Young Children's Perception of Diagrammatic Representations

Abstract

Diagrams and pictorial representations are common in children's lives and require abstraction away from visual perception. In three experiments, we investigated 4- to 8-year-olds’ comprehension of such representations. In Experiment 1 (N = 80), children were shown photographs of geometric objects and asked to choose the corresponding line drawing from among sets of four, or vice versa. Results showed considerable developmental progression, especially around age 6. Experiment 2 (N = 16) ruled out that 4-year-olds’ difficulties were due to problems with the visual matching task itself. Experiment 3 (N = 32) showed comparable performance for matching diagrams to 3D objects rather than to photographs. Findings suggest increasing understanding of diagrammatic representations around the time of school entry.

Keywords::

• cognitive development
• diagram
• line drawing
• pictorial depth
• spatial cognition
• three-dimensional
• two-dimensional representation

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Melissa A. Hansen and Kizzann Ashana Ramsook for their help with data collection, and Dedre Gentner and Susan Levine for their helpful suggestions.

Funding

This research was supported by research grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation # PZ00P1_131866 and from the U.S. National Science Foundation #SBE-0541957 and SBE-1041707.