How children perceive A look from the other side: how do children perceive adult tantrums? Single source of information

07.09.2021

O. Severskaya- How do children perceive words? How does context influence the formation of the meaning of unfamiliar words? Should all meanings of a word be recorded in a dictionary?

M. Koroleva- The linguist Svetlana Evgrafova knows everything - or almost everything - about this. And willingly shares his knowledge. For example, with readers of the PostNauka portal. Well, we offer you a digest of this material.

O. Severskaya- When someone makes a remark to us: “You misused this or that word,” I want to ask: what is the misuse of words? – says Svetlana Evgrafova. How to know what is right? The first thing that comes to mind is to look in a dictionary. But is the dictionary always able to help? You can't answer this question right away. Let's start with an example then.

M. Koroleva- Examples - sometimes fantastic - Svetlana Evgrafova is supplied by her students. One student, for example, wrote in an essay about a dance studio where she once studied: “The door was located just above the front of the building, so there were three steps leading up to it.” Svetlana, of course, sneered: “But where was the door: on the roof or, perhaps, in heaven?”

O. Severskaya- And then it turned out that the young lady simply forgot the name of "this strip at the bottom of the building." That is, she meant the foundation. Moreover, it became clear that for her the foundation is not a supporting structure on which the whole house stands, but some kind of incomprehensible "stripe". Adult girl speaking mother tongue, confuses two words with the letter "f", because they are both details of an architectural structure! Strange situation. How can this even happen?

M. Koroleva- To answer this question, it is useful to think about how the meaning of a word is generally formed in our minds. Let's, Evgrafova suggests, let's first look at a small child. When he still does not really speak, he speaks his own language. Svetlana cites her own son as an example. When he was about two years old, he called the horse “tsok-tsok-tsok”, and the dog “wavka”. And here he is walking with his mother through the yard and sees a huge dog. And he reacts: “Mom, tsok-tsok-tsok!” “No,” Mom corrects. “This is not a horse, this is a wavka dog.” “No, no,” the kid is indignant ...

O. Severskaya- So, for him, a cat, a dog, a horse differed only in one feature - in size. And suddenly he is faced with the fact that the dog is big: like a horse, as it seems to him (he saw a pony). But "horse dogs" do not exist. And his mother says to him: “Look, please, the dog has no hooves, it has claws, it knocks on the asphalt with claws, and not at all with hooves.” And the child is already looking at this “horse” with doubt ...

M. Koroleva- Why is this happening? It turns out that the child at first, imitating us, learns that a certain object or this class of objects is called so-and-so. Severskaya But attributes some of her own to this class of objects. Gradually, communicating with adults, the child understands what signs this or that object actually has. And this knowledge appears much earlier than any dictionary was formed.

O. Severskaya― Alexandra Zalevskaya, the famous psycholinguist and psychologist referred to by Svetlana Evgrafova, calls the word we learn in childhood “a living polycode hypertext.” This means that we perceive the word along with its sound and the associations that it evokes in us. For example, a Christmas tree can be associated in our minds with the smell of tangerines, with a holiday, with broken toys, with punishment for these broken toys - you never know with anything else, everyone has their own association. And if we master the word as a living polycode hypertext, then no difficulties arise.

M. Koroleva- Another thing is if we master the word in some other way. Queen We are with you in our modern world, notes Evgrafova, surrounds a huge number of words whose meanings we do not know. Queen On TV, we hear a huge number of unfamiliar words, sometimes we don’t even perceive them very accurately by ear, we reproduce them with errors. Where do these words come from in our minds?

O. Severskaya- Evgrafova refers to Vladimir Uspensky (a famous logician, mathematician), who considered in one of his articles the real associations of the word "authority". The word is abstract, but the associations are the most concrete: with heaviness, with firmness... Where do they come from? Uspensky explains: we hear words in different contexts and from these contexts we calculate what a word we do not know can mean. Severskaya But two conditions are needed. The first is that we have many different contexts. The second is that the word we need occurs often enough, then we will gradually deduce its meaning. Queen

M. Koroleva But what happens if these conditions are not met? Here we heard, say, about some kind of "impeachment": "The Communist faction has impeached the president or initiated an impeachment procedure", "President Barack Obama is threatened with impeachment if the Democrats lose the election next year." How are we supposed to know that impeachment is a special legal procedure? The maximum that we can understand from these contexts is that this is something like a resignation, some kind of public censure, perhaps, but we will not know the exact meaning of the word. Queen

O. Severskaya“Here we just need to look into the dictionary. Unfortunately, we are far from always able to guess to look into the dictionary, we are too lazy, Svetlana complains. Although now there are much more opportunities for this than before. The Internet replaces a huge number of reference books, just look at the Gramota.ru portal, where many serious dictionaries are presented, and any word will be open to you. Severskaya Unfortunately, this is not always done by a few ...

