A cross-cultural study of children's graphic representations of men- and women-dominated occupations.

Occupational gender stereotypes develop from early age and contribute to occupational gender imbalance. Previous research used questionnaires or interviews to investigate children's explicit stereotypes and where drawings have been used, mostly men-dominated occupations have been considered. This study used drawings and interviews to assess implicit stereotypes of both men and women-dominated occupations and whether children's sex, age and cultural background predicted these stereotypes. Two hundred and forty-three 6-to-7-year-olds and 10-to-11-year-olds in Britain and Argentina-encompassing both Global South and Global North perspectives- drew five human figures: (i) person of their choice, (ii) dancer, (iii) nanny (iv) firefighter and (v) pilot. In interviews, children confirmed and justified their gender choices for each drawing. Results indicate gender stereotypes in children from both countries, especially towards women-dominated occupations. Girls exhibited more rigid gender views than boys. These findings suggest widespread and culturally consistent occupational gender stereotypes, potentially limiting children's future job choices.

Beyond literal depiction: Children's flexible understanding of pictures.

Pictures can represent more than one entity, and they can also represent literal or nonliteral concepts associated with a referent. In two studies, we examined whether 4-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and adults can view pictures as both literal and nonliteral when they are presented with different contextual cues, which would indicate representational flexibility. In Study 1, children and adults were asked to name iconic pictures after hearing a story explaining how a fictional character had created or used a picture in, for instance, a literal context (e.g., a girl used a picture of a crown to represent what she wanted for Christmas) and a second story on how the same artist produced or used an identical picture in a nonliteral context (e.g., the same girl used the picture of a crown to represent what she wanted to be when she grew up). After each story, the picture was shown and participants were asked "What does this mean?" The 6-year-olds and adults, but not the 4-year-olds, showed representational flexibility in their interpretations of pictures across contexts. Study 2 provided evidence of flexible pictorial interpretations, even for the younger age group, when children were presented with a game in which they were asked to select a suitable picture to represent a nonliteral referent. Taken together, our results suggest that the conditions under which representational flexibility is elicited influence the developmental progression observed.

When Color Takes Shape: Young Children Use Object Information from Their Own Drawings to Solve a Task.

In two studies, we examined whether and how 3- and 3½-year-old children were able to use object information from their own drawings to solve a task. The children had to produce drawings of simple objects and then use the shape and/or color of their pictures to identify replicas of the referents depicted. The results showed a relationship between graphic production and use. In Study 1, when shape was the single distinctive cue across objects, only the older group was able to produce and use drawings effectively. In Study 2, 3-year-olds used their drawings effectively when not only shape, but also color, were available as cues to identify the objects portrayed. Although most 3-year-olds' drawings did not reflect the shape of the referents, by incorporating color young children demonstrated to recognize the intention behind their own representations and used them to solve the task. Our findings are discussed in line with intentionality and Theory of Mind.

Geometric maps as tools for different purposes in early childhood.

This study examined whether and how young children make spontaneous use of geometric maps for two different purposes: to determine and to represent the locations of objects. A total of 64 2.5-, 3-, 3.5-, and 4-year-old children solved a task with two phases in counterbalanced order; they needed to use a map to locate a toy hidden in a referent space (retrieval) and to indicate on the symbol with a sticker the location of the hidden toy (map making). Results show that there is a clear developmental progression, with 2.5-year-olds failing both phases, 3- and 3.5-year-olds succeeding only in the map making phase, and 4-year-olds succeeding in both the map making and retrieval phases. The differences between making use of maps to represent locations and locating objects in space allow for a closer comprehension of map reading as a progressive sequenced process and the factors at play as children develop symbolic understanding.

Developmental Changes in Early Comprehension and Production of Drawings: Evidence From Two Socioeconomic Backgrounds.

Two studies examined young children's comprehension and production of representational drawings across and within 2 socioeconomic strata (SES). Participants were 130 middle-SES (MSES) and low-SES (LSES) Argentine children, from 30 to 60 months old, given a task with 2 phases, production and comprehension. The production phase assessed free drawing and drawings from simple 3-dimensional objects (model drawing); the comprehension phase assessed children's understanding of an adult's line drawings of the objects. MSES children solved the comprehension phase of the task within the studied age range; representational production emerged first in model drawing (42 months) and later in free drawing (48 months). The same developmental pathway was observed in LSES children but with a clear asynchrony in the age of onset of comprehension and production: Children understood the symbolic nature of drawings at 42 months old and the first representational drawings were found at 60 months old. These results provide empirical evidence that support the crucial influence of social experiences by organizing and constraining graphic development.

