Intention and analogy in children's naming of pictorial representations

What underlies children's naming of representations, such as when they call a statue of a clothespin "a clothespin"? One possibility is that they focu s exclusively on shape, extending the name "clothespin" only to entities th at are shaped like typical clothespins. An alternative possibility is that they extend a word that refers to an object to any representation of that o bject, and that shape is relevant because it is a reliable indicator of rep resentational intent. We explored these possibilities by asking 3- and 4-ye ar-olds to describe pictures that represented objects through intention and analogy The results suggest that it is children's appreciation of represen tation that underlies their naming; sameness of shape is neither necessary nor sufficient. We conclude by considering whether this account might apply more generally to artifacts other than pictorial representations.