Iconic Realism or Representational Disregard? How Young Children and Adults Reason about Pictures and Objects

Autor/inn/en	Marchak, Kristan A.; Bayly, Bryana; Umscheid, Valerie; Gelman, Susan A.
Titel	Iconic Realism or Representational Disregard? How Young Children and Adults Reason about Pictures and Objects
Quelle	In: Journal of Cognition and Development, 21 (2020) 5, S.774-796 (23 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Marchak, Kristan A.) ORCID (Gelman, Susan A.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1524-8372
DOI	10.1080/15248372.2020.1802276
Schlagwörter	Young Children; Adults; Age Differences; Logical Thinking; Realism; Visual Aids; Toys; Cognitive Development + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Frühe Kindheit; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; Realismus; Anschauungsmaterial; Toy; Spielzeug; Kognitive Entwicklung
Abstract	When reasoning about a representation (e.g., a toy lion), children often engage in "iconic realism," whereby representations are reported to have properties of their real-life referents. The present studies examined an inverse difficulty that we dub "representational disregard": overlooking (i.e., disregarding) a representation's objective, non-symbolic features. In three experiments (N=302), children (3-6 years) and adults saw a series of representations (pictures and toys) and were tested on how often they endorsed a property that was true of the real-world referent (e.g., reporting that a toy lion is dangerous; iconic realism) or rejected a property that was true of the representation (e.g., denying that a toy elephant can be lifted with one hand; representational disregard). We found that representational disregard and realism were separable tendencies. Children (and to a lesser extent, adults) displayed both, but at different rates for pictures than for toys. We conclude that children's reasoning about representations includes a bias to overlook the features of the representation itself. Further, although pictures and toys are both representations, they provoke ontologically distinct interpretations. We discuss the implications of these results for a variety of important conceptual tasks, including learning to read, draw, or objectively evaluate scientific evidence. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01