Adult observers are sensitive to the configuration of facial features within a face, able to distinguish between relative differences in feature spacing, and detecting deviations from typical facial appearance. How does the representation of the typical configuration of facial features develop? While there is a great deal of work describing…

This paper describes a study conducted with 235 children from Brazil and Switzerland. The children, from 5 to 13 years of age, were asked to draw the journey they undertake every day from home to school. The purpose of the study is to understand the relationship between the cognitive development and map-drawing abilities of children in both…

This study assessed children's graphic flexibility and their ability to report on their use of drawing strategies when drawing characterized figures. 253 children (129 boys, 124 girls) aged between 4 years 3 months and 11 year 10 months formed three groups, either drawing a man, a dog or a tree. Each group was asked to draw three emotionally…

In this decade of Education for Sustainable Development, it is timely to consider the methodological issues associated with researching this topic not only with adults but also with the young children who, as members of the next generation, will experience the success or otherwise of current environmental sustainability efforts. We argue that it…

Weak Central Coherence (Frith, 1989) predicts that, in autism, perceptual processing is relatively unaffected by conceptual analysis. Enhanced Perceptual Functioning (Mottron & Burack, 2001) predicts that the perceptual processing of those with autism is less influenced by conceptual analysis only when higher-level processing is detrimental to…

Explores the development of children's ability to plan their drawings. Presents a conceptual framework and a process-structural model of the planning of drawings in childhood. Two experiments support the model's prediction of different patterns of results as a function of the working memory capacity of the subjects. (SKC)

This paper reports a follow-up study of 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old subjects who had participated in an investigation of the nature of children's and adults' ability to graphically represent expressive qualities (i.e., happy, sad, angry, loud, quiet, hard). In the original study, the use of literal representation (such as a smiling face on a tree) and…

Data obtained under naturalistic conditions do not support the notion of a close fit between the growth of geometric concepts during the concrete operational period and "realism" in art. Realism here refers to the ability to portray the objective proportions of a figure, to coordinate spatial relations and distances, and to represent a…

This study examined whether 4- to 8-year-olds considered knowledge prerequisites for pretending and drawing. Children were asked if an artist (actor) who did not know what something was, yet whose drawing (behavior) resembled it, was actually drawing it (pretending to be it). Children performed similarly on pretending and drawing questions.…

Studies using human figure drawing as a measurement technique are reviewed as part of an inquiry concerning the effectiveness of instruction to improve children's body image. It is concluded that the findings reviewed are inconclusive as to whether instruction can improve children's perceptions and knowledge of body image, and that further…

This paper is concerned with the unfolding of human marks, beginning with scribbling, and their contribution to developing literacy. The paper argues that children's scribbles reveal a neural substrate destined for marks and influence that substrate significantly, cuing what is distinctly human in linguistic behavior and consciousness, or symbolic…

Children's drawings are thought to be a mirror of a child's representational development. Research suggests that with age children develop more complex and symbolic representational strategies and reference points become more differentiated by gender. We collected two drawings from 109 5-13-year-old children (three age groups). Each child drew…

Frames a developmental psychology of art by contrasting the structural orientation of the study of drawing and the functional orientation of the study of artistry. This model maintains that graphic symbolization emerges with early mark-making, children's representative art is guided by perceptions of affordances, and children continue to engage in…

Examined the ability of children from 6 to 12 years of age to draw human figures and to reconstruct the drawing abilities they possessed at earlier ages. Found that diachronic thinking, or the ability to understand a present situation as a stage in an evolving process, developed with age. (MDM)

Examined validity of use of human figure drawing to evaluate cognitive development status using Piagetian tasks with 7- to 11-year-olds. Found that scores for children's drawings of a man and a woman correlated significantly with mental imaging, conservation of mass, and conservation of length, suggesting the possibility of finding patterns to…