Abstract
Many books for young children present animals in fantastical and unrealistic ways, such as wearing clothes, talking and engaging in human-like activities. This research examined whether anthropomorphism in children's books affects children's learning and conceptions of animals, by specifically assessing the impact of depictions (a bird wearing clothes and reading a book) and language (bird described as talking and as having human intentions). In Study 1, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children saw picture books featuring realistic drawings of a novel animal. Half of the children also heard factual, realistic language, while the other half heard anthropomorphized language. In Study 2, we replicated the first study using anthropomorphic illustrations of real animals. The results show that the language used to describe animals in books has an effect on children's tendency to attribute human-like traits to animals, and that anthropomorphic storybooks affect younger children's learning of novel facts about animals. These results indicate that anthropomorphized animals in books may not only lead to less learning but also influence children's conceptual knowledge of animals.
Highlights
For most young children, picture-book interaction is an important part of daily life
Manipulative books are books that contain elements that a child could physically interact with, such as flaps to lift, textures to feel, tabs to pull, and so on. These elements are thought to make books engaging to young children, yet the research so far suggests that manipulative books may not be advantageous for learning
We asked whether the type of language used in the book affected children’s learning of novel facts about the target animals
Summary
Picture-book interaction is an important part of daily life. A growing body of research examines children’s learning and transfer of information encountered in picture books to the real world (Simcock and DeLoache, 2006, 2008; Simcock and Dooley, 2007; Ganea et al, 2008, 2009, 2011; Tare et al, 2010; Simcock et al, 2011; Walker et al, 2012b; Khu et al, 2014; Keates et al, in press). Manipulative books are books that contain elements that a child could physically interact with, such as flaps to lift, textures to feel, tabs to pull, and so on. These elements are thought to make books engaging to young children, yet the research so far suggests that manipulative books may not be advantageous for learning. Studies that compared children’s learning of content from simple, traditional books vs. manipulative books have found negative effects of manipulative elements on children’s learning (Tare et al, 2010; Chiong and DeLoache, 2012)
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