M. Koroleva“As a result, it turns out that the meanings of words in our minds are approximate. The young lady mentioned above, of course, heard the word “threshold”, but she remembered: “We will say goodbye to you at the threshold”, “She met him on the threshold of the house”, maybe “He stumbled on a high threshold”. It didn't occur to her that the threshold was a plank at the bottom of the doorway. A high threshold was made in old huts so that it would not blow, so that evil spirits would not pass, it was impossible to sweep some things out of the threshold. She didn't know all this. She did not build any house with her father or grandfather. Queen

O. Severskaya“And as a result, this student subconsciously formed such a strange system that resembles a huge bag of words denoting architectural details, and she does not know how the facade differs from the foundation. The word "facade", by the way, at one time meant only the front part of the house. How did it happen, Evgrafova asks, that now the house has side and even rear facades?

M. Koroleva- In fact, the same mechanism worked: someone first used the word "facade", knowing what it means in French - it is connected with the word face "face". And then the man thought: there is a wonderful name "facade" for the front of the house, but what to call the side? Let there be a side facade, let there be a back facade. And it turned out what is now recorded in serious dictionaries. Although this, of course, sounds strange for a person who has studied French.

O. Severskaya- Here, says Evgrafova, we find an explanation for the change in words. But should every dictionary always make these changes to its text? Lexicographers know that this does not always happen. Maybe some meaning of the word will then enter the language, and some will disappear without a trace. Severskaya There is a wonderful example. In Boris Akunin's two novels, in "State Counselor" and "Leviathan", the word "okay" is used in the meaning of a window opening, a window frame. His hero jumps out in the window, having killed the gendarmerie general, the other peers out the window and sees something in the window. Strange meaning. Will it ever enter the dictionaries, because Akunin is a fairly popular writer?

M. Koroleva- Initially, if we look in the dictionary, there is the word “edge”, which means the border of some object, and there is the word “okoe”, which in dictionaries is fixed in the meaning of the horizon, that which can be covered with an eye, an eye. Queen And we should think about whether this Akunin meaning should be included in the dictionary or will it remain occasionalism, the author's? Therefore, we must understand that the dictionary is not always the cure. Queen

O. Severskaya“But what is important to us? That meaning is learned from context. And any change in the compatibility of words affects the change in their meanings. Therefore, our task is to carefully read the context and be our own lexicographers.

M. Koroleva- We are O. SEVERSKAYAS., M. KOROLEVAK.and a sound engineer ... - we agree with Svetlana Evgrafova. Thanks to the PostNauka portal for this material. And see you in a week.

It is a traumatic process in which children experience a range of negative emotions: anger, anxiety, fear, sadness, etc. The age of the child significantly affects his perception of divorce and understanding of the structure of the family.

From birth to 18 months

Children of this age feel tension in the relationship of their parents, but they still cannot understand the cause of the conflict. If quarrels between parents are constant, the child becomes irritable and nervous, he often has seizures. bad mood especially in the presence of strangers. Such children tend to lag behind in development.
How to smooth Negative consequences: children need stability and closeness with their loved ones. Try to keep the regime that was before the divorce, especially in regards to food and sleep. Provide the child with his favorite toys, spend more time with him than usual, hold him in your arms more often, thereby ensuring physical comfort. Use the help of friends and relatives to be able to relax and be cheerful when it is necessary in communication with the child.

18 months - 3 years

At this age, the emotional connection with parents is the strongest, the whole world of the child is focused on dad and mom. Divorce children experience very difficult, it is difficult for them to accept the very fact of separation of their parents. Kids often think that mom and dad broke up because of them. Children require more attention to themselves, often cry and act up. They may have a slowdown in development, habits appear based on experienced stress, such as thumb sucking. Children have a fear of loneliness, sleep problems, they are afraid to be alone at night.

Whenever possible, parents should cooperate with each other to ensure that the child has a stable daily routine. It is necessary to give the child more time and attention (read books together, etc., in general, do something together, and not just take the child to the sandbox so that he digs in the sand, and you read a magazine), and ask to do this also relatives and friends with whom the baby likes to communicate. If the child is big enough, discuss his feelings with him.

