USING REPRESENTATIONS - COMPREHENSION AND PRODUCTION OF ACTIONS WITH IMAGINED OBJECTS

Previous research suggests that young children have difficulty produci ng actions with imagined objects (pantomimes): They frequently substit ute a body part to represent the object involved in the action. This r esponse has also been observed in neurologically impaired adults. Stud y 1 examined the comprehension and production of pantomimes in 3- and 5-year-old children and normal adults to explore further this aspect o f representational ability. Results indicate that young children not o nly have difficulty producing imaginary object representations in cont rast to normal adults, they also have difficulty comprehending imagina ry object representations and are better at comprehending pantomimes w ith a body part representation. The results from the pantomime compreh ension task were replicated in Study 2 with 3- and 4-year-olds, These findings are discussed in the context of the development of representa tional ability as children demonstrate increasing independence from co ncrete environmental support in their knowledge about actions.