allen mattock silva (2014) symbolic understanding

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 4|doi 0.63/5685373-340

Journal of Cognition and Culture 4 (4) 8798

brill.com/jocc

Symbolic Understanding of Pictures and Written Words Share a Common Source

Melissa L. Allen*, Karen Mattock and Macarena SilvaLancaster University, Department of Psychology, Fylde College, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK

*Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Here we examine the hypothesis that symbolic understanding across domains is medi-ated by a fundamental symbolizing ability in young children. We tested 30 children aged 24 years on symbolic tasks assessing iconic and non-iconic word-referent and picture-referent understanding and administered standardised tests of symbolic play and receptive language. Children showed understanding of the symbol-referent rela-tion earlier for pictures than written words, and performance within domains was cor-related and, importantly, predicted by a marker of general symbolic ability (e.g., pretend play). Performance on picture and written word tasks was also unrelated to language comprehension. Thus, symbolic abilities in specific domains are underpinned by a gen-eral symbolizing ability which arises early in development.

Keywords

Symbolic understanding pictures language reference

Introduction

Humans can use symbols such as pictures and words to stand for real world objects (Bloom, 2000; DeLoache, 2002), which allows for cultural transmission of knowledge, permits reference to absent objects, and underpins the rela-tively rapid growth of communication (Vygotsky, 1962; Deacon, 1997; Tomasello, 1999). One central question is whether symbolic skills develop together as the

188 allen, mattock and silva


result of a single underlying mechanism, or whether they represent separate, unrelated, modules.

According to the common source hypothesis, children are initially open to many different media as symbols (e.g., words, gestures, pictures, objects and maps; DeLoache, 2004) and different symbolic skills (including words and pic-tures) stem from a unitary symbolic ability (Namy and Waxman, 1998; Campbell and Namy, 2003). There is evidence to support this notion, as symbolic play has been linked to the comprehension and production of graphic pictures in object choice games (Callaghan and Rankin, 2002). However, the question of whether symbolic domains are linked remains largely unexplored (see DeLoache, 2004).

The competing hypothesis is that symbolic abilities are modular, and devel-opment of skills in one domain is unrelated to skill acquisition in another domain (Hirschfeld and Gelman, 1994). Specifically, mastery of symbolic abil-ity might not be uniform across domains. For example children achieve com-petence with pictures (DeLoache, 2004; Preissler and Carey, 2004), words (Baldwin, 1991) and gestures (Carpenter et al., 1998; Goodwyn et al., 2000) at different ages. If these domains are truly independent, then we should find no relation between an overall measure of symbolic ability and performance in, say picture and word domains, regardless of when children develop compe-tence in each domain.

We used the moving word (Bialystok, 1991) and moving picture (Apperly et al., 2004) tasks to investigate how young children understand the stability of the symbol-referent link in picture and word domains. For the moving word task, young children typically state that a written word such as bear says bear when placed in front of a toy bear, but that it says train when placed instead in front of a toy train. The moving picture task instead uses iconic and non-iconic pictures. Apperly et al. (2004) suggest that preschoolers greater experi-ence with drawing pictures may lead them to expect that pictures have referential content an expectation that may not have developed yet for writ-ten words. They found that 3- and 4-year-olds often changed their judgment about what a written word said but did not make such errors with pictures. Thus, we expect a developmental difference in the achievement of success on written word and picture tasks in that pictures should be understood earlier in development. This is predicted based upon work showing successful under-standing of the symbolic nature of pictures by the second year of life (DeLoache, 2004; Preissler and Carey, 2004; Ganea et al, 2009), but later understanding of written words (Bialystok, 1991; Apperly et al., 2004).

Importantly, we will investigate whether a general symbolic ability (mea-sured by the Test of Pretend Play; ToPP) underpins performance on four mov-ing iconic and non-iconic picture and word tasks. Many theorists emphasize

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the importance of pretend play as an indicator of a childs overall symbolic functioning (Piaget, 1962; Werner and Kaplan, 1963; Bruner et al., 1966) includ-ing Piaget (1962) who described pretend play as central to semiotic function the general ability to symbolize. Similarly, Hill and McCune-Nicolich (1981) propose that emergence of pretend play is a land-mark which signals the semiotic function, and capacity for other symbolic skills.