3 years - 6 years

Preschoolers do not yet understand the whole essence of the concept of divorce, but they do not want their parents to leave, despite the tension in the relationship. They feel that they cannot influence situations, the consequences of which they do not know and do not control. Hence, there are feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and fear, fear of loneliness, darkness, insomnia. Preschoolers may also blame themselves for their parents' divorce.

How to mitigate negative consequences: The ideal option is when parents disperse without quarrels, scandals and mutual reproaches, while positively assessing the changes taking place in their lives (“if it didn’t work out, we’ll part as friends”). This option of divorce is the least traumatic for the child, since at this age he feels the emotions of his parents, even if they are trying to hide them. A preschooler needs someone with whom they can discuss their feelings. This can be a grandmother or grandfather, any person whom the child trusts, and who will objectively look at what is happening, and not set the preschooler against one of the parents. At this age, children respond well to special divorce books. The child also needs to know for sure that he will not stop seeing the parent who leaves. To do this, you need to make a clear schedule and stick to it.

6-11 years old

Children are afraid to be left alone as a result of divorce. They may experience fear, never see their father again if they stay with their mother and vice versa. Children may believe that they can restore the relationship between dad and mom, or they can be angry with one of the parents, dividing them into “good” and “bad”. Students can accuse mom or dad of selfishness and express their anger different ways: bad behavior, bad grades, detachment from the outside world, etc. As a result of stress, children often develop stomach problems and headaches.

How to mitigate negative consequences: It is necessary to restore the sense of security and self-esteem shaken as a result of divorce. To do this, each of the parents must spend quality and interesting free time with the child, discuss his feelings with him, convince him with words and actions that none of the parents will leave him, and he is not to blame for the current situation. At the same time, parents should not blame each other for what happened and explain to the child that the divorce was theirs. common solution. It is important to maintain a strict schedule of visits, as the most beneficial during a stressful period is a constant regimen when the child knows when and what to expect. It is very helpful to develop a clear schedule of visits.

In any case, during this difficult period, the child needs to communicate as much as possible with friends, relatives and peers, participate in various sports events, go to any sections and circles, etc., since an active social life allows you to escape from unpleasant thoughts, increases self-esteem and does not allow to withdraw into oneself.

AT early childhood mentally unstable. A child cannot independently draw the line between good and evil. Parents help with this. They read stories, sing songs, tell jokes. Sharing national heritage. Reveal traditional ancient rituals. They "treat" with dishes of Russian and Slavic cuisine.

This is great for kids. They hear about how the fox outsmarted the wolf and apply it to their lives. Use the hints you receive. The rules described in the plot are understood as a given. And they are remembered better than the requests of the elders.

Parents paraphrase a well-known expression and ask their children a question: "Tell me which fairy tale you like, and I will answer who you are." You should carefully consider what kind of stories kids and teenagers prefer. What kind of books are chosen from the shelf: about poor piglets or a brave boy-with-a-thumb? What kind of drawings are in the albums: evil monsters or Pinocchio's friends? This will help to understand the child and even make friends with him.

be Cinderella

Children are foam rubber sponges, they quickly absorb information. But it is not known what "water" will merge. And what facts will remain in the subcortex. Will have an impact on development. Psychologists conclude that young readers like fairy tales, in which they identify themselves with main character. For example:

about the frog princess: the girl considers herself ugly and is waiting for someone who will dissuade her from this
about Kashchei the Deathless: it’s hard to communicate with comrades, it’s better to be locked up at home, like in a dungeon
about Emelya: a teenager is loaded with household chores and dreams of throwing off the burden of worries

A fairy tale is an effective method of raising a child. A lazy girl should hear about Cinderella's work, which is rewarded with the love of a prince. An overly trusting kid will not be hurt by the story of the wolf and the seven kids. It would be good for brothers who cannot share one bedroom for two to read "Teremok" for the night.

This is my world

Reading tall tales is a way to be with family. Nice to spend time with family. Take a break from the routine and play the roles of "Aibolit". Learn Chukovsky's "Telephone" and prepare a home performance.

Children do not think about the role that composed stories play in their lives. They don't imagine it could be otherwise. How not to know that Cheburashka was born in an orange box? Never hear the hits of the Bremen Town Musicians? Do not sympathize with the Vodyanoy, with whom no one hangs out?

By the way, and horror stories must be familiar to children. In a black-black room, you can't be brave. You definitely need to practice on mom and dad. Learn to sneak up and yell, "Give me back my heart!" It awakens emotions.

Until a few decades ago, scientists believed that young children knew very little about the world around them.

