Symbols

Developing Symbolic Understanding

  • Begins during infancy and continues into childhood.

  • Allows for communication and includes language to convey ideas across space and time.

  • Represents the flexible use of symbols, categorizing humans as the "symbolic species," as we develop language from symbols, a process unique to humans.

  • This system is simple: symbols lead to language.

What is a Symbol?

  • A symbol is something that someone INTENDS to stand for something other than what it is (must be intentional).

  • Virtually ANYTHING can be a symbol if there is intention to refer to something else.

Manual Exploration of Pictures

  • Infants (9-18 months) attempt to touch/interact with 2D pictures in books.

  • This behavior transitions to pointing at pictures, which occurs cross-culturally.

  • This is not a perceptual problem but a conceptual one, focusing on what a picture is rather than how to interact with it.

Picture-Concept

  • The picture represents contemplation, not manual interaction (conceptual over perceptual).

  • Problems arise from a lack of knowledge about pictures as symbols.

  • A “picture-concept” develops around 18 months, ending manual exploration as children learn to see pictures as objects to contemplate.

Importance of Realism

  • Understanding of pictures depends on their realism.

  • Black and white images are better processed, helping children identify that the picture refers to real-world objects without being the actual objects.

  • Schematic drawings are more helpful for word learning.

Dual Representation

  • Represents the dual reality of symbols. Children recognize that a picture is both an object itself and a representation of something else in the world.

  • This theory suggests the brain processes information in two ways simultaneously. Children under three cannot hold both aspects of symbolic objects at once.

Scale Errors

  • Occur when young children (18-30 months) struggle to use miniature objects as if they were life-sized, highlighting their focus on the physical object over its symbolic representation.

  • A U-shaped pattern exists in scale errors: low at 18 months, high at 24 months, and low again at 30 months, revealing a lack of dual representation initially, followed by improved understanding as cognitive abilities develop.

Learning to Use Symbols

  • By age 3, children effectively use symbols like models to navigate real spaces, whereas 2.5-year-olds cannot differentiate between models and reality.

  • The shrinking room experiment eliminated the need for dual representation, suggesting that children can understand the symbolic relationship better without the complexity of dual representation.

Learning about Symbols

  • Early learning results from exposure, yet it does not depend solely on exposure to pictures. Children can learn novel words from pictures even without direct access to concepts.

  • Before 18 months, there is no association with objects, but continued exposure allows children to learn by 2.5 years.

Object Substitution

  • Children under 4 years can pretend one object is another, ably transferring properties and functions between them.

  • They begin to use increasingly abstract representations, such as a red block representing a cake and a yellow block representing a banana.

Object Representation

  • Occurs when children represent objects mentally after 4 years, recognizing them based on various attributes (shape, color, function, etc.).

  • This process involves perceiving objects in the presence of interference, indicating cognitive development in object understanding.

Understanding Pretend Play

  • Between ages 3-5, kids act like they believe pretend scenarios are real but can distinguish between real and imaginary objects. For example, when asked for a pencil, they will only give a real pencil, demonstrating their understanding of reality.

Paradox of Pretend Play

  • Children invest time and energy in pretend play, which supports their cognitive, emotional, and social development.

  • Piaget and Vygotsky linked pretend play to cognitive growth and social learning, emphasizing that imaginative thinking fosters reality-directed thinking.

Takeaways

  • Symbolic understanding develops gradually, not suddenly.

  • Dual representation is essential for symbolic reasoning.

  • Pretending is a crucial aspect of symbolic reasoning, helping children learn about cause and effect relating to their social, physical, and biological world.