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Drawing and memory: What is the content of children’s drawings and how does it differ from their verbal reports?

Iordanou, Christiana, Allen, Melissa, Warmelink, Lara (2021) Drawing and memory: What is the content of children’s drawings and how does it differ from their verbal reports? Empirical Studies of the Arts, . ISSN 0276-2374. E-ISSN 1541-4493. (KAR id:90965)

Abstract

This study investigated whether the content of children’s drawings of an event changes over three successive interviews about that event. It also assessed whether children recall more details verbally than they draw. Twenty-seven 3- to 6- year old children witnessed a live event which ended with one actor stealing a cuddly toy. They were interviewed about it one day, two weeks, and six months later. At each interview, children were asked to make a drawing of the event while narrating what happened. We analyzed the content of the drawings for seven features relevant to the event as well as inaccurate information. Children’s inclusion of ‘the perpetrator’ and ‘the victim’ decreased over time but the other features remained stable. Children verbally reported significantly more details than they drew. Our findings suggest that children provide less information in drawings than in verbal reports, but this information may be more reliable and stable compared to verbal reports over multiple interviews.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled keywords: children, drawings, memory, verbal reports
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Funders: University of Kent (https://ror.org/00xkeyj56)
Depositing User: Christiana Iordanou
Date Deposited: 19 Oct 2021 10:20 UTC
Last Modified: 21 Nov 2022 09:28 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/90965 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Iordanou, Christiana.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6288-8995
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