Thus, we view the ToPP as an appropriate measure of generalized symbolic functioning. If the ToPP is related to both the moving word and moving picture tasks, particularly if these tasks themselves differ in terms of developmental trajectory, this would support the common source hypothesis. Alternatively, the ToPP may not relate to these individual tasks, which would suggest a mod-ular representation of symbolic abilities. We also measure language compre-hension to examine any relation with symbolic understanding. Thus, this study will provide evidence for either a common source or modular system of early symbolic understanding.

Method

ParticipantsThirty typically developing children participated (15 males, 15 females). A wide age range (24 years; mean 43.9 months, range 2556 months) was selected to provide enough variance in performance levels on the tasks to capture rela-tions between variables.

MaterialsStimuli were 20 toys (10 pairs, 8 for experimental trials, 2 for warm-up trials) familiar to children, and two puppets (see Fig. 1). For one object in each pair, a corresponding word/picture was created and depicted on individual 10 16 cm laminated cards. Unrecognizable words were computer symbols (e.g., @, %), matched for number of letters, and unrecognizable pictures contained an equal number of lines as the recognizable pictures, just scrambled.

ProcedureChildren were tested individually in two sessions, at nurseries in Lancaster or at the Centre for Human Development and Learning. All participants received four conditions (two per session), with two trials each: Moving word, unrec-ognizable word, picture, and unrecognizable picture. Conditions were coun-terbalanced for order of presentation, using one of two puppets per session. One warm-up trial was conducted before each session (N = 2).



FIGURE 1 Schematic of (a, c) Experimental and (b, d) Control tasks. Note the same stimuli are used for demonstration purposes (e.g., cup and girl); participants received different stimuli sets for each condition (dog/boy, cup/girl, ball/boat, house/train, apple/pencil, bear/phone, cow/car, cat/book, horse/banana, and fork/chair). Inset: The puppets that created a disturbance. This figure is published in colour in the online edition of this journal, which can be accessed via http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/15685373.



Children were introduced to a puppet and told, I brought a friend with me today! He/she is my friend Sneezy/Crissy. Say hello to him/her. You know what? My friend has a terrible cold/really likes to sing. After playing briefly with the puppet the child was told: Now I am going to show you some toys.

Moving Word and Unrecognizable WordChildren were shown two objects per trial and asked to name them. Then, they were shown a card and told, This card has the word X on it, and it was placed in front of the object it named. In the word condition, the actual word was depicted on the card, whereas the unrecognizable condition provided a more stringent test of abstract symbolic understanding (and a check of reading ability).

Children were asked what was written on the card (if incorrect, which was rare, the child was corrected). Then a disturbance occurred (Sneezy sneezed or Crissy sang) and the puppet accidentally moved the card in front of the sec-ond object. The experimenter then asked, Can you tell me what is written on this card? The experimenter explained that the puppet made a big mess, and the symbol card was moved to its original place. Children were again asked what was written on the card.

If the children correctly stated that the target symbol: (1) referred to the initial object after it switched location (incongruent); and (2) represented the original referent when it was again placed in front of it after the disturbance (congruent) their response was given 2 points; the maximum score was 4 points per condition (2 trials each). Partial credit was allowed; for instance if a child was correct on only the congruent or incongruent part of a trial this would count as 1 point. We also report the incongruent trials separately (see Apperly et al., 2004), as these are the critical trials in which there is a mismatch between the symbol and location of the referent; here children can receive a maximum of 2 points per condition.

All children were confirmed as non-readers using the Getting Ready to Read (GRTR) screener (Whitehurst and Lonigan, 2003) to prevent success by reading in the moving word task. This task asks children to decode letters, and thus confirms that they cannot succeed in the moving word task by simply reading the cards.

Moving Picture and Unrecognizable PictureAs above, using pictures instead and children were asked what was drawn on the card.