Del objeto al símbolo: Aspectos cognitivos y sociales del conocimiento infantil sobre las imágenes / From object to symbol: Cognitive and social aspects of childrens knowledge of pictures

Desde temprano en sus vidas, los niños están expuestos a una variedad de representaciones figurativas en fotografías, libros, en la televisión y el video. Este artículo postula que a pesar de la similitud perceptual entre estas imágenes y sus referentes, su comprensión es un proceso complejo en el que participan mecanismos perceptuales, cognitivos y sociocognitivos. La primera parte del artículo revisa investigaciones que han identificado los principales hitos evolutivos en la comprensión de las representaciones figurativas y los mecanismos perceptuales y cognitivos que subyacen a este proceso. Este análisis permite proponer tres fases en este desarrollo (pre-simbólica, simbólica y post-simbólica) desde el nacimiento hasta el comienzo de los años escolares. La segunda parte examina la influencia en la comprensión de factores relacionados con el contexto social, específicamente la experiencia simbólica y la intención del creador y/o el usuario de una imagen. De esta manera, las habilidades para la cognición social y el aprendizaje cultural son también cruciales en el conocimiento y uso de representaciones figurativas.(AU)

From early in infancy, children are exposed to a wide variety of figurative representations; they read picture books and magazines with their parents and look at family photos and images on television and video. Figurative representations are a particular type of external representations. An external representation is "something that someone intends to stand for or represent something other than itself" (DeLoache, 1995, p. 109). Figurative representations are two-dimensional representations highly similar to their referents; however, this article develops the idea that even though this perceptual similarity, figurative representations are not transparent objects for very young children. Understanding the dual nature of pictures, that they are things in themselves and communicate meaning by referring to some other reality, is a lengthy and complex developmental process influenced and determined by perceptual, cognitive and social-cognitive mechanisms. The first part of the article reviews studies that have identified the major milestones in pictorial comprehension and discusses the perceptual (discrimination, categorization) and cognitive mechanisms (concept formation, analogical reasoning, representational strategies) underlying this process.This analysis allows us to propose three phases of development from birth to the beginning of the school period: (1) apre-symbolic phase, between 0 and 18 months of age, when infants mainly take a manipulative stance toward pictures; (2) a symbolic phase, between two and three years, when children comprehend and use the symbolic link between pictures and referents; and (3) a post-symbolic phase, after four years, when children understand that the contents of pictures remain stable despite any change made to the real objects they depict. The second part of the article examines the influence of social factors on pictorial comprehension, specifically symbolic experience and the intention of the creator and/or user of a picture. The supporting role of social factors in symbolic development has long been demonstrated in the domain of language (see Baldwin, 2000; Tomasello, 1999, 2003); in contrast, very little is known about the impact of social cognitive mechanisms (cultural learning, intentionality) in childrens knowledge of pictures. DeLoache (1995, 2002) proposed that with age children gain experience with symbols and develop a general expectation or readiness to look for and detect symbolic relations among entities. However, this paper presents evidence that symbolic experience has a crucial social dimension; supportive contexts that highlight the relation between pictorial symbols and their referents in close social interactions facilitate childrens comprehension of images (Callaghan & Rankin, 2002; Szechter & Liben, 2004). Cross-cultural and social differences in the age of onset of symbolic comprehension also support this hypothesis (Callaghan et al., 2011; Salsa, in press). Intention is both necessary and sufficient to establish a symbolic relation (Werner & Kaplan, 1963); understanding intentionality is especially important for interpreting symbols because their meaning is assigned by the symbol creator or user. There is abundant evidence that young infants (12 months) are sensitive to basic aspects of the intentions of adults who act on objects in the world, and that older infants (18-24 months) begin to discern the more subtle communicative intentions of adults found in the flow of actions found in social exchanges using language symbols (Tomasello, 2003). A few studies have explored whether children are sensitive to another persons intention to represent when they name drawings or use photographs in a search task (Bloom & Markson, 1998; Gelman & Ebeling, 1998; Preissler & Bloom, 2008; Salsa & Peralta, 2007). Nevertheless, these studies show that childrens ability to read intentions is another privileged route towards symbolic understanding.(AU)

