Perceptual and Action Equivalence to Objects and Photographs in Children

Abstract

A comparison of the pantomimic responses given by 134 middle-class children of normal intelligence between the ages of 3 and 9 yr. to real objects and to pictures of them indicated that up to age 7 yr., photographs of objects were not equivalent to the objects they pictorially represented as directive stimuli for appropriate action. Although equivalence in perceptual recognition was present even in the youngest children, equivalence between object and picture in directing action was increasingly manifested over a period of years. These findings suggest that the processes underlying the discrimination of differences and the recognition of sameness are not necessarily identical with those which underlie the use of perceptual attributes for the direction of action. The findings are considered in relation to verbal and other features of mediation.