Children's knowledge about drawing techniques for the differential depiction of characterised stimuli

Abstract

The literature offers contrasting findings about whether children vary their graphic response when asked to draw an affectively characterised topic (Thomas, Chaigne & Fox, 1989; Jolley, 1995). However, research has shown that, under specified experimental conditions, children will vary the formal properties of their drawings of topics characterised as nice or nasty. Children have been shown to increase the size of positively characterised figures (Burkitt, 1999; Cleeve & Bradbury, 1992; Thomas, Chagine & Fox, 1989) and reduce the size of negatively characterised topics (Burkitt, 1999; Craddick, 1961, 1963; Thomas, Chaigne & Fox, 1989). It has also been found that children will alter their choice of colour for differentially affectively characterised versions of the same topic (Burkitt, 1999). Such findings can be viewed from the perspective of children’s graphic flexibility being manipulated via task instructions. Such observations have been made extensively within research investigating cognitive-procedural influences on children’s drawings (e.g. Freeman, 1980; Barrett & Bridson, 1983; Light & Simmons, 1983; Sutton & Rose, 1998). However, relatively little work has documented the flexibility of children’s representational strategies in response to affectively characterised stimuli within an experimental drawing situation.

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