawing from longer-term memory after restricted viewing, the novel object continued to be drawn from a seen viewpoint, but the mug was now most likely to be drawn from a preferred viewpoint from which it had not been seen. Naming the novel object with a novel count noun (“Look at this. This is a dax”), to signal that it belonged to an object category, resulted in it being drawn in the same way as the familiar object. The results concur with other evidence indicating that short-term and longer-term visual remembering are differentially associated with viewpoint-dependent representations of individual objects and viewpoint independent representations of object categories, respectively.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the staff and children of the following primary schools in England for participating in this study: Beamish School, Durham; Burnopfield School, Durham; Catchgate School, Durham; Church Broughton School, Derby; Heathfields School, Derby; Kendal and Heron Hill School, Kendal; Pelton School, Durham; Sinfin School, Derby; St. Oswald's School, Kendal.

Notes

¹The terms “viewpoint dependent” and “viewpoint independent” are intended to refer to the extent to which the representation of an object is restricted to the viewpoint(s) from which the object has been seen. It is not intended to refer to the extent to which an object might be represented from a specific viewpoint (e.g., a canonical view), which could or could not be a viewpoint from which the object has been seen.

²Use of the term “memory delay” is not intended to imply that the critical factor distinguishing short-term and longer-term remembering is the passage of time. Likely to be important is the interposition of other visual events requiring cognitive resources (e.g., attention), whether these events are external in origin (e.g., the presentation of another visual object), or internal in origin (e.g., the generation of a visual image from long-term knowledge).