Does a Photograph of a Strawberry Cake Taste as Sweet as the Real One?: Understanding the Representational Nature of Photographs among Four- and Five- year-old Children

Abstract

This study investigated whether four- and five-year-old children believe that a photograph has the sensory properties of objects depicted on it (property realism). In Experiment 1, fifteen four-year-old and fifteen five-year-old children were presented with four kinds of real objects (strawberry cake, cactus, rose, and bell) and corresponding colored photographs. Each object was related to four sensory properties, such as taste, touch, smell, and hearing. The participants determined if the sensory properties of the real objects could be attributed to their iconic representations in the photographs. Experiment 2 used the colored and monochrome prints of the same objects with thirty-seven four-year-old and thirty five-year-old children to measure the effect of color on their judgments about property realism. The results revealed that the four-year-old children responded based on property realism, whereas most of the five-year-olds correctly responded that photographs had no sensory properties. Additionally, it was found that colored prints increased property realism than monochrome ones in both age groups.