Every human culture has a wealth of symbols and symbol systems that support cognition and communication, and all children must master a set of culturally important symbols to participate fully in their society. They begin to do so very early, and the purpose of the research proposed in this application is to examine the advent and early course of this very important domain of development. The proposed studies focus on very young children's understanding and use of symbolic artifacts. The research falls into three general areas. (1) The majority of the studies concern 2- to 3.5-year-old children's use of various media (including scale models, pictures, and video) as a source of information about the location of a hidden toy. If they understand the symbol-reality relation, they can easily find the toy, but if not, they have no way of knowing where to search. Many of the proposed studies are designed to test or extend a conceptual model of young children's early symbolic functioning. (2) The investigators will also probe infants' very early steps in starting to acquire an understanding of pictures. (3) There is also a focus on the practical domain of young children's testimony; specifically, the use of self-symbols, such as dolls, for interviewing young children about suspected sexual abuse. The proposed research should expand our knowledge of the origins and early development of a vital aspect of cognition--symbolic functioning. Because symbols play a central role in so much of human thought and problem solving, a better understanding of the emergence of symbol use is of paramount importance. The research has important implications for educational practices using symbolic artifacts and for the improvement of young children's testimony.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award (R37)
Project #
5R37HD025271-19
Application #
6986215
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-4 (01))
Program Officer
Freund, Lisa S
Project Start
1988-12-01
Project End
2009-11-30
Budget Start
2005-12-01
Budget End
2006-11-30
Support Year
19
Fiscal Year
2006
Total Cost
$355,586
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Virginia
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
065391526
City
Charlottesville
State
VA
Country
United States
Zip Code
22904
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Troseth, Georgene L; Pierroutsakos, Sophia L; DeLoache, Judy S (2004) From the innocent to the intelligent eye: the early development of pictorial competence. Adv Child Dev Behav 32:1-35
DeLoache, Judy S; Simcock, Gabrielle; Marzolf, Donald P (2004) Transfer by very young children in the symbolic retrieval task. Child Dev 75:1708-18
DeLoache, Judy S; Uttal, David H; Rosengren, Karl S (2004) Scale errors offer evidence for a perception-action dissociation early in life. Science 304:1027-9

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