THE ACQUISITIONOF SYMBOLIC SKILLS

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Mental Workload: Its Theory and MeasurementEdited by Neville Moray

Human Evoked Potentials: Applications and ProblemsEdited by Dietrich Lehmann and Enoch Callaway

Human Consequences of CrowdingEdited by Mehmet R. GUrkaynak and W. Ayhan Le Compte

The Analysis of Social SkillEdited by W. T. Singleton, P. Spurgeon, and R. B. Stammers

Coping and HealthEdited by Seymour Levine and Holger Ursin

Processing of Visible Language 2Edited by Paul A. Kolers, Merald E. Wrolstad, and Herman Bouma

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Human Detection and Diagnosis of System FailuresEdited by Jens Rasmussen and William B. Rouse

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Tutorials on Motion PerceptionEdited by Alexander H. Wertheim, Willem A.Wagenaar,and Herschel W. Leibowitz

Human Assessment and Cultural FactorsEdited by S. H. Irvine and John W. Berry

The Acquisition of Symbolic SkillsEdited by Don Rogers and John A. Sloboda

THE ACQUISITIONOF SYMBOLIC SKILLS

Edited by

Don Rogersand

John A. SlobodaUniversity of KeeleKeele, England

Published in cooperation with NATO Scientific Affairs Division

PLENUM PRESS· NEW YORK AND LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

NATO Conference on the Acquisitions of Symbolic Skills (1982: University of Keele)

The acquisition of symbolic skills.

(NATO conference series. III, Human factors; v. 22)"Published in cooperation with NATO SCientific Affairs Division.""Proceedings of a NATO Conference on the Acquisition of Symbolic Skills, held July

5-10, 1982, at the University of Keele, Keele, England"-Verso of t.p.Bibliography: p.Includes indexes.1. Learning, Psychology of-Congresses. 2. Cognition in children-Congresses. 3.

Logic, Symbolic and mathematical-Congresses. I. Rogers, Don II. Sloboda, JohnA. III. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. SCientific Affairs Division. IV. Series.BF318.A28 1982 155.4'13 83·9464

ISBN-13: 978-1-4613-3726-3 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4613-3724-9001: 10.1007/978-1-4613-3724-9

Proceedings of a NATO Conference on the Acquisition of Symbolic Skills,held July 5-10, 1982, at the University of Keele, Keele, England

© 1983 Plenum Press, New YorkSoftcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1983

A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation233 Spring Street, New York, N.Y. 10013

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmittedin any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming,recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

This book is a selection of papers from a conference whichtook place at the University of Keele in July 1982. The conferencewas an extraordinarily enjoyable one, and we would like to takethis opportunity of thanking all participants for helping to makeit so.

The conference was intended to allow scholars working ondifferent aspects of symbolic behaviour to compare findings, tolook for common ground, and to identify differences between thevarious areas. We hope that it was successful in these aims: theassiduous reader may judge for himself.

Several themes emerged during the course of the conference.Some of these were:

1. There is a distinction to be made between those symbolsystems which attempt, more or less directly, to represent a stateof affairs in the world (e.g. language, drawing, map andnavigational skill) and those in which the representationalfunction is complemented, if not overshadowed, by properties of thesymbol system itself, and the systematic inter-relations thatsymbols can have to one another (e.g. music, mathematics). Thedistinction is not absolute, for the nature of all symbolic skillsis, in part, a function of the structure of the symbolic systememployed. Nonetheless, this distinction helps us to understandsome common acquisition difficulties, such as that experienced inmathematics, where mental manipulation of symbols can go awry if achild assumes too close a correspondence between mathematicalsymbols and the world they represent.

2. The course of acquisition in the various differentsymbolic domains displays both striking commonalities andsignificant contrasts. Thus, acquisition of both reading andspelling skills proceeds through a similar sequence of stages. Onthe other hand, even closely similar systems liKe American SignLanguage and spoken English can show differences in pattern or rateof acquisition. Furthermore, different symbol systems can

v

vi INTRODUCTION

influence and bias one another: for instance a second language canbe affected by a first, drawing by existing representations of theworld, written language by spoken language, mathematics by otherforms of representation, and so on. Gardner and Wolf's keynotepaper offered a framework within which such similarities andcontrasts could be articulated.

3. Finally, the use of symbols is a skilled activity.Differences in skill, in consequence of age, of experience, or ofinterest, were a common theme of many of the papers, and theparallel between the acquisition of mental skills and motor skillswas made explicit in Neisser's opening address.

We would like to thank the other two members of the organizingcommittee - Richard Cromer and Peter Bryant- for invaluableassistance and advice. We are also grateful to the symposiumconveners - Diana Deutsch (who was finally unable to attend theconference after arranging the music symposium), Bill Ritchie, BillChase, Graham Hitch, Uta Frith, David Wood, Ellen Winner, HowardGardner, ~ichard Cromer and Peter Bryant; our secretaries JoyceMcGreevy and Carolyn Parnell; Judith Sloboda for proof reading; andNATO for providing funds and administrative advice.

Don Rogers and John A. Sloboda

University of KeeleEngland

CONTENTS

Toward a skillful psychologyu. Neisser 1

Waves and streams of symbolization: Notes on the developmentof symbolic capacities in young children

H. Gardner and D. Wolf 19

GRAPHIC SKILLS

IntroductionE. Winner and H. Gardner 43

The use of communication tasks to investigate depiction ofspatial relationships in young children's drawings

P. Light 47

Intellectual realism in adults' and children's copies ofcubes and straight lines

F. Pratt 53

The conservatism of children's drawing strategies: At whatlevel does stability persist?

