So, what's your dissertation about?

What the heck do I study, you ask? Well now is your chance to find out! Yesterday I submitted my written dissertation proposal to my committee. I am pretty happy with how it turned out, and looking forward to going ahead with data collection after my proposal meeting with my committee next Thurs 2/22. The purpose of the meeting is to see if they have suggested changes, make sure I know what I'm doing, and just generally ensure that it is a good plan for a dissertation before I go through all of the work of data collection & analysis. Anyway, I pasted the first few paragraphs below. Read on if you're interested!

The Mind on Paper: The Role of Interpretive Mind and Iconicity in Children’s Symbolic Development

A defining characteristic of human cognition is the ability to communicate referentially; that is, the ability to use arbitrary symbols to refer to something. Symbols allow us to go beyond thinking and communicating about the “here and now” and enable us to refer to the “there and then,” such as the past, the future, absent things and people, and abstract ideas. Moreover, exposure to symbolic media fundamentally alters our cognition. Maps present space from above, allowing us to see and connect spatial relationships that would be difficult from our embodied view of the world (Gauvain, 1993; Liben, 1999; Uttal, 2000). Similarly, graphs can help us see relationships between variables that would be difficult to visualize in other formats, and can lead us to ask questions of our data that would not have been possible otherwise (Lehrer & Schauble, 2002).

The development of symbolic understanding is important for children’s comprehension of language, gestures, maps, photos, drawings, and other types of symbolic media that are ubiquitous in our culture. For instance, it is a cognitive challenge to understand that the written word “cat” does not resemble an actual cat, and that a star denoting a city capital on a map does not resemble the actual city capital. Moreover, a symbol is an object in itself, but also refers to a referent, and thus has an inherent duality that can be difficult for children to “see through” (DeLoache, 2002; Potter, 1979). Empirical studies have shown that the more children interact with a small model room as an object (i.e., by playing with it as a toy dollhouse), the more difficulty they have in using it as a representation for the referent room (DeLoache, 2002).

Symbols are also inherently social. Goodman (1976) wrote extensively about the need to understand “the language of symbols,” in that we must learn about the cultural conventions of symbols in order to use and understand them. Specifically, he counters the assumption that photographs and paintings show the world as is, and asserts that we must learn about depiction and pictorial conventions. This underscores another essential component of symbols – they are selective, and by their nature must leave out certain information in order to highlight the intended portions. Representations are far from “re–presentations” of the world (Liben, 1999).

Children must also learn about the relationship between characteristics of the symbol and characteristics of the referent. Iconic symbols resemble their referents in some way (as in the earlier example of a model room) whereas non-iconic symbols do not (as in the earlier example of a star representing a city capital). However, no amount of resemblance between a symbol and referent is sufficient to establish a representational link, because the key to establishing representation lies in a person’s intentional use of a symbol to “point to” a particular referent (Goodman, 1976). Thus even the most pictorial inscription is not a symbol unless it is created or used in an intentional way. For example, a map of Italy resembles a boot but it is not a symbol of a boot because it was created to map a country, not to represent a boot. Children’s understanding of non-iconic symbols was the mark of the semiotic function for Piaget (Piaget, 1970). The signifier (symbol) and signified (referent) are entirely differentiated from one another, linked only by the ways in which they are intentionally assigned meaning by social groups.

In this proposal, I will address one component of children’s symbolic development – the recognition that other minds do not necessarily share the child’s own knowledge of, intentions for, or interpretation of symbols. This is particularly important for symbols that are created for communication with another person. Maps are one type of symbolic media that are most often created to guide others along routes or to particular locations. However, maps can be challenging for children to understand because they are often composed of symbols that do not resemble the intended referents (as in a star used to denote city capitals). The assignment of symbolic meaning must therefore be conveyed in ways other than resemblance to a referent, by a map key for instance. Map keys are explicit in conveying symbol meaning by providing a precise notation linking the creator’s symbols with the “pointed to” intended referents. Broadly, the proposed study will examine children’s understanding of the mind as a component of symbolic development. Specifically, I will test whether children’s map-making and map key-making rests on their ability to anticipate alternate interpretations of a symbol by the intended audience. This may be particularly challenging when children use symbols that resemble their referents (iconic symbols). Children may mistakenly think that the referent of an iconic symbol would be clear to anyone, even if they are generally aware of the need for a map key (or other notation of meaning) when using non-iconic symbols.