18 Sep
2025
18 Sep
'25
3:38 p.m.
Dear all,
The CEU Department of Cognitive Science invites you to the following talk:
Gregor Kachel<https://gregorkachel.github.io/> (Leuphana University)
Beyond Iconicity - young children’s comprehension of symbol-referent-relationships in the
graphic domain.
Children’s developing understanding of symbols in language, gesture or symbolic artefacts
is central to their enculturation and demonstrates the growth of cognitive capacities that
define the human mind. Language acquisition and literacy are arguably two of the most
significant achievements in cultural learning. However, even prior to formal education,
children may be highly competent in the graphic domain.
In a multi-study project, children were presented with a picture-book-style symbolic
object-choice-task in a cross-sectional between-subjects-design. At test, they received
various graphic cues by a helpful and knowledgeable cartoon agent directing them at one of
two choice options over 16 trials without feedback. Participants’ binary choices were
modeled as a function of their absolute age using logistic Bayesian GLMMs to determine
when group performance exceeds chance. Whereas previous work on graphic communication has
focused almost exclusively on iconicity as a way of creating meaning and compared
performance across binned age-groups, this project investigates a wide variety of mapping
relationships and allows for a continuous modelling of development across the preschool
years in a highly simple, coherent and comprehensive paradigm with robust samples.
A first set of studies tested when children comprehend reference based in iconicity,
pars-pro-toto, and analogies in shape (S1; N = 106), orientation and position (S2; N = 99)
as well as number and size (S3, N = 99). To understand the interplay of cognitive
abilities and enculturation, study 4 (N = 224, 48 to 60 months) combined the most reliable
items from studies 1-3 with tasks evaluating children’s knowledge of conventional symbols,
vocabulary and pragmatic abilities. An additional set of studies was devoted to when
children understand arrows and markers (study 5; N = 72). Study 6 (N = 96) explored the
interplay of direction and proximity in ambiguous arrow cues and study 7 (N = 48)
established when children begin to generalize the tendency to an arrow-like reading to
novel asymmetric shapes. Together with an additional investigation of children’s ability
to interpret movement in graphic representations (study 8, N = 96), this project provides
one of the most comprehensive and coherent investigations of young children’s
understanding of symbols in the graphic domain to date.
Date: Wednesday, September 24th, 2025
Time: 4 pm (to 5:30 pm) CET
Venue: D002-Tiered* (QS Vienna) and Zoom (meeting ID: 969 2496
5784<https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/96924965784?pwd=c2duZ0dDMFdEMUthK2Mwa2wzMllEUT09>,
passcode: 471712)
Chair: Gergely Csibra
*Anyone not affiliated with CEU wishing to attend in-person in Vienna must RSVP
here<https://forms.microsoft.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=E1nE2VN24kuS…
to get access to the lecture hall.
If you want to schedule a meeting with Gregor, please indicate your availability
here<https://doodle.com/> by Tuesday, 12pm.
Best,
Mariem
______________________________________________
Subscribe by sending an empty mail to talks-subscribe(a)cogsci.ceu.edu
Unsubscribe by sending an empty mail to talks-unsubscribe(a)cogsci.ceu.edu