Week 7: Representation
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Midterm next week
– 55 multiple choice
– 5 of 8 short answer
Representation
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We are a
symbolic/semiotic species
Representation can be:
– Ideas about how the world
works
– Ideas about problem space
and how it is solved
– Way we organize
declarative memory
Representation

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Mental images that one has about objects,
things, events in the world, how one
interprets their world
Piaget thought symbolic, or representational
thought was impossible before 18 months
 BUT…we know he was wrong about some
things – maybe babies can represent!

Imitation: must create a mental image of
what person is doing, and map onto own
body

Again: Piaget thought not at all possible
until 8 months
Imitation: innate?

Meltzoff & Moore’s discovery of imitation
in neonates
Imitation: innate?

Meltzoff & Moore’s discovery of imitation
in neonates

They believed infant was using true
selective imitation:
– Use proprioceptive information to intentionally
imitate face of another
– Same as intermodal mapping (also seen in very
young infants)
Other explanations?

Most said it was due to other things
– Learning?
– Fixed-action pattern, or reflex?
– Socially driven? Preview of turn-taking seen in
older infants
– Meltzoff & Moore saw it as a social process
that was replaced by more social behaviours
Deferred Imitation
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Infants must observe model, store representation
of the behaviour, and later retrieve it

Meltzoff, 1988

3 actions:
“Beep beep beep!”
“rattle rattle!”

½ of the 9mth olds in experimental group
imitated immediately and 24 hours later
 Very few of the controls repeated the same
actions
Bauer’s work
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Question:
– Can 9 month old infants encode and recall a
sequence of actions over time?

Showed two-step sequences
 Recorded ERP during immediate and
delayed recognition and 1-month later,
recall
Bauer

Immediate = all infants recognize
 High individual variation in 1-week
recognition in terms of ERP
 ERP activity during recognition at 1 week
predicted recall at 1 month
Representation and Play

Development of majority of social skills is
through play
 Pretend play is a form of representation

Link between deferred imitation and
pretend play?
Nielsen & Dissayanake

Assessed deferred imitation from 9 months
 Pretend play from 15 months

Advent of pretend play linked to ability to
imitate
Children’s Knowledge of Objects
How they “represent” the world in their
minds
 Baillargeon uses “Violation-of-Expectation”
paradigm to infer 4 month old infants’
knowledge about occluders

Violation of Expectation: Habituation
Event
Screen moves through 180 degree plane until baby gets bored
Violation of Expectation: Test Event #1:
Possible Event
Screen moves through 112 degree plane and stops at occluder
Violation of Expectation: Test Event #
2: Impossible event
Screen moves through 180 degree plane despite occluder
Violation of Expectation

Babies represent objects that are not in
view, have expectations about how they will
act

Spelke’s research with the moving rod is the
same idea
Spelke’s work

While their abilities are impressive they do
not know everything…
Habituation
Consistent
Inconsistent
Spelke’s work

While their abilities are impressive they do
not know everything…
 Can reason about an occluder when it is in
the way, but not when it is the original
stimulus
Wynn’s work

Can children add and subtract?
Wynn’s work

Can children add and subtract?
 May be subitizing
What does it mean?

Babies may be born with some kind of
representation about objects and how they act
 Maybe not be innate knowledge about objects per
se, but innate processes allowing them to deal with
perceptual information about objects
 May have tools there for them to build cognition
from birth: representational thought present early
on! Certainly not what Piaget said!!
Structure of knowledge:
Piaget
Knowledge builds from nothing to
something
Structure of Knowledge:
Karmiloff-Smith
Knowledge is there, moves to conscious awareness
Representational Insight

The idea that something can stand for something
other than itself, e.g. written words, language
DeLoache’s work with scale models:
 < 3 cannot use scale models as representations of a
larger room (only 15% of trials error-free)
 Not just forgetting
 2.5 can use pictures and videotapes to help, and
“shrunken” room, but not a model

DeLoache (2000)

Maybe pictures make task easier
 Exp. 1: gave 8 2 ½ year olds same task,
using only subset of items instead of whole
room
 In this case, only 16% of the trials were
error-free, as opposed to 80% with pictures
 Simpler subset of items still too salient for
child; pictures allow distance
DeLoache (2000) con’d

Make 3D objects less salient, and maybe 2.5
year olds could use a scale model as a
representation
 Exp 2: Glass is placed over model to
prevent child from touching it during
familiarization
 48% of the trials were errorless, compared
to the usual 15% on the standard scale
model task
DeLoache (2000) Con’d

Maybe you can make it harder for 3 year
olds
 Exp 3: 3 year olds play with scale model
for 5-10 minutes first
 Only 44% of trials were errorless as
opposed to the usual 80%
 Indicates that increased salience diminishes
ability to use model as representation
DeLoache (2000): Last one…

Attributes 2.5 and some 3 year olds trouble
with scale model to a problem with Dual
Representation
 Can’t see object as being both something in
itself, and as standing for something else
 Example from conference talk
– Website visit…

This ability develops rapidly in children
Liben’s work
Looks at children’s use of maps and their
understanding of pictures
 Children advance in their understanding of
maps
 Children initially pick pictures based on
referent

Other Representation Tasks…

False-Picture task
– 3-4 year old children shown a picture of reality;
introduce a change in reality, and feel that picture will
change to reflect it

