Contextual sensitivity in young children's drawings

Davis, Alyson

doi:10.1016/0022-0965(83)90022-x

Cited by 62 publications

(70 citation statements)

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“…While some aspects of children's drawings may indeed be influenced merely by the provision of a single contrast (Cox, 1981(Cox, , 1985Chen & Holman, 1989;Davis, 1983Davis, , 1985aDavis, , 1985bLewis, Russell & Berridge, 1993), the present study clearly shows that the children marked "nice" and "happy" differently in their drawings, and "nasty" and "sad" differently, implying that they were responding on the basis of the specific emotion terms provided, not merely to the provision of a binary contrast per se.…”

mentioning

confidence: 51%

Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings

Burkitt¹,

Barrett²,

Davis³

2009

International Journal of Art Therapy

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UK Acknowledgements:The research team would like to thank all of the children and teachers who participated in this project. 2 Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings AbstractRecent studies have shown that, when an affective characterisation is given to a topic, children adjust the size and colour of those topics in their drawings: children increase the size of drawings of topics characterised as "nice", do not always decrease the size of topics characterised as "nasty", and use differential colouring systematically to distinguish between "nice" and "nasty" topics in their drawings (Burkitt, Barrett, Davis, 2003a, 2003b, 2004. The present experiment was designed to examine whether these specific effects only occur with the terms "nice" and nasty", or whether they also occur with another pair of positive and negative terms, "happy" and "sad". 102 4-7 year olds were divided into two groups and asked to draw either a baseline, "nice" and "nasty" man, or a baseline, "happy" and "sad" man. It was found that the valence of the characterisation (positive vs. negative), as well as the specific pair of words which was used, systematically influenced both the size and the colour of the children's drawings.These results show the importance of understanding the exact emotions in question when interpreting children's drawings on the basis of size and colour.

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mentioning

confidence: 51%

Effects of different emotion terms on the size and colour of children's drawings

Burkitt¹,

Barrett²,

Davis³

2009

International Journal of Art Therapy

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“…Barrett, Beaumont & Jennett, 1985;Barrett & Light, 1976;Bremner & Moore, 1984;Cox, 1985Cox, , 1992Davis, 1983Davis, , 1985Freeman, 1980;Goodnow, 1977;Kellogg, 1969;Light & McEwan, 1987;Sitton & Light, 1992;Winner, 1982) and on the perceptual, cognitive and motor processes involved in producing a drawing (Cox, 1992;Freeman, 1980Freeman, , 1987Goodnow, 1977). However, some researchers have also explored whether the contents of children's drawings can be used as a reliable index of children's feelings concerning the objects depicted in their drawings (Forrest & Thomas, 1991;Hammer, 1997;Joiner, Schmidt & Barnett, 1996;Jolley, 1995;Jolley & Vulic-Prtoric, 2001; Koppitz, 1968Koppitz, , 1969Thomas, Chaigne & Fox, 1989).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of affective characterizations on the size of children's drawings

Burkitt

Barrett

Davis

2003

British J of Dev Psycho

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Previous research has yielded conflicting findings about the existence and the direction of the size changes which occur in children's drawings when they are asked to draw topics which have been given an affective characterisation. The present study was designed to investigate whether children scale up the size of drawings of topics which have been given a positive characterisation, and scale down the size of drawings of topics which have been given a negative characterisation. Two hundred and fifty-eight children aged between 4 and 11 years completed three drawings of either a man, a dog or a tree. Each child drew a baseline drawing of a neutrally characterised figure, and two further drawings of a positively and a negatively characterised version of the same figure. It was found that the children drew the positively characterised topics larger than the neutrally characterised topics, and reduced the size of the negatively characterised topics relative to the baseline drawings. These patterns occurred at all ages and with all three drawing topics. Two possible explanations of the findings are discussed: the operation of an appetitive-defensive mechanism in children, and the acquisition of pictorial conventions.

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“…Barrett, Beaumont & Jennett, 1985;Barrett & Bridson, 1983;Barrett & Eames, 1996;Barrett & Light, 1976;Bremner & Moore, 1984;Cox, 1981Cox, , 1985Cox, , 1992Cox, , 1993Crook, 1984Crook, , 1985Davis, 1983Davis, , 1985aDavis, , 1985bFreeman, 1976Freeman, , 1977Freeman, , 1980Freeman, , 1987Gardner, 1980Gardner, , 1982Goodnow, 1977Goodnow, , 1978Kellogg, 1969;Light & McEwan, 1987;Sitton & Light, 1992;Winner, 1982). However, some researchers have also explored whether the contents of children's drawings can be used as a reliable index of children's feelings concerning the objects which are depicted in their drawings (Burkitt, Barrett & Davis , 2003; in press); Forrest & Thomas, 1991;Hammer, 1997;Joiner, Schmidt & Barnett, 1996;Jolley, 1995;Koppitz, 1968Koppitz, , 1969Thomas, Chaigne & Fox, 1989;Thomas & Jolley, 1998).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%