Standardized Tests Test of Pretend Play (ToPP)The ToPP (Lewis and Boucher, 1997) is a standardised measure of symbolic play for young children, assessing object substitution, property attribution, ref-erence to absent objects, and ability to combine pretend acts into scripts. It has been used to successfully investigate symbolic functioning (Lewis et al., 2000) and will be used as the general measure of symbolic ability because symbolic play is argued to be a marker of semiotic function (generalized symbolic abil-ity) in young children (see Piaget, 1962; Hill and McCune-Nicolich, 1981).

British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS-II)The BPVS-II (Dunn et al., 1997) measures receptive vocabulary and is selected as it is one of the few measures standardized for British children. Children match lexical items to the correct picture from an array of four by pointing.

Results

Performance on moving tasks was compared by 2 2 Repeated Measures ANCOVA (word/picture and recognizable/unrecognizable form) to control for chronological age. The dependent variable was performance total, that is, per-formance on congruent + incongruent trials, out of 4. Correlation and regres-sion analyses were performed to determine links with standardized age equivalents scores of the BPVS and ToPP, and chronological age. Mean scores for the BPVS (41.7 months, range 2872), and ToPP (44.7 months, range 2559) provided variability to conduct correlation and regression analyses.

Overall, participants were more successful with moving picture forms than moving word forms (main effect of Symbol Type: F(1, 28) = 7.03, p0.05). We also looked at how many children successfully passed each task, using a criterion of 3/4 correct per condition (see Fig. 3). Only the moving word (c2(1, N = 30) = 8.89, p



There was no main effect of recognizable vs. unrecognizable stimuli, nor an interaction between recognizability and symbol type (both p>0.05).

Although ANCOVA revealed a difference between pictures and words, par-tial correlations controlling for chronological age show performance in these domains was highly related, r = 0.703, p



the ToPP, r = 0.592, r = 0.513, r = 0.653 and r = 0.602, respectively, even when controlling for age (see Table 1 for all correlations). BPVS scores were unrelated to the ToPP, and unrelated to all moving picture and word tasks. These signifi-cance levels remain unchanged when correlations are performed using only the incongruent test trial responses, with two exceptions: the moving word task no longer correlates with the moving unrecognizable word task (r = 0.315, p>0.05) and the moving unrecognizable word task is now significantly corre-lated with the BPVS (r = 0.376, p



TABLE 1 Partial correlations (controlling for Age) between General Symbolic Functioning, Language Abilities, Moving Picture and Moving Word Tasks

BPVS GRTR Mword MUword Mpic MUpic ToPP

BPVS 0.551** 0.058 0.251 0.132 0.144 0.343GRTR 0.551** 0.239 0.450* 0.395* 0.300 0.406*Mword 0.058 0.239 0.589** 0.703** 0.412* 0.592**MUword 0.251 0.450* 0.589** 0.571** 0.757** 0.653**Mpic 0.132 0.395* 0.703** 0.571** 0.562** 0.513**MUpic 0.144 0.300 0.412* 0.757** 0.562** 0.602**ToPP 0.343 0.406* 0.592** 0.653** 0.513** 0.602**

* Significant at p



only provides a measure of comprehension. McCune (1995) found a specific link between play and language in younger children aged 824 months. Thus, another possibility is that after 24 months a conceptual change takes place: a generalized ability underlies symbolic understanding in picture and word domains in addition to other representational skills such as pretend play, but is unrelated to more complex language acquisition. Further work using a more expansive language measure is needed to examine these possibilities.

Alternatively, executive function may explain the correlation between mov-ing symbol tasks and pretend play. Executive function has been linked to sym-bolic abilities in pre-schoolers (OSullivan et al., 2001; Carlson et al., 2005). It is possible that executive control, instead of, or in addition to, general symbolic ability, underlies performance in the moving tasks in the current study. This is an interesting question for future research.

Our results indicate that competence in picture and word domains matures at different time-points within development, yet performance in these domains is correlated and mediated by a unitary underlying process. This chal-lenges modular accounts (Hirschfeld and Gelman, 1994). Our findings support a common source hypothesis of symbolic development, while recognizing that experience may also help children master symbolic skills within different domains (Namy and Waxman, 1998).

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allen mattock silva (2014) symbolic understanding

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