Why children paint trees blue - life - 29 July 2009 - New Scientist: "YOUNG children may colour trees blue or grass red because their memories can't 'bind' together the colour and shape of an object.
Because the brain stores colour and shape in different groups of neurons, Vanessa Simmering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison suspected that young children have not yet developed the ability to link the information stored in each.
To test her hypothesis, she asked 28 four-year-olds and 28 five-year-olds to view images of up to three shapes on a computer screen for a short time. Immediately afterwards, the children were shown a new image, and asked whether it was the same as the previous image or had subtly changed.
Although the four-year-olds could detect when a new colour had been introduced, they did not seem to notice if two of the shapes had just swapped their original colours, performing no better than chance on those trials. The five-year-olds had no such problem, suggesting that the ability to combine the different types of visual information develops after the child's fifth year.
That might explain why children often use inappropriate colours in their drawings, says Simmering, who will present her results at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society in Amsterdam at the end of July."
Because the brain stores colour and shape in different groups of neurons, Vanessa Simmering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison suspected that young children have not yet developed the ability to link the information stored in each.
To test her hypothesis, she asked 28 four-year-olds and 28 five-year-olds to view images of up to three shapes on a computer screen for a short time. Immediately afterwards, the children were shown a new image, and asked whether it was the same as the previous image or had subtly changed.
Although the four-year-olds could detect when a new colour had been introduced, they did not seem to notice if two of the shapes had just swapped their original colours, performing no better than chance on those trials. The five-year-olds had no such problem, suggesting that the ability to combine the different types of visual information develops after the child's fifth year.
That might explain why children often use inappropriate colours in their drawings, says Simmering, who will present her results at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society in Amsterdam at the end of July."
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