The Role of Standard Orientations in Children's Drawing of Interpersonal Relationships: Aspects of Graphic Feature Marking

Abstract

IVES, WILLIAM, and HOUSEWORTH, MARGUERITE. The Role of Standard Orientations in Children's Drawing of Interpersonal Relationships: Aspects of Graphic Feature Marking. CmILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 591-593. Aspects of children's early representational drawing ability may provide evidence for feature marking in nonlinguistic symbol systems. To test this assumption, children in kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade were asked to draw a set of referent objects in 3 conditions: a nominal condition with no implied relationship (2 people, dogs, and horses) and 2 contrastive conditions (the same referents talking to or looking at each other). It was predicted that each object would consistently be represented in a specific standard orientation (front for people and side for horses and dogs) and, at the same time, the side orientation would be used to convey the intended relationships in the contrastive condition. When the object's standard orientation is at variance with the orientation generally used to convey the intended relationship, increased difficulty in graphic communication will occur. The results fit the predicted model, with the major developmental shift in children's ability to graphically differentiate nominal and contrastive conditions occurring between kindergarten and second grade for drawings of horses and dogs and between second and fourth grades for drawings of people. The role played by the standard orientation is seen as analogous to that of the unmarked term in language acquisition.