Abstract
This study examined the development of some of the directional rules children use in drawing. A broader age range than in previous studies was used to analyze the following drawing rules: top-to-bottom, left-to-right, threading in a continuous clockwise or counterclockwise direction, and nonthreading. These rules were tested across three different age groups (4- and 5-year-olds, 6- and 7-year-olds, and 8- to 10-year-olds) and three figure types (circular, square, and apex). Age and figure type interacted to significantly influence the percentage of rule use. Two tasks, copying and modeling, were compared to test the robustness of these rules to task variation. Task did not greatly influence the selecton of drawing rules. The implications from this study are that the process of drawing is rule-governed, and that some of the rules children use, robust to task variation, shift in kind with age.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Fenson, L. (1985). The transition from construction to sketching in children’s drawings. In N. H. Freeman & M. V. Cox (Eds.), Visual order: The nature and development of pictorial representation (pp. 374–384). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Freeman, N. H. (1972). Process and product in children’s drawings. Perception, 1, 123–140.
Freeman, N. H. (1980). Strategies of representation in young children: Analysis of spatial skills and drawing processes. London: Academic Press.
Goodnow, J. J. (1977). Children drawing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Goodnow, J. J., & Levine, R. A. (1973). “The grammar of action”: Sequence and syntax in children’s copying. Cognitive Psychology, 4, 82–98.
Graham, F. K., Berman, P. W., & Ernhart, C. B. (1960). Development in preschool children of the ability to copy form. Child Development, 31, 339–359.
Lehman, E. B., & Goodnow, J. J. (1975). Directionality in copying: Memory, handedness, and alignment effects. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 41, 863–872.
Pigram, J. S. (1984). The symmetry hypothesis and the perpendicular error: Evidence from discrimination and copying tasks. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2, 359–369.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was conducted as partial requirement for the doctoral degree in psychology at Pennsylvania State University. Further support for preparation of the manuscript was provided by NICHHD training grant HD07255 to the University of Kansas. I would like to thank Greg Simpson for his sponsorship and comments on an earlier draft.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pemberton, E. The drawing rules of children: Sequence and direction. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 25, 383–386 (1987). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330374
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03330374