Symbolic Representation in Children
Summary. The purpose of the this study was to assess developmental changes in children's ability to understand a scale model. Children watched as a small toy was hidden in a scale-model of a room, and then attempted to find a larger toy hidden in the same place in the full-sized room.
Video. Discovering Psychology, Program 5, The Developing Child. The segment on this study is about 3 minutes long. Stop the video before the 3-year-old looks for big Snoopy. The video can be viewed online (as of July 2018).
Original Research. DeLoache, J. S. (1987). Rapid change in the symbolic functioning of very young children. Science, 238, 1556-1557.
Design. 2 x 2 mixed factorial.
Statistical Analysis. 2 x 2 mixed ANOVA. The main result is the age by retrieval interaction. For the data in Table 1, F(l, 30) = 23.8 (df are different than published values since DeLoache included two more factors). You may want your students to do a plot of means and standard errors to show the interaction graphically.
Published Results. DeLoache reports results of a four factor mixed ANOVA. In addition to age and retrieval location, she included the child's sex and whether the child watched as the toy was hidden in the room or the model. The most important result is the age by retrieval interaction, F(1, 24) = 23.41, which is shown in a graph of the group means.
Published conclusions. "The results of the research described here reveal the sudden achievement, in a group of children between 2.5 and 3 years of age, of an important developmental milestone: the realization that an object can be understood both as a thing itself and as a symbol of something else." (p. 1556).
Note: The Excel file for this activity contains realistic data showing the number of errorless retrievals (out of 4) by the 16 children in the two age groups.
Summary. The purpose of the this study was to assess developmental changes in children's ability to understand a scale model. Children watched as a small toy was hidden in a scale-model of a room, and then attempted to find a larger toy hidden in the same place in the full-sized room.
Video. Discovering Psychology, Program 5, The Developing Child. The segment on this study is about 3 minutes long. Stop the video before the 3-year-old looks for big Snoopy. The video can be viewed online (as of July 2018).
Original Research. DeLoache, J. S. (1987). Rapid change in the symbolic functioning of very young children. Science, 238, 1556-1557.
Design. 2 x 2 mixed factorial.
Statistical Analysis. 2 x 2 mixed ANOVA. The main result is the age by retrieval interaction. For the data in Table 1, F(l, 30) = 23.8 (df are different than published values since DeLoache included two more factors). You may want your students to do a plot of means and standard errors to show the interaction graphically.
Published Results. DeLoache reports results of a four factor mixed ANOVA. In addition to age and retrieval location, she included the child's sex and whether the child watched as the toy was hidden in the room or the model. The most important result is the age by retrieval interaction, F(1, 24) = 23.41, which is shown in a graph of the group means.
Published conclusions. "The results of the research described here reveal the sudden achievement, in a group of children between 2.5 and 3 years of age, of an important developmental milestone: the realization that an object can be understood both as a thing itself and as a symbol of something else." (p. 1556).
Note: The Excel file for this activity contains realistic data showing the number of errorless retrievals (out of 4) by the 16 children in the two age groups.