Children's Understanding of Action Lines and the Static Representation of Speed of Locomotion

Abstract

Children's understanding of the static representation of speed of locomotion was explored in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, 20 7-year-olds and 20 9-year-olds drew pictures of 2 people walking and running at different speeds. Children then made judgments about pairs of unambiguous drawings of a person walking or running, as did a sample of 20 adults. The drawings varied according to whether action lines, background lines, or no lines were present. Children were asked to say which figure appeared to be moving faster. In Experiment 2, 20 7-year-olds, 20 9-year-olds, and 21 adults sorted ambiguous drawings of a person walking and running at different speeds. The pictures again contained action lines, background lines, or no lines. In the drawing task, children more frequently used page position and biomechanical information than action lines to represent fast and slow walking and running. In the judgment task, 7- and 9-year-olds offered equivalent judgments of action lines and background lines, whereas adults distinguished between these pictorial devices. In the sorting task, all subjects distinguished between action lines and background lines and judged that pictures containing action lines looked faster than pictures containing background lines and pictures without lines. Taken together, the results indicate that subjects' judgments were influenced by the form of locomotion and degree of ambiguity in the depicted events they saw. The findings are consistent with the view that different categories of pictorial devices exist, but the effectiveness of each device is contingent upon the perceiver's experience with it and the context in which it appears.

Grasping the Nature of Pictures

“…Children of this age often think, on the one hand, that an action carried out on a picture will affect its referent (Flavell, Flavell, Green, & Korfmacher, 1990) and, on the other hand, that an action on a real object will transform a picture of the object (Robinson, Nye, & Thomas, 1994;Zaitchik, 1990). Further, children only gradually acquire various representational conventions, such as the use of lines to represent speed (e.g., Friedman & Stevenson, 1975;Gross et al, 1991).…”

The notion of the motion: The neurocognition of motion lines in visual narratives

“…Second, people of cultures unfamiliar with this style of drawing have trouble understanding that these lines depict motion, though they do understand iconic representations (Duncan, Gourlay, & Hudson, 1973; Kennedy & Ross, 1975; Winter, 1963). Third, the interpretation of motion lines changes as people age (Carello, Rosenblum, & Grosofsky, 1986; Friedman & Stevenson, 1975; Gross et al, 1991; Mori, 1995; Nakazawa, 1998). Younger children often interpret motion lines as invisible yet iconic physical forces, such as wind or air moving, but only recognize them as symbolic conventions as they grow older (Gross et al, 1991).…”

“…Third, the interpretation of motion lines changes as people age (Carello, Rosenblum, & Grosofsky, 1986; Friedman & Stevenson, 1975; Gross et al, 1991; Mori, 1995; Nakazawa, 1998). Younger children often interpret motion lines as invisible yet iconic physical forces, such as wind or air moving, but only recognize them as symbolic conventions as they grow older (Gross et al, 1991). As children accept this symbolic meaning, they also rely less on postural cues to signify movement, which they do understand even at younger ages.…”

“…In general, images with motion lines are thought to be better at depicting the idea of motion than those that rely on only postural cues (Brooks, 1977; Friedman & Stevenson, 1975; Gross et al, 1991; Ito et al, 2010; Kawabe & Miura, 2006), though together motion lines and postural cues clarify an expected path of an action more than each component alone (Kawabe & Miura, 2006). Also, the number and length of lines used in a representation may influence the perceived speed that they convey: more lines and longer lines lead to participants interpreting faster movement (Hayashi, Matsuda, Tamamiya, & Hiraki, 2012).…”

“…Finally, because prior studies have indicated that motion line understanding requires some degree of learning (Carello et al, 1986; Friedman & Stevenson, 1975; Gross et al, 1991; Mori, 1995; Nakazawa, 1998), we reasoned that participants' experience with comics might affect their comprehension. Indeed, in previous work we found that “visual language fluency” (measured via a “VLFI score”, see the Methods section) correlates with both response times and ERP amplitudes to manipulations of visual narratives (Cohn, Paczynski, Jackendoff, Holcomb, & Kuperberg, 2012), and thus similar findings here would provide evidence against the view that motion lines tie directly to perception.…”