Piaget's opinion on how children's perceptions are formed

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, credited with founding scientific research about children's thinking was convinced that children before school age they cannot understand how the world around them is, and what is going on in the minds of other people.

In a series of interviews and experiments conducted with children in the mid-20th century, the scientist suggested that they are trapped in their subjective point of view and unable to imagine what other people think, feel or believe. In his opinion, young children do not pay attention to the fact that different people may have different points of view or that their own perspectives change over time.

Scientist's omissions

Much of the subsequent research on thinking in early childhood has been heavily influenced by Piaget's ideas. Scientists have sought to refine this theory and empirically confirm his point of view. But it became increasingly clear that Piaget was missing something. He seemed to seriously underestimate the intellectual capacity of young children. So researchers began to develop more and more ingenious ways to find out what was going on in the minds of children, and as a result, more and more nuances were added to the picture of their abilities.

Consequently, old ideas about the egocentric nature of children and their weak intellectual abilities are increasingly challenged. They are gradually being replaced by the broader assumption that children see meaning not only in the physical world, but also understand other people even at a very early age.

Dark ages of mental development

Historically, children have not been given high marks for their intelligence. Piaget not only believed that children are egocentric in the sense that they are unable to distinguish their own point of view from others. He was also convinced that their thinking was characterized by systematic errors and confusion.

For example, the children he worked with seemed unable to separate causes from their effects, unable to define reality beyond superficial appearances. Children, according to Piaget, also become victims of magical and mythical thinking: the child may believe that the sun is a ball that someone threw into the sky, where he grew more and more. In fact, Piaget believed that the mental development of children progresses in the same way that, according to historians, human thought has developed during historical time: from mythical to logical thinking.

Piaget firmly believed that children focus solely on their own actions and ideas. When playing with others, they do not cooperate because they are not aware of the existence of different roles and perspectives. He was convinced that children literally cannot act together: instead of playing together, they play side by side, with little regard for others. And when a small child communicates with others, he allegedly cannot consider the point of view of the interlocutor and talks to himself without listening to others.

Piaget and his followers argued that children go through something like a dark age of mental development before slowly and gradually becoming sentient and rational when they reach school age. Along with this, an ever-growing understanding of other people is developing, including their views of the world.

Changing the mindset about consciousness

Today, a completely different picture of the mental development of children is emerging. Psychologists are constantly uncovering new insights into the depth of knowledge about the world of children younger age, including their understanding of other people. Recent research shows that even infants are sensitive to the perspectives and beliefs of others.

Part of the motivation to revisit some of Piaget's conclusions stems from an ideological shift about the origins of human knowledge that occurred in the second half of the 20th century. It became increasingly unpopular to assume that the basic understanding of the world is built solely through experience.

This was partly provoked by the theorist Noam Chomsky, who argued that something as complex as the rules of grammar cannot be understood by speech alone, but is an innate "language faculty." Others followed his example and identified further "main areas" in which knowledge supposedly cannot be collected solely through experience, and therefore must be innate. One such area is our knowledge of the minds of others. Some even argue that the basic knowledge about the minds of other people is not only in infants, but must be evolutionarily older, and therefore present in our closest relatives - great apes.

New ingenious research tools

In order to prove that babies know more about this area than has been acknowledged, the researchers had to come up with innovative ways to show it. Much of what we now recognize, for example, the far greater intelligence of children, came about through more sensitive research tools than Piaget had at his disposal.

Instead of engaging with toddlers in the form of a dialogue or forcing them to complete complex tasks, new methods pay attention to the behavior of children, which is natural at an early age. The idea is that these "small" behaviors give children the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge implicitly and spontaneously - without having to answer questions or follow instructions. For example, children can express a lot through facial expressions when they empathize with others.

When researchers measure these less demanding and often involuntary behaviors, they can detect sensitivity to other people's mental states at an earlier age than the methods used by Piaget and his students.

Modern research

In the 1980s, these types of implicit behaviors were accepted in developmental psychology. But it was some time before these tools were used to measure children's understanding of other people's mental lives. Recent studies have shown that even infants and young children are very sensitive to what is going on in the minds of others.

In one series of experiments, researchers at the University of Southern California found evidence that young children can even anticipate how others will feel when their expectations are not met.

Such studies show that much deeper processes are going on in the minds of infants and young children than previously thought. These layers of children's understanding cannot be accessed using the methods of Piaget and his successors. New research tools show that children know more than they can say.

The old ways matter

Despite these apparent advances in the study of the thinking of young children, it would be a serious mistake to write off the careful and systematic analyzes compiled by Piaget and his students, because the original methods