Scientific American: Mindful of Symbols

Scientific American: Mindful of Symbols:
Kids cannot grasp the concept of an image or a symbol being a link to the actual object. They think the pointer is the object and has the same properties of the object. From article : "The confusion seems to be conceptual, not perceptual. Infants can perfectly well perceive the difference between objects and pictures. Given a choice between the two, infants choose the real thing. But they do not yet fully understand what pictures are and how they differ from the things depicted (the "referents") and so they explore: some actually lean over and put their lips on the nipple in a photograph of a bottle, for instance. They only do so, however, when the depicted object is highly similar to the object it represents, as in color photographs. The same confusion occurs for video images. Pierroutsakos and her colleague Georgene L. Troseth of Vanderbilt University found that nine-month-olds seated near a television monitor will reach out and grab at objects moving across the screen. But when depicted objects bear relatively little resemblance to the real thing--as in a line drawing--infants rarely explore them. "

Studying this is important for understanding how to educate kids less than 3 and how to communicate with them. From article: "The concept of dual representation has implications for educational practices as well. Teachers in preschool and elementary school classrooms around the world use 'manipulatives'--blocks, rods and other objects designed to represent numerical quantity. The idea is that these concrete objects help children appreciate abstract mathematical principles. But if children do not understand the relation between the objects and what they represent, the use of manipulatives could be counterproductive. And some research does suggest that children often have problems understanding and using manipulatives." Also "The victims of abuse are often very young children, who are quite difficult to interview. Consequently, many professionals--including police officers, social workers and mental health professionals--employ anatomically detailed dolls, assuming that a young child will have an easier time describing what happened using a doll. Notice that this assumption entails the further assumption that a young child will be able to think of this object as both a doll and a representation of himself or herself."