P. van Sommers 65

Children's representations in drawing and speech: Content,structure and context

P. Jools 71

Young children's planning strategies and early principles ofspatial organization in drawing

C. Golomb 81

Individual drawing styles of three children from five toseven years

S. C. Somerville 89

vii

viii

Children's sensitivity to aesthetic properties of linedrawings

E. Winner, P. Blank, C. Massey and H. Gardner

READING AND SPELLING

CONTENTS

97

IntroductionU. Frith 105

Microethology of spelling behaviour in normal and dyslexicdevelopment

S. Farnham-Diggory and B. Nelson 109

Phonological impairment in Italian: Acquired anddevelopmental dyslexia

G. Sartori and R. Job 123

Interaction of symbol systems in readingP. A. Kolers 131

Bi-alphabetism and word recognitionL. B. Feldman 137

The development of strategies in the acquisition of symbolicskills

G. Marsh and P. Desberg 149

The development of phoneme segmentation skills in youngchildren

M. Snowling and D. Perin 155

Understanding the alphabetic systemT. N. Carraher and L. L. B. Rego 163

Patterns of writing errors in the framework of aninformation-processing model of writing

P. T. smith 171

The psychological productivity of inflectional andderivational morphemes

C. M. Sterling 179

CONTENTS

SYMBOLIC SKILLS IN THE DEAF

ix

Symbolic skills in the deaf: Some recent developments inresearch

D. Wood 187

Meaning in sign: Recalling events in British Sign Languageand English

J. Kyle 199

Early sign language acquisition and cognitive developmentJ. D. Bonvillian, M. D. Orlansky, L. L. Novack 207and R. J. Folven

The semantics of early deaf communication: Objectacquisitive volitionals

B. Dalgleish, S. Wilkie and J. Pittam 215

The development of symbolic play in young deaf childrens. Gregory and K. Mogford 221

Language, deafness and mathematical reasoningD. Wood, H. Wood and P. Howarth 233

MUSICAL SKILL

Is music a symbolic skill? IntroductionJ. A. Sloboda 241

The perception of musical pitch - A sense of scaleI. Cross, P. Howell and R. West 245

The initial identification of tonal centres in musicD. Butler 251

Towards a contour-pitch continuum theory of memory formelodies

J. Edworthy 263

Reproduction and representation of musical rhythms: Theeffects of musical skill

J. smith 273

A preliminary investigation of motor programming in pianoperformance as a function of skill level

C. L. MacKenzie, J. A. Nelson-Schultz and B. L. Wills 283

x

LOGICAL SKILL

CONTENTS

Logical development: IntroductionP. E. Bryant 293

What preschoolers know about animate and inanimate objectsR. Gelman, E. S. Spelke and E. Meck 297

Knowledge-derived categorization in young childrenM. T. H. Chi 327

Perception of inclusion in collections of objectsA. w. smitsman and A. D. Pick 335

Semantic and cognitive factors in class-inclusion andco-extension performance

G. Di Stefano, V. Girotto and c. Gorrini 343

On the generalizability of conservation: Context andtransformation

S. A. Miller 351

MAP AND NAVIGATIONAL SKILL

Maps and navigation: Introductionw. G. Chase

Maps and memorabilityA. I. Schulman

Children's plan drawings of their housesE. o. Imamoglu and V. Imamoglu

Mental imagery and mental mapsA. J. Cohen and J. E. Foley

Spatial representations of taxi driversw. G. Chase

357

359

369

381

391

CONTENTS

FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Symbolic skill acquisition in language:Introduction

R. F. Cromer

The role of symbolic thought in language developmentJ. McShane and S. Whittaker

xi

407

413

On the acquisition of the notion of types of flying objects:Support for prototype-based theories of word meaningdevelopment

S. A. Kuczaj, II 423

A study of children's writings in non-instructionalsettings

v. John-Steiner and N. Roth 431

Hidden meanings: The role of covert conceptual structures inchildren's development of language

M. Bowerman 445

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Second language acquisition: Introductionw. C. Ritchie 471

Universal grammar and second language acquisitionW. C. Ritchie 473

Similarities and differences between first and secondlanguage acquisition: Setting the parameters of universalgrammar

s. Flynn 485

The predictive role of the theories of markedness andlanguage transfer in second language acquisition

T. K. Bhatia 501

Cerebral organization in bilingual and deaf subjectsD. F. Sewell and L. Panou 511

xii

MATHEMATICAL SKILL

CONTENTS

The acquisition of mathematical skills:Introduction

G. J. Hitch 519

Numerical representation from infancy to middle childhood:What develops?

R. G. Cooper Jr, R. Campbell and B. Blevins 523

Young children's ideas about the written number systemA. Sinclair, F. Siegrist and H. Sinclair 535

Cognitive factors in children's arithmetic errorsJ. R. Brannin 543

Effects of reference domain in children's comprehension ofcoordinate graphs

G. J. Hitch, M. C. Beveridge, S. E. Avonsand A. T. Hickman 551

Exploring difficulties in transforming between naturallanguage and image based representations and abstract symbolsystems of mathematics

J. E. Sims-Knight and J. J. Kaput 561

ABSTRACTS: Poster displays and other papers givenat the conference 571

PARTICIPANTS 605

AUTHOR INDEX 611

SUBJECT INDEX 619