Karmiloff‐Smith's RRM distinction between adjunctions and redescriptions: It's about time (and children's drawings)

Abstract

A sample of 315 children aged between 6 and 9 years participated in a 5-month longitudinal study aimed at investigating constraints on representational flexibility as observed in drawing behaviour. The study specifically looked at how external interventions affected children's representations over time. The intervention involved showing children various examples of pretend people in relation to Karmiloff-Smith's (1990) task of requesting children to operate on their normal person drawing procedures. The study confirmed that knowledge introduced exogenously was only beneficial immediately after the intervention. Over time, in contrast to the older children, the younger children reverted to their internal representations that were specified as sequentially fixed lists. The intervention did not promote transfer of learning to the analogous task of drawing pretend houses. The study suggests that exogenous provocations of behaviour are driven by adjunctions, and that reiterated cycles of representational redescription must occur before the externally mediated knowledge becomes flexibly manipulable.

Cognitive Flexibility in Drawings of Bilingual Children

“…For that to occur, children need to develop inhibitory control mechanisms allowing them to manage two conflicting demands (e.g., that the depicted figure would be recognizable both as a flower and as a giraffe). The production of position and orientation changes and same-category insertions typically involves graphic modifications that are executed in the middle of the drawing sequence (the child begins to draw, executes the graphic modification, and then goes on to finish the drawing as usual; Hollis & Low, 2005;Zhi et al, 1997). Graphic interruptions in the middle of the drawing procedure necessitate impulse control.…”

“…Further experiments verified that complex intrarepresentational as well as interrepresentational modifications were associated with procedural flexibility (Hollis & Low, 2005;Picard & Vinter, 1999. However, the notion that interrepresentational flexibility crucially requires the relaxation of a constraint of independence between representations may suggest different pathways to cognitive flexibility for complex intrarepresentational and interrepresentational change in terms of the inhibitory control processes implied.…”

Generativity and imagination in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from individual differences in children's impossible entity drawings

“…Hollis & Low, 2005;Low, 2006;Zhi, Thomas, & Robinson, 1997). Hollis & Low, 2005;Low, 2006;Zhi, Thomas, & Robinson, 1997).…”

“…Following Hollis and Low's (2005) lead, we slightly modified the presentation context of the Karmiloff-Smith task to make clear its requirement. Following Hollis and Low's (2005) lead, we slightly modified the presentation context of the Karmiloff-Smith task to make clear its requirement.…”

“…First, the developmental literature on pictorial skills indicates that even young TD children can, through example priming, show above average performance in the range and complexity of imaginative ideas depicted (e.g. Hollis & Low, 2005;Low, 2006;Zhi, Thomas, & Robinson, 1997). Group differences in the application of imaginative drawing ideas between ASD and TD children can even disappear under prompted conditions (e.g.…”