One Thing Behind Another: a school based study of children's drawing abilities |
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| Authors: | Leslie Smith Jeanette Campbell |
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| Institution: | Department of Educational Research , University of Lancaster |
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| Abstract: | Abstract Young children do not typically represent in their drawings the occlusion of a farther object by a nearer one. In response to such arrays, they frequently show either a horizontal or a vertical bias, i.e. either depicting the two objects side by side or one above the other. Though there seems to be a strong bias towards depicting array‐ rather than view‐specific information, this tendency does not seem to indicate any limitation in graphic skills. This experiment attempts to assess the differences in drawing response across two conditions—one which seems to demand view specificity, i.e. a games condition, and one which apparently does not. In a communication game, the drawings were produced by one child, designated as ‘Artist’, so that the other child, assigned to the role of ‘Detective’, could identify the chair which the ‘Artist’ had sat on. It is suggested that instructional effects, together with initial decisions to communicate with peers or adults, may be implicated in the relatively greater incidence of occlusion output in the standard over the games condition, particularly in the middle age ranges. |
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