Ostroverkh Angelina 1, Kotov Alexey 1, Kotova Tatyana 1, Ostroverkh Oksana 2 1 National Research University - Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia 2 Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia
In our study we examined the ability to distinguish between verbal and visual representation in preschool children. The main difficulty in studying this cognitive function is that for preschool children the survey-like techniques that are used for adults (e.g., Blajenkova, Kozhevnikov, & Motes, 2006) are not appropriate. We decided to develop a new task in which children first had to learn new signs denoting different types of representation. In the picture story task, children had to learn how to use the new symbols to compare different formats of imagination (in the form of inner speech and visual images) in story characters, and then apply these symbols to describe their own representation in solving different tasks. The report will present the results of a pilot test of the method, which involved a group of preschoolers between the ages of 5 and 7 and school children between the ages of 7 and 10. Preliminary results show that the majority of preschool and school-age children successfully learn the symbols and use them to distinguish verbal representation from visual representation in characters (more than 80% of preschool children and school-age children). At the same time, only 67% of preschoolers and 100% of schoolchildren can apply these symbols to describe their own representation. In this report we will discuss the further development and application of this technique to the study of preschool children’s meta-cognitive abilities.
Funding: The reported study was funded by RFBR, project number 20-013-00698