Del objeto al símbolo: Aspectos cognitivos y sociales del conocimiento infantil sobre las imágenes / From object to symbol: Cognitive and social aspects of children's knowledge of pictures

Desde temprano en sus vidas, los niños están expuestos a una variedad de representaciones figurativas en fotografías, libros, en la televisión y el video. Este artículo postula que a pesar de la similitud perceptual entre estas imágenes y sus referentes, su comprensión es un proceso complejo en el que participan mecanismos perceptuales, cognitivos y sociocognitivos. La primera parte del artículo revisa investigaciones que han identificado los principales hitos evolutivos en la comprensión de las representaciones figurativas y los mecanismos perceptuales y cognitivos que subyacen a este proceso. Este análisis permite proponer tres fases en este desarrollo (pre-simbólica, simbólica y post-simbólica) desde el nacimiento hasta el comienzo de los años escolares. La segunda parte examina la influencia en la comprensión de factores relacionados con el contexto social, específicamente la experiencia simbólica y la intención del creador y/o el usuario de una imagen. De esta manera, las habilidades para la cognición social y el aprendizaje cultural son también cruciales en el conocimiento y uso de representaciones figurativas.

From early in infancy, children are exposed to a wide variety of figurative representations; they read picture books and magazines with their parents and look at family photos and images on television and video. Figurative representations are a particular type of external representations. An external representation is "something that someone intends to stand for or represent something other than itself" (DeLoache, 1995, p. 109). Figurative representations are two-dimensional representations highly similar to their referents; however, this article develops the idea that even though this perceptual similarity, figurative representations are not transparent objects for very young children. Understanding the dual nature of pictures, that they are things in themselves and communicate meaning by referring to some other reality, is a lengthy and complex developmental process influenced and determined by perceptual, cognitive and social-cognitive mechanisms. The first part of the article reviews studies that have identified the major milestones in pictorial comprehension and discusses the perceptual (discrimination, categorization) and cognitive mechanisms (concept formation, analogical reasoning, representational strategies) underlying this process.This analysis allows us to propose three phases of development from birth to the beginning of the school period: (1) apre-symbolic phase, between 0 and 18 months of age, when infants mainly take a manipulative stance toward pictures; (2) a symbolic phase, between two and three years, when children comprehend and use the symbolic link between pictures and referents; and (3) a post-symbolic phase, after four years, when children understand that the contents of pictures remain stable despite any change made to the real objects they depict. The second part of the article examines the influence of social factors on pictorial comprehension, specifically symbolic experience and the intention of the creator and/or user of a picture. The supporting role of social factors in symbolic development has long been demonstrated in the domain of language (see Baldwin, 2000; Tomasello, 1999, 2003); in contrast, very little is known about the impact of social cognitive mechanisms (cultural learning, intentionality) in children's knowledge of pictures. DeLoache (1995, 2002) proposed that with age children gain experience with symbols and develop a general expectation or readiness to look for and detect symbolic relations among entities. However, this paper presents evidence that symbolic experience has a crucial social dimension; supportive contexts that highlight the relation between pictorial symbols and their referents in close social interactions facilitate children's comprehension of images (Callaghan & Rankin, 2002; Szechter & Liben, 2004). Cross-cultural and social differences in the age of onset of symbolic comprehension also support this hypothesis (Callaghan et al., 2011; Salsa, in press). Intention is both necessary and sufficient to establish a symbolic relation (Werner & Kaplan, 1963); understanding intentionality is especially important for interpreting symbols because their meaning is assigned by the symbol creator or user. There is abundant evidence that young infants (12 months) are sensitive to basic aspects of the intentions of adults who act on objects in the world, and that older infants (18-24 months) begin to discern the more subtle communicative intentions of adults found in the flow of actions found in social exchanges using language symbols (Tomasello, 2003). A few studies have explored whether children are sensitive to another person's intention to represent when they name drawings or use photographs in a search task (Bloom & Markson, 1998; Gelman & Ebeling, 1998; Preissler & Bloom, 2008; Salsa & Peralta, 2007). Nevertheless, these studies show that children's ability to read intentions is another privileged route towards symbolic understanding.