The role of experience in the development of pictorial competence has been the center of substant... more The role of experience in the development of pictorial competence has been the center of substantial debate. The four studies presented here help resolve the controversy by systematically documenting and examining manual exploration of depicted objects by infants. We report that 9-month-old infants manually investigate pictures, touching and feeling depicted objects as if they were real objects, even trying to pick them up off the page. The same behavior was observed in babies from two extremely different societies (the United States and Beng in the Ivory Coast). This investigation of pictures occurs even though infants can discriminate between real objects and their depictions. By the time infants are 19 months of age, their manual exploration is replaced by pointing at depicted objects. These results indicate that initial uncertainty about the nature of pictures leads infants to investigate them. Through experience, infants begin to acquire a concept of “picture.” This concept includes the fact that a picture has a dual nature (it is both an object and a representation of something other than itself), as well as knowledge about the culturally appropriate use of pictures.
Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 2014
This article takes a prospective cognition perspective in reviewing research on the development o... more This article takes a prospective cognition perspective in reviewing research on the development of children's understanding of spatial symbols, such as scale models and maps. We suggest that using spatial symbols requires that children think about where an object will be found rather than where they last saw it. In addition, we suggest that as children's knowledge of maps grows, they begin to think about largescale space through the mediated perspective that maps provide.
Although microbes directly impact everyone's health, most people ... more Although microbes directly impact everyone's health, most people have limited knowledge about them. In this article, we describe a museum and media public education campaign aimed at helping diverse audiences better understand emerging knowledge about microbes and infectious disease. Funded primarily by the Science Education Partnership (SEPA) program of the National Institutes of Health, this campaign involved crosscutting programs designed to extend impacts throughout a broad public audience.
The role of experience in the development of pictorial competence has been the center of substant... more The role of experience in the development of pictorial competence has been the center of substantial debate. The four studies presented here help resolve the controversy by systematically documenting and examining manual exploration of depicted objects by infants. We report that 9-month-old infants manually investigate pictures, touching and feeling depicted objects as if they were real objects, even trying to pick them up off the page. The same behavior was observed in babies from two extremely different societies (the United States and Beng in the Ivory Coast). This investigation of pictures occurs even though infants can discriminate between real objects and their depictions. By the time infants are 19 months of age, their manual exploration is replaced by pointing at depicted objects. These results indicate that initial uncertainty about the nature of pictures leads infants to investigate them. Through experience, infants begin to acquire a concept of “picture.” This concept includes the fact that a picture has a dual nature (it is both an object and a representation of something other than itself), as well as knowledge about the culturally appropriate use of pictures.
Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 2014
This article takes a prospective cognition perspective in reviewing research on the development o... more This article takes a prospective cognition perspective in reviewing research on the development of children's understanding of spatial symbols, such as scale models and maps. We suggest that using spatial symbols requires that children think about where an object will be found rather than where they last saw it. In addition, we suggest that as children's knowledge of maps grows, they begin to think about largescale space through the mediated perspective that maps provide.
Although microbes directly impact everyone's health, most people ... more Although microbes directly impact everyone's health, most people have limited knowledge about them. In this article, we describe a museum and media public education campaign aimed at helping diverse audiences better understand emerging knowledge about microbes and infectious disease. Funded primarily by the Science Education Partnership (SEPA) program of the National Institutes of Health, this campaign involved crosscutting programs designed to extend impacts throughout a broad public audience.
Knowledge around geospatial technologies and learning remains sparse, inconsistent, and overly an... more Knowledge around geospatial technologies and learning remains sparse, inconsistent, and overly anecdotal. Studies are needed that are better structured; more systematic and replicable; attentive to progress and findings in the cognate fields of science, technology, engineering, and math education; and coordinated for multidisciplinary approaches. A proposed agenda is designed to frame the next generation of research in this field, organized around four foci: (1) connections between GST and geospatial thinking; (2) learning GST; (3) curriculum and student learning through GST; and (4) educators’ professional development with GST. Recommendations for advancing this agenda are included.
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Papers by David Uttal