In considering the literature on the size and emotion effect in children’s drawings we were motivated to propose that size might be acting as a proxy for depth (or closeness) in children’s drawings and that some of the inconsistencies in the findings might have occurred because the children are struggling to represent 3-demensions in a 2-dimentional drawing task. We operationalized this idea by creating an analogue of the drawing task using Russian dolls. This analogous task allowed the children to modulate height, width and distance, whilst limiting some of the methodological difficulties usually associated with the drawing task (see above and Cox 2005, p.146-147).
The results of our experiment indicated that the children were not consistently selecting taller or wider based dolls to represent charge. Instead they were manipulating depth to represent charge, by placing the positive charged dolls physically closer to themselves than the negative or neutral charged dolls. These findings are consistent with our distance (proximity) proposal and the notion that size might be acting as a proxy for physical closeness in 2-dimentional figure drawings. We believe that our findings offer further insight into understanding the size and emotion effect. To whit we suggest that, having taken into account the problem of representing depth in drawings, the size and emotion effect in children’s drawings might be seen as a proximity and emotion effect, in which children use object size (with various success) as a proxy for physical depth (proximity).
We recognise that our approach is not without issue. For example, it is possible that our task is not suitably sensitive to underlying developmental differences across the (wide) age range of our sample (e.g. DeLoache 2000; Karmiloff-Smith 1995, p.10). Certainly there is age related variation in many types of cognitive development, however there can be differences in behavioural expression (where a U-shaped pattern is often observed) and underlying representational change (where the pattern might be positively linear) - see Karmiloff-Smith, (1995, p.19). Thus it can be seen in the drawing literature that a child’s ability to understand and represent emotion becomes more sophisticated and expressive with increased age. Accordingly, whilst their ability to express emotion in their drawings first increases, there is often a U-shaped dip (or a plateau) in emotional expression that coincides with schooling and a drive towards expressing realism, at around 5-9 years. This is then followed by a steady increase in emotional expression up to about 14 years (See Cox 2005, p.148-151).
We also recognise that even if the doll task reduced some aspects of cognitive demand in relation to depth representation, the task might still be demanding in terms of dual representation. That is to say it may have been particularly difficult for the younger children to hold a dual representation of the doll, as a doll, and as a symbolic representation of the person they associated with the emotional charge (e.g. DeLoache 2000). Likewise, some children (especially the younger ones) may not have fully understood the task instructions, particularly for the neutral charge figures. Certainly, some of the children in this task were very young (3-4 years) and other studies (e.g. Burkitt, et al. 2003) have used more user-friendly terminology.
However, we did not see any obvious developmental patterns in the spread of individual responses across the age range of our sample. Moreover differences in age would have been incorporated in the subjects term of the ANOVA thus rendering unnecessary further analysis of age as a covariate or additional factor. Further, whilst very young children do have difficulty with dual representation, by 2 ½ years many children will readily engage in symbolic pretence in their games (e.g. using a wooden block as a phone) and by 3-4 years of age most children find dual representation relatively unproblematic, although this may vary from child to child (DeLoache 2000). Concomitantly, at testing there did not appear to be any difficulties with the task instructions. However, even if some children did not fully understand what was meant by, for example ‘…a neutral person.’, the results show that positive charged dolls were positioned physically closer than negative charged dolls: differentiating between the positive and negative charges is consistent with the pertinent literature even if the variable being manipulated (c.f. distance rather than size) is not. In short, we are confident that age did not impact on task performance.
One advantage of our approach is that we limited methodological issues related to crowding and planning whilst maintaining the core matter of exploring the representation of emotional charge in objects. For example, we managed to limit problems of space and crowding typically associated with multiple object representation in drawings (see above): unlike in a drawing where the objects can freely vary, potentially influencing the amount of available space and the size of the next object drawn, doll size (height and width) variation is fixed at each doll interval. Indeed if the children were using size to represent charge (as they appear to do in drawings) then space was not likely to be a problem because there was more than enough space to place 3 large dolls on the paper. Notwithstanding, available space might have been an issue in relation to how far away the children could place the dolls. Note that available space (in this regard) is also impacted on by how far the child could reach and the perimeter of the table. Fortunately there was plenty of space beyond the edges of the paper to the perimeter of the table and children could have, but did not in practice, place the dolls outside of the paper area. Also the dolls were not necessarily placed directly in front of the child, but instead could appear either side of the child’s mid-line. Thus given the results observed here, space (and likely associated planning) does not seem to be an issue.
One final point of concern (raised by one of our reviewers) relates to the appearance of our doll stimuli. Although we are confident that our compromise on the number of dolls (2 sets of 7) allowed sufficient range of choice in this experiment, we do recognise that the dolls are ostensibly female in design and that this might have impacted upon performance. For example, the children might be associating the female dolls with a positive maternal representation irrespective of the task instructions. Certainly this is possible. However such an association might also strengthened the salience of the positive charge dolls thereby distinguishing them from the other emotional charges. This might even make it easier to hold a dual representation of the doll and its associate person of positive charge. However it remains uncertain what impact, if any, the sex or gender of the doll might have had. Moreover, whilst this may be an interesting avenue of further research, it does not readily explain why the children are placing the positive charged dolls physically closer to themselves rather than selecting a bigger (wider or taller) doll instead.
Finally, without further research it remains unclear as to why children would want to convey emotional charge by manipulating size or proximity. However, it is conceivable that the distancing effects observed here might reflect innate aspects of attachment, or the processes of attachment, namely safe-base proximity behaviour (e.g. Ainsworth 1973; p.45; Bowlby 1969, p.40). Safe-base behaviours are innate, occur very early on and persist throughout the lifespan. This might help to explain why the children use depth to represent positive, negative or neutral charge objects. It may also explain why there is no obvious age related differences in these data. However, distancing effects might vary with attachment type, attachment stage and possibly even temperament. Similarly, there might also be cross-cultural differences in the size or presence of the effect as a function of the culture in which the child is being raised. For example, there might be differences in the magnitude (or presence) of the effect in social situations when comparing between cultures that favour close proximity, increased emotion or physical contact, and cultures that that do not. Quite what those differences might be is at present unclear.