How Children Use Intentions to Read Pictures

Children use intentions to help figure out what pictures mean. This matters most when a drawing does not clearly look like a real object. In those cases, children may need to look beyond resemblance and think about what the artist meant to show.

Young children start to understand intention early ...

A child?s ability to interpret an illustration?identifying the object or person it represents?is based on the physical characteristics of the picture, in addition to social-cognitive processes.

On one hand, children can use a drawing?s actual resemblance to an object to make their interpretation. For instance, if a picture looks like a dog...