Young Children's Drawings Research Articles

The effect of instructions on view‐specificity in young children's drawing and picture selection

While young children have been characterized as drawing what they know rather than what they see, recent research has shown that they can make view‐specific drawings under some task conditions. The goals of this experiment were first, to learn if 5‐year‐old children would draw and select view‐specific pictures of a mug with its handle turned out of view when the task instructions emphasized this as the goal, and second, to compare performance on the drawing and picture selection tasks. Children participated in both tasks after hearing either a standard or clarified version of the instructions. The results showed first, that children who heard the clarified instructions were more likely to provide view‐specific responses on both tasks, and second, that children were more likely to give a view‐specific response on the picture selection task than on the drawing task.

Looking ahead: Planning for the inclusion of detail affects relative sizes of head and trunk in children's human figure drawings

We investigated whether children preplan the sizes of head and trunk in their human figure drawings. We asked children aged 4 to 7 years to draw a man, and examined the effects of asking for specific details on the relative sizes of head and trunk. Asking children to depict details of a jacket in their drawing of a man resulted in drawings with a reliably larger trunk area relative to that of the head. Although asking children to depict teeth did result in a larger head relative to the trunk, this effect was not statistically significant. However, asking children to draw a man from the back so that his face could not be seen resulted in significantly smaller heads relative to the trunk. These results indicate that children can preplan the size of head and trunk in anticipation of the amount of detail they intend to include within the outline. The results also suggest that the overestimation of the size of the head commonly found in young children's figure drawing is partly a result of the greater amount of detail usually included in the outline of the head compared to the trunk.

Symmetry in pictures by young Chinese children

Symmetry often appears in young children's drawings. Various kinds of symmetry in drawings are identified and their order of development studied. The reasons why young Chinese children frame their scribbles in symmetry and why the symmetry is mainly in the conformations and not in the colours of the picture are also discussed.

The development of size scaling in children's figure drawings

Size scaling in drawings made by children aged 3:6 years to 6:5 years, was investigated in three experiments. In Expt 1, children's drawings of a man were taller than their drawings of a dog (i.e. correct ordinal height scaling) and the order of making the drawings (and thus space remaining on the paper) had no effect on their height. In terms of the combined area of head and trunk, however, dog drawings were smaller than man drawings only when the man was drawn first. In Expt 2, even the youngest children on average produced correct ordinal height scaling in their drawings of topics which differed greatly in real size (house, man and dog), but the height of the dog was overestimated relative to the man and the height of the man was overestimated relative to the house. The relative overestimation of dog and man declined with increasing age. In Expt 3, topics which did not differ greatly in size (man and door) were generally not scaled correctly, but the scaling was more accurate when man and door were drawn close together in the picture. Thus, an effort towards visually correct size scaling could be detected even in very young children's drawings, but only on a size dimension which was salient and relevant for topic differentiation.

The Development of Drawing in Chinese and English Children

Drawings of young children have occupied the attention of psychologists and educationalists since the beginning of this century. They have been studied from the viewpoints of intellectual, social and emotional development. We have taken some of the more recent theories and findings and have applied them to an examination of drawings by children between the ages of seven and eleven from England and Hong Kong. We have examined the drawings also from a cultural point of view and this has resulted in some interesting findings of differences between Chinese and English children's efforts. Similarities however were far more apparent than differences.

Sex Differences in Scribbles of Toddlers: Graphic Activity of 18‐Month‐Old Children1

Abstract: Berefelt, G. 1987. Sex Differences in Scribbles of Toddlers: Graphic Activity of 18‐Month‐Old Children. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 31, 23‐30. As a source to further studies of sex differences in young children's drawings, 320 children, all of them 18 months old, scribbled on sheets of standard‐sized paper with a preprinted circle in the middle. Fifty drawings by boys and 50 by girls were selected randomly. A computer‐based analysis reveals: (1) that the boys developed an apparent stronger graphic activity than the girls – they covered 43% (mean value) more of the entire area with marks than the girls, and (2) that the girls concentrated and adjusted their movements to the printed circle. 1. This article was written as an excuse to show the pictures. I urge that you look more than you read. And someone who has seen them can then continue in writing.

View specificity, array specificity, and egocentrism in young children's drawings.

View specificity, array specificity, and egocentrism in young children's drawings.

