Development of an understanding of "dolls" as external representations in early childhood

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24530841
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Educational psychology
• Research Institution: Nagoya University of Arts
• Principal Investigator: KIMURA Minako 名古屋芸術大学, デザイン学部, 講師 (50457917)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KATO Yoshinobu 名古屋芸術大学, 人間発達学部, 教授 (00036675)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 幼児期 / 人形 / 表象 / 表象性理解 / ぬいぐるみ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this paper, the process of infants coming to understand that dolls and stuffed toys are simply physical objects rather than actually being alive was experimentally studied. Children’s cognition was studied in the doll task by placing them in a position where they could observe that the dolls could "see" objects hidden in a certain location and ascertaining whether they thought the dolls could tell this visual information to others. In the stuffed toy task, the children’s cognition was studied by placing them in a position where they can observe that stuffed toys could "feel" the warmness of things and ascertaining whether they thought the toys could tell this tactile information to others. As a result, it was observed that many infants act as if the dolls and stuffed toys are actually alive regardless of whether the dolls or stuffed toys resemble real living entities. From this, it was revealed that infants do not completely understand dolls and stuffed toys as physical objects.

Free Research Field

発達心理学