Symbols Use Mode paper

Early Understanding And Use Of Symbols The Model Paper

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Early Understanding And Use Of Symbols The Model Paper

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Early Understanding and Use of Symbols: The Model Model Judy S. DeLoache

The hallmark of human cognition is symbolization: There is nothing that so clearly distinguishes us from other creatures as our creative and flexible use of symbols. Cultural cre- ations such as writing systems, num- ber systems, maps, and models—to name a few—have enabled human knowledge and reasoning to tran- scend time and space.

My working definition of an ex- ternal, artifactua! symbol is that it is any entity that someone intends to stand for something other than itself. Note that this definition is agnostic about the nature of symbols; virtu- ally anything can be a symbol, so long as some person intends that it be responded to not as itself, but in terms of what it represents. Adults are so experienced and skilled with symbols and symbolic reasoning

Judy S. DeLoache is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Il- linois at Urbana-Champaign. Ad- dress correspondence to Judy DeLoache, Department of Psy- chology, University of Illinois, 603 East D a n i e l , C h a m p a i g n , IL 61820.

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that they simply assume that many of the novel entities they encounter will have symbolic import. They ap- preciate that such entities should be responded to as representations of something other than themselves— and readily do so. My research re- veals that children only gradually adopt this assumption. Despite the centrality of symbolization in human cognition and communication, young children are very conserva- tive when it comes to detecting and reasoning about symbol—referent re- lations.

SYMBOLrC DEVELOPMENT

Becoming a proficient symbolizer is a universal developmental task; full participation in any culture re- quires mastery of a variety of cultur- ally relevant symbols and symbol systems, in addition to language and symbolic gestures. Children make substantial progress In this task in the first years of life. In Western societ- ies, older i nfants and todd lers start to learn about pictures and pictorial conventions. Most preschool chil-

dren are taught the alphabet and numbers, many begin to read, and some even start to do simple arith- metic. Many young children also en- counter a variety of less common symbols, such as maps, models, mu- sical notation, and computer icons.

Symbolic development plays a prominent role in many theories of child development, and there is a substantial body of empirical work focusing on the development of par- ticular symbol systems, especially drawing, reading, and mathematical competence.^ My research ad- dresses the general issue of how very young children first gain insight into novel symbol-referent relations and how they begin to use symbols as a source of information and a basis for reasoning.

In our research, my colleagues and I present young children with a particular symbolic representation— most often a scale model, picture, or map—that provides information needed to solve a problem. Use of the symbol requires (a) some aware- ness of the relation between symbol and referent, (b) mapping the corre- sponding elements from one to the other, and {c) drawing an Inference about one based on knowledge of the other. The majority of our re- search has involved scale models. Because young children rarely, if ever, encounter real models in which the symbol maps onto a spe- cific referent, we can use scale mod-

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VOLUME 4, NUMBER 4. AUGUSf

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els to examine how children first gain insight into and exploit a novel type of symbol—referent relation.

In our standard task, the model stands for a room (either a full-sized real room or a tentlike, portable room). The model is very realistic, and there is a high degree of physi- cal similarity between the objects— items of furniture—within the model and the room. The model is in the same spatial orientation as the room, but it is located outside the room, so the child can see only one space at a time.

The model-room relation is explicitly and elaborately described and demonstrated for the 2- to 3-year-old children. In the task, chil- dren watch as a miniature toy is hid- den behind or under a miniature item of furniture in the model, and they are told that a larger version of the toy is hidden with the corre- sponding piece of furniture in the room. (“Watch! I’m hiding Little Snoopy here. I’m going to hide Big Snoopy in the same place in his big room.”) If the children appreciate the relation between the two spaces.

then their knowledge of the location of the miniature toy in the model can be used to figure out where to search for the larger toy in the room, and vice versa. (It does not matter wheth- er subjects see the hiding event in the model or the room. For conve- nience, I refer to the situation in which the hiding event occurs in the model.)