The use of a colouring task to elucidate children's drawings of a solid cube

Previous accounts of young children's drawings of solid objects have relied on an inspection of finished drawings from an adult perspective. In this study, an attempt was made to determine the child's intention in making an outline drawing through the use of a subsequent colouring task, in which each colour used identified a particular segment of the object drawn (a cube). It was found that 7‐year‐olds included more hidden faces of the object in their drawings than 9‐year‐olds, but that the spatial location of faces in relation to each other was accurately preserved in the drawings of children of both ages. Although outline drawings comprising a single face produced by children in the two age groups looked identical on inspection, the younger children apparently intended such drawings to represent the whole object. Whilst none of the children produced technically perfect drawings of a cube seen in depth, their drawings nevertheless served as good communications about the nature of the object drawn.

Partial occlusion in young children's drawings

Numerous investigators have reported that attempts to represent the occlusion of a farther object by a nearer one are infrequent in young children's drawings. However, Cox (1981, Educational Psychology, 1 275–287) found that most 6 year olds used partial occlusion to represent a robber trying unsuccessfully to hide from a policeman behind a wall. The present paper reports three experiments involving 300 six-year-old children. The first experiment showed that, while Cox's findings are replicable, the preponderance of partial occlusion responses remains even when the “cops and robbers” storyline is omitted and even when the robber is replaced by a simple column of Lego bricks. The second experiment showed that either reducing the height of the column or replacing it with a second wall reduces the frequency of partial occlusions. However, the separate representation of the two elements remains infrequent. In Experiment 3, replacing the walls with blocks as well as eliciting drawings in color increased the prevalence of such “separate” drawings. Results are interpreted in terms of the constraints operating on the representation of particular objects in particular orientations and in terms of the cues which may influence the way in which the child construes the task.

Effects of Colors on Mood in the Drawings of Young Children

Recognizing associations between color and mood in adults, including cross-cultural similarities, this study sought to determine these associations in young children. 18 preschool boys and girls drew faces on 14 colored human figures, each of a different color and sex combination. Mouth drawings were rated as happy, sad, or indifferent. Chi squared analyses showed no support for an effect of color or sex. A strong bias towards a happy mood was noted, irrespective of color.

Conflict between canonicality and array‐specificity in young children's drawings

Previous research on young children's drawings has typically studied children's representation of individual objects quite separately from their representation of the spatial relationships between objects in a scene. This paper reports two experiments which explored the relationship between these two aspects of graphic representation. In particular it looks at the problem posed to children in depicting an array of familiar objects with canonical (or stereotyped) orientations which conflict with the way children typically represent within‐array spatial relationships. Four‐seven‐year‐old children were presented with two‐object arrays with one object placed behind the other and in which the orientation of each object was also varied. There were three main findings. First, children's concern to draw a familiar object in its canonical orientation tended to override their concern for depicting between‐object spatial relationships. Second, different array presentations resulted in significant differences in the number of children who drew their own view of the array. Lastly, both these findings were subject to a paradoxical U‐shaped developmental age trend.

Provoked use of height in picture as a depth cue in young children's drawings

Young children frequently draw a depth relationship as a left‐right relationship on the page. However, this is not a rigid habit, since they use height in picture if the depth relationship is stressed before they make their drawing. A group of 4–6‐year‐olds was asked to draw an array of two bricks, arranged one behind the other, and an array of three bricks containing both a depth relationship and a left‐right relationship. Most 4‐year‐olds drew the two‐item array horizontally, and there was a limited tendency to shift to vertical portrayal of depth in the three‐item array. Again, most 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds drew the two‐brick array horizontally, but a clear majority used vertical portrayal for the three‐item array. In addition, there was significant carry‐over of the vertical method from the three‐item array to a subsequent drawing of the two‐item array. It is concluded that, when faced with more complex draftsmanship problems, children spontaneously adopt height in picture as a depth cue.

Prior visual inspection and object naming: Two factors that enhance hidden feature inclusion in young children's drawings

It is widely held that young children draw what they know rather than what they see. However, evidence is growing that they can be provoked into making visually realistic drawings. In this study two factors were found to affect the form of visual realism. In Expt 1, 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds produced visually realistic drawings of a familiar object when it was neither named nor given to the child to inspect before drawing. On the other hand, prior inspection led to significant hidden feature inclusion at 5 and 6 years, and this applied whether the object drawn was familiar or novel. Seven‐year‐olds' drawings were visually realistic in all presentation conditions. In Expt 2, 6‐year‐olds were shown to include the hidden feature if the object was named before drawing. Two conclusions are drawn. It is possible that children draw what they have seen over time rather than what they see at a particular time. Secondly, object naming may lead to drawing from a canonical model tagged by the object's name.

Noncanonical orientation without occlusion: Children's drawings of transparent objects

The use of a transparent model in a drawing task allows all the features of the model to remain visible whatever its orientation. N. H. Freeman (1980, Strategies of Representation in Young Children, New York/London, Academic Press) found that when drawing a transparent glass with its handle turned away, children made more canonical errors (drawing the handle at the side) than when drawing a similarly orientated opaque cup. According to Freeman being able to see the handle in a noncanonical orientation “triggers” a canonical representation of the object ( N. H. Freeman 1980, p. 252). Two experiments are reported which investigated children's drawings of transparent objects. The drawings obtained from children between 4 and 7 years old produced two major findings. First, the tendency toward canonicality when drawing a glass with its handle turned away was significantly reduced when two glasses in differeing orientations were presented side by side. Second, the number of canonical errors was lower when the glass was filled with milk (thus hiding the handle). This latter finding confirms that of N. H. Freeman (1980). However, the first suggests that children use situationally appropriate information when drawing transparent objects in a way similar to that noted by A. M. Davis (1983, Contextual Sensitivity in Young Children's Drawings, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 35, 478–486) using opaque objects.

Contextual sensitivity in young children's drawings

Previous research has examined the characteristic errors made by young children when drawing from a three-dimensional array. The aim of the present research was to investigate the influence of context in copying tasks. In a series of three experiments children between the ages of 4 and 7 years were presented with contrasting models to copy. These included cups and sugar bowls in various combinations and orientations. In each experiment the children's copies were scored for inclusion or omission of the occluded handle on the model. The results showed that nearly one third of the children did not respond consistently by either copying accurately or by always including the occluded handle. Instead the findings pointed to a large group of children whose responses were directed by the type of context present within the arrays.

The effects of a communication task upon the representation of depth relationships in young children's drawings

Attempts to represent the occlusion of a farther object by a nearer one are infrequent in young children's drawings. Instead they typically draw the objects side by side or one above the other. This does not appear to reflect a limitation of skill, but rather a concern with the array of objects per se as opposed to the child's own particular view. Two experiments are reported which attempt to assess children's ability to produce view-specific drawings by creating a context that clearly demands such drawings. In a “communication game”, drawings were produced by one child so that another could identify the chair he had been sitting on. In a first experiment, compared to a control condition this game produced significantly more view-specific drawings from 7- and 8-year-olds, but not from 5- and 6-year-olds. A second experiment with 5- and 6-year-olds was also ineffective in promoting view-specific drawings at this age.

Internal spatial relationships in young children's drawings

Attempts to represent the occlusion of a farther object by a nearer one are infrequent in the drawings of 5- and 6-year-olds. Instead they typically draw the objects side by side or one above the other. This does not appear to reflect a limitation of skill ( P. Light & E. MacIntosh, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1980 , 30, 79–87) and it is hypothesized that it reflects the children's concern with the array of objects per se, as opposed to their own particular view of it. In the present study relatively complex objects were used in order to test the hypothesis that young children's drawings do in fact systematically reflect spatial relationships within the array. Ninety-seven children between 5 and 8 years of age drew two arrays, each being drawn four times in different orientations vis à vis the child. As predicted, the younger children's drawings contained much array-specific information but often no indication an all of the child's viewing position. In contrast, the older children's drawings were predominantly view specific, often containing little information about the arrays.

Depth relationships in young children's drawings

It has been found in previous studies that attempts to represent the occlusion of a further object by a nearer one are infrequent in the drawings of young children ( N. Ingram, The encoding of depth relations in children's drawing. Unpublished paper, Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, 1975 ; N. Freeman, D. Eiser, & J. Sayers, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 23, 305–314, 1977 ; M. Cox, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 26, 551–554, 1978 ). Possible explanations for this are considered. In the first part of the present study 64 children of mean age 6 years 10 months were asked to draw two opaque objects placed one behind the other. Previous findings were confirmed in that over two-thirds of the children drew the two objects separately in a horizontal or, more commonly, a vertical relationship. In the second part of the study the children were asked to draw an opaque object which they saw placed inside and/or behind a transparent glass beaker. All Inside Glass drawings showed the object within the confines of the glass, but half of the Behind Glass drawings showed the object to the side of, or above, the glass. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of an orientation to the visual world rather than the visual field.

How a picture means

An artist's ideas about his drawing material, as well as about his subject, influence the forms in his picture. Each set of ideas modifies the other in an interactive process that determines the eventual configurations in his drawing. The interdependence of material and subject is particularly evident in the drawings of young children as the capacity for representation first emerges.

Spatial depth relationships in young children's drawings

Previous research suggests that young children do not attempt to represent depth relationships between objects in their drawings. The present study, however, showed that when both objects are visible and the children's attention is drawn to the depth relationship between them, most 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds do attempt to portray this relationship.