Moving Word Task
– Children believe word represents picture it is beneath,
and not concrete sounds that make up a word, and that
the whole word represents a particular thing
– Believe that words are not immutable
Appearance / Reality and Fantasy / Reality

We know children are easily led astray by
appearances (Piaget, Inhibition Theory)
 Children often cannot ignore appearance in favor
of reality (See this with costumes, visual illusions)
 Children can distinguish fantasy and reality, but
can be seduced by possibilities, but so can
adults…
Appearance / Reality

Paradox in Appearance / Reality tasks
What is this?
What is it REALLY?
Appearance / Reality
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Paradox in Appearance / Reality tasks
Children can now say what it really is despite
what it looks like
BUT…won’t admit they never knew!
And will think someone else will think the same
thing!
3 year olds are egocentric and assume we see the
world as they do!

Distinction between appearance and reality
has a relation to understanding of own and
others’ mental states

I.e. Theory of Mind!
Theory of Mind
Children under 4 lack understanding of others’
mental states; have trouble reflecting on their own;
some say this is key to cognition
 Wellman’s Belief-Desire reasoning: Children must
understand that people will act on beliefs, even
when false
 When asked to infer old mental states no longer in
existence, or others’ mental states, children
typically fail

What’s in the box?
Noooo! It’s Lego
What did you think it was when you first saw it? What will Tigger
think it is?
Sally-Ann Task
(AKA the Maxi task)
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Sally-Ann is in the kitchen with her friend
She has chocolate, and puts it away in a cupboard
She leaves the room
Her friend then moves the chocolate from the
cupboard to a drawer
Sally-Ann comes back
Where will she look for the chocolate?
Where is the problem?
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3-year-old children fail the two previous tasks
According to Wellman, they do not get that the
confederates have false beliefs
They have an inaccurate theory of how mental
states operate
Zelazo and Boseovski (2001) caught them on
videotape, and they STILL couldn’t get it!
ToM as a problem with dual representation
ToM facilitation

If problem is made easier, then they can do it
What is this?
What is it REALLY?
What did you think this was when you first saw it? What will
Tigger think this is?
ToM Facilitation

This is a representational object to begin with,
they never bought that it was a snowman, so they
can go back there flexibly
 Change task to something more relevant
(Repacholi & Gopnik)
 Wellman believes children have mature ToM, just
overemphasize Desires in reasoning
Is ToM innate?

Baron-Cohen believes we are born with individual
ToM modules that kick in at any given time
(EDD, SAM, ToM)
 Neurological evidence supports this
– Castelli et al (2002)
www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/dev_group/research.htm
Is ToM innate?

Some believe ToM is specific to humans,
make us different from primates
– Evidence from giving apes ToM tasks with
humans
Is ToM innate?

Some believe ToM is specific to humans,
make us different from primates
 Some argue that this is the problem in
Autism, despite normal intelligence
– Castelli et al (2002)

This implies domain-specific cognition
Questions to ask yourself

What would the domain-general theories of
cognitive development discussed previously
have to say about dual representation and
ToM (i.e., Fuzzy Trace and inhibition
theory)?
 How could we test it?
Davis, Woolley, & Bruell (2002)

Children readily engage in pretense on their
own
 Do they “get it” if someone else is
pretending?
 Do they understand role of knowledge and
thinking in pretense?
 Do they get it earlier than we think?
Davis et al., (2002)

Study 1:
– 3, 4, and 5 year olds
– Story involved 3 people
 Gleeb (alien), Sarah (North American), Loki
(other country)
– 2 animals
 Min (alien) or rabbit (from earth)
– 2 tasks
 One-animal vs two-animal
 Also a False belief task
Davis et al., 2002

Questions:
– Sarah is wiggling her nose like a min; doesn’t
know what a min is; Is she pretending to be a
min, or is she just wriggling her nose?
– Gleeb is hopping like a min and a rabbit do;
knows mins but not rabbits; Is Gleeb pretending
to be a rabbit or a min?
Davis et al., 2002

Results:
 False
belief < than pretense tasks
 Two animal > one animal
 All children > than chance (but 3s worse than 4
and 5)
 They
get this kind of task sooner than some
ToM tasks!
Davis et al., 2002

Why pass this but fail ToM?
– Existing tasks in lit too hard
– Could be that they are in a transitional period
– Could be that they get it even earlier, but that
tasks don’t elicit knowledge

Study 2
– Made task even simpler by using thought
bubbles
– Pretend and think story tasks
Davis et al., (2002)

Results:
– 4 and 5 year olds >than 3 year olds, but all
groups much better than chance

Discussion:
– Children understand at least by 4, and probably
younger, that to pretend something you need to
know about it, and you need to have something
in mind to be pretending it!
Object Classification
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4 phases of classification
–
–
–
–
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Idiosyncratic (2-3years)
Perceptual (3 or 4)
Complimentary (between 4 and 6)
Conceptual (after 6)
Children move from focusing on external
properties to internal nature of objects
 Have a better way of structuring their
knowledge
Take home messages

Infants appear to have some forms of
representation at birth (imitation, object
knowledge)
 Representation moves from implicit unconscious
knowledge to explicit knowledge
 Representation what is on another’s mind is a
crucial developmental ability; forms the
foundation for many other cognitive abilities