The mind behind the drawing: Cues to artist's intention facilitate 24-month-olds' representational insight

VIVALDI, ROMINA A.; SALSA, ANALÍA M.

Memphis

Congreso; VIII Biennial Meeting Cognitive Development Society; 2013

Cognitive Development Society (CDS)

A privileged route towards the understanding of pictorial symbols is to infer the intentions of their creators. This research examined whether 24-month-olds would be able to grasp the symbolic nature of drawings if they were provided with explicit cues to artist?s referential intention. Using a drawing-referent matching task, Study 1 tested the effect of the combination of non-linguistic and linguistic cues to intention: creator's eye gaze and verbal scripts about her drawing actions. The data provide clear evidence that 24-month-olds relate drawings to referents only when the adult highlights his/her referential intention. Study 2 was designed to determine the differential impact of nonlinguistic and linguistic cues as components of artist's intention. Results show that linguistic cues were critical for 24-month-olds' achievement of representational insight. These results are discussed in terms of the relations between drawing, referent, artist and observer on pictorial symbol comprehension.