In numerous studies, 36-month- old children have typically suc- ceeded in this task (>75% errorless retrievals), but 30-month-olds have usually performed very poorly (<20% correct).^”^ Failure in the task is not due to memory or moti- vational factors: Virtually all chil- dren can retrieve the toy they actu- ally observe being hidden in the model. Nevertheless, the younger children fail to relate their knowl- edge of the model to the room. These children understand that there is a toy hidden in the room, and they readily search for it. What they do not realize is that they have any way of knowing—other than by guess- ing—where it is.

Fig. 1. A heuristic mode! of children’s understanding and use of symbols. The five rounded rectangles on the left represent factors demonstrated or hypothesized to affect the behavior of interest (symbol use), represented by the rectangle on the far right. The ellipses represent intervening variables assumed to mediate between the manipulated factors and children’s behavior. Because we have not yet investigated the role of do- main knowledge, it is not discussed in this article.

A MODEL OF SYMBOL UNDERSTANDING AND USE

Research conducted with this and related tasks has led to the develop- ment of a heuristic, conceptual model of young children’s under- standing and use of symbols (see Fig. 1). (To avoid confusion, henceforth, I use the term Model, with a capital M, to refer to the conceptual model.) Although this Model is intended to apply to symbol use more broadly, in this review, 1 use our work with scale models to illustrate the Mod- el’s features.

The Model incorpo- rates several factors we have discov- ered to be important in young children’s symbol use (left side of Fig. 1), including characteristics of the symbol itself (salience), the sym- bol-referent relationship (iconicity), the symbol user (experience), and the social context (instruction). As is apparent from the figure, these fac- tors interact in complex ways to de- termine performance.

The end point of the Model is the behavior of using a symbol as a source of information (right side of Fig. 1), which always requires map- ping between symbol and referent. Numerals must be mapped onto the appropriate quantities; the individ- ual elements on a road map must be mapped onto the corresponding roads and cities in the real worid. In the model task, the individual ob- jects—items of furniture—within the model must be mapped onto the corresponding objects in the room. The relation between the hidden toy and its hiding place must also be mapped from one space to the other.

Representational insight, the ba- sic realization of the existence of a symbol-referent relation, is the piv- otal element in the Model. The level of awareness of this relation varies from explicit metacognitive knowl- edge that a given symbol represents some particular referent, such as an adult might have, to an implicit and inexpressible sense of relatedness.

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such as a young child might have. My research has repeatedly shown both that representational insight can be surprisingly difficult for young children to achieve and that developmental progress can be very rapid.

It is obvious that the social con- text of symbol use is important. Much symbolic development in- volves direct instruction by other, more knowledgeable people. Chil- dren are explicitly taught the alpha- bet and numbers and how to read and do math. In the model task also, direct instructions play an important role:

Three-year-olds succeed in the standard task in which the relation between the model and room is ex- plicitly described and demonstrated for them, but they perform very poorly when less complete instruc- tions are given.^ Children have to be told about the model-room relation to achieve representational insight.

Another variable that plays an im- portant role in young children’s sym- bol use has to do with the symbol- referent relation. Iconicity refers to physical similarity between symbol and referent. Many symbol-referent relations are purely arbitrary and conventional, with no physical re- semblance at all—for example, nu- merals, letters, and musical nota- tion. Some are partially iconic: Maps preserve spatial relations, but have few other iconic features. Other symbols are highly iconic: A color photograph, for example, closely resembles its referent. Except for size, the scale model used in my research looks very much like the room it represents.

Iconicity generally facilitates symbol use: The more a symbol re- sembles its referent, the easier it is to perceive the similarity between the two. Perception of similarity facili- tates both the achievement of repre- sentational insight and mapping. In the model task, similarity has been shown to be very important, both in terms of surface similarity of the in- dividual objects within the two

spaces and in terms of the overall resemblance between the model and the room. For example, 3-year- olds are highly successful if the fur- niture in the two spaces is highly similar, but they perform poorly if there is a low level of similarity. When object similarity is high and, in addition, model and room are similar in overall size, even 2y2- year-olds succeed in the model task.^

Note that the Model specifies two-way influences between repre- sentational insight and perception of similarity. A child who realizes that a symbol and referent are related will presumably search for similarity between the elements within them, thus leading to improved mapping. For example, in the model task, a child who realizes that the model and room are related will actively look for similarities between the in- dividual items within the spaces.

REPRESENTATION

Another important factor is the sa- lience of the physical properties of the symbol. All symbols of the sort under consideration have both a concrete and an abstract nature. A consequence is that understanding and using them requires what I have termed dual representation— simultaneously representing both the concrete and the abstract nature of a symbol.^ To the extent that one’s attention is drawn to the phys- ical properties of a symbol, it will be more difficult to appreciate its sym- bolic status. As Langer” said, a peach would be a poor symbol be- cause “we are too much interested in peaches themselves.”

To succeed in our task, the child must mentally represent the model both as a real, concrete object (or set of objects) and, at the same time, as an abstract symbol for something other than itself. The high salience of the model and young children’s

keen interest in it prevent them from representing it both ways. They pay attention to the model itself, encod- ing and remembering the location of the hiding event in it, but that mem- ory representation remains separate from their mental representation of the room. Hence, they fail to use their knowledge about the model to draw an inference about the room.

The dual representation hypothe- sis has received strong support from the confirmation of a series of coun- terintuitive but theoretically moti- vated predictions. First, I reasoned that because a picture is much less salient and interesting as an object than a model is, substituting a pic- ture for the model should make our task easier (even though two- dimensional stimuli are generally less informative and effective than three-dimensional ones).^ As pre- dicted, 2’/2-year-old children suc- ceeded when pictures, but not a model, were used to convey the lo- cation of a hidden toy.

Second, we attempted to de- crease the physical salience of the model by placing it behind a win- dow, thus preventing the children from touching it or interacting di- rectly with it. We reasoned that de- nying children access to the model would decrease its salience as an object, hence making it easier for them to achieve dual representation. The predicted improvement in the performance of a group of 2y2-year- olds occurred.

In a third study in this series, we attempted instead to in- crease the salience of the model by letting children play with it for sev- eral minutes before testing them in the standard task. The idea was that playing with and manipulating the model would make it more salient as an object and hence would make dual representation more difficult to achieve. The predicted poor perfor- mance by a group of 3-year-oIds oc- curred.^

We recently conducted an even more stringent test of dual represen- tation by attempting to eliminate the

Copyright © 1995 American Psychological Society

need for it.^ In this study, we en- deavored to convince a group of 2’/2-year-old children that a “shrink- ing machine” could shrink a troll doll and a room. Our reasoning was that if children believe the machine has shrunk the room (into the scale model of that room), then there is no representational relation between model and room. Instead, there is an identity relation: The model is the room. Hence, the task of retrieving the hidden toy is simply a memory problem. Therefore, we predicted that 2V2-year-olds, who typically fail the standard model task, would suc- ceed in the nonsymbolic shrinking- room task.

In the orientation, the child was introduced to “Terry the Troll” (a troll doll with vivid fuschia hair) and was shown “Terry’s room” (a tent- like, portable room that had been used in many previous model stud- ies). Then the shrinking machine (an oscilloscope with flashing green

lights) was introduced, and its re- markable powers were demon- strated. The troll was placed in front of the m a c h i n e , w h i c h was “switched o n , ” and the child and experimenter waited in the adjoin- ing area, listening to computer- generated “sounds the shrinking ma- chine makes while it’s working.”

The child then returned to discover a miniature troll in place of the origi- nal one. Figure 2 shows the troll be- fore and after the “shrinking event.” The child was then shown that the machine could also make the troll “get big again.” A similar demon- stration showed the power of the machine to shrink and enlarge Ter- ry’s room. The sight of the model in place of the room was very dra- matic.

The child then watched as the ex- perimenter hid the larger doll some- where in the portable room. After waiting while the machine shrank the room, the child was asked to find.

• Fig. 2. The incredible shrinking troll. The panel on the left shows the troll positioned in front of the shrinking machine; the panel on the right shows the troll after the shrinking event.

the hidden toy. The miniature troll was, of course, hidden in the model in the place corresponding to where the child had seen the larger troll be- ing hidden in the room. Thus, just as in the model task, the child had to use his or her knowledge of where the toy was hidden in one space to know where to search in the other. However, in this task, the child thought the room and model were the same thing. (Both the experi- menters and the parents were con- vinced that all but one child firmly believed the shrinking-room sce- nario. Remember, most of these children also believe in the tooth fairy.)

As predicted, performance was significantly better in this nonsym- bolic task than in a control task in- volving the usual symbolic relation between the model and the room. This superior performance occurred even though the shrinking-room sce- nario was more complicated and the delay between the hiding event and the child’s retrieval was much longer than in the standard model task. This study thus provides very strong sup- port for the dual representation hy- pothesis.

A key element in the Model is the individual’s symbolization experi- ence, which includes both general experience with a variety of symbols and specific experience with any particular type of symbol. Such ex- periences lead to the development of symbolic sensitivity, a general ex- pectation or readiness to look for and detect the presence of symbolic relations between entities. Experi- ence responding to a given entity as a representation of something other than itself increases an individual’s readiness to respond to other entities in an abstract rather than concrete mode.^° Symbolic experience, and hence symbolic sensitivity, in- creases naturally with age.

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Evidence for the role of symbolic sensitivity comes from a series of standard transfer-of-training studies. Children who are first tested in a rel- atively easy task (i.e., one in which they detect the symbol-referent re- lation and perform well) subse- quently perform better in a more dif- ficult task (i.e., one their age group normally fails). Thus, 2’/2-year-olds who did well using a picture to guide their search for a hidden toy subsequently succeeded using a model as a source of information.

Children of the same age also showed significant transfer from a relatively easy model task to the stan- dard task. Three-year-old children who first participated in the task with high similarity between model and room were subsequently successful with low similarity between the two spaces, although 3-year-olds typically fall the latter task.̂

Symbolic sensitivity is the pri- mary mechanism for developmental change in the Model. As a function of experience using symbols, chil- dren increasingly expect and look for relations between entities. As children become more sensitive to the possibility of symbolic relations, they become capable of detecting them with less support.

Thus, high levels of iconicity are less important for older children than for younger children, less explicit instructions suffice, and so forth. Dual represen- tation is more readily achieved: An- ticipating a symbolic relation, chil- dren focus less on the concrete characteristics of a symbol and more on its abstract, representational function. (General cognitive devel- opment is also obviously important in symbolic development, but it is not formally incorporated into the Model.)

IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATION

The Model described here has a number of clear practical implica-

tions. One cannot take for granted that children will detect a symbolic relation, no matter how obvious it is to older individuals. There are no fully transparent symbols. Only through experience do young chil- dren come to appreciate the ab- stract, representational relation that holds between a symbol and refer- ent, regardless of how physically similar they may be.

Educational materials are often designed with the assumption that three-dimensional materials— “manipulables”—will help children acquire abstract concepts (e.g., var- ious blocks are often used to teach number concepts and arithmetic). It is assumed that the relation between the object symbols and the concepts will be obvious or readily figured out. My research indicates that this assumption cannot be made blithely—and will not always be valid. Hence, the utility of any such educational aids cannot simply be taken for granted.

Similarly, anatomically explicit dolls are commonly used in investi- gations of suspected child abuse on the assumption that the seif-doll re- lation will be obvious to young chil- dren and will help them provide more complete and accurate testi- mony. Recent research in my labo- ratory and others questions this assumption. There is increasing evi- dence that, as predicted by dual rep- resentation, very young children do not find it natural or easy to use a doll as a representation of themselves. ̂ ^

In conclusion, children start early to acquire the variety of symbols needed for full participation in their culture. However, the representa- tional nature of any given symbol may not be clear to them. Under- standing and using a symbol de- pends on the interaction of many factors, including characteristics of the symbol and its referent, the child’s prior experience with sym- bols, and the Information given to the child about the nature and meaning of the symbol.

Acknowledgments—The research sum- marized in this review was supported by , Research Grant HD-25271 and Training” Grant HD-07205 from the National Insti- tute for Child Health and Human Devel- . opment. I thank Ren^e Baillargeon, Ger- ald Clore, Larry Jones, and Don Marzolf for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. I also thank Kathy Anderson for her invaluable contributions to this research.

Notes 1. For theories on the development of symbol-

ization, see, e.g., H. Werner and H. Kaplan, Sym- bol Formation (Wiley, New York, 1967); L.S. Vy- gotsky, Mind in Society, M. Cole, V. lohn-Steiner, S. Scribner, and E. Sotiberman, Eds. (Harvard Univer- sity Press, Cambridge, MA, 1976), For summaries of research on particular symbols, see. e.g., J. Cood- now. Children Drawing (Harvard University Press. Cambridge. MA, 1977); U. Goswami and P.E, Bry- ant. Phonological Skills and Learning to Read (Eri- baum, Hove, England, 1990); R. Celman and C.R. Callistel, The Child’s Understanding of Number (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1978), For recent reviews of research on the development of representation, see C, Pratt and A. Carton, Eds,, The Development and Use of Representation in Children (Wiley, Chichester, England, 1993); R.R, Cocking and K.A, Renninger, Eds., The Develop- ment and Meaning of Psychological Distance (Eri- baum, Hillsdale, N). 1993).

2. J,S. DeLoache, Rapid change in the symbolic functioning of very young children. Science, 238, 1556-1557 (1987); |,S. DeLoache, Symbolic func- tioning in very young children; Understanding of pictures and models. Child Development, 62, 736- 752 (1991),
3. J,S, DeLoache, D.V, Kolstad. and K.N. Anderson, Physical similarity and young children’s understanding of scale models. Child Development, 62, 111^126(1991),
4. G.A, Dow and H.L, Pick. Young children’s use of models and photographs as spatial represen- tations. Cognitive Development, 7, 351-363 (1992),
5. D,P, Marzolf and |,S. DeLoache. Transfer in young children’s understanding of spatial represen- tations. Child Development, 65, 1-15 (1994),
6. J.S. DeLoache, Young children’s understand- ing of the correspondence between a scale model anda larger space. CognitJve Development, 4,121- 129 (1989),
7. S,K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (Har- vard University Press, Cambridge. MA, 1942), p. 75,
8. Described in ),S, DeLoache and N,M. Burns, Symbolic development in young children; Under- standing models and pictures, in Pratt and Garlon, note 1,
9. ),S. DeLoache, K,F, Miller, K,S, Rosengren, and N. Bryant, Symbolic development in young children: Honey, I shrunk the troll, paper presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society. Wash- ington, DC (November 1994),
10. ),S. DeLoache and D,P. Marzolf, When a picture is not worth a thousand words. CognidVe Deve/opment, 7, 317-329 (1992).
11. J,S, DeLoache. The use of dolls in interview- ing young children, in Memory and Testimony in the Child Witness, M,S, Zaragoza, J.R. Graham, G.C.N. Hall, R. Hirschman, and Y.S, Ben-Porath, Eds, (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 1995); J,S, De- Loache and D.P, Marzolf, The use of dolls to inter- view young children; Issues of symbolic representa- tion, lournal of Experimental Child Psychology (in press).

Early Understanding And Use Of Symbols The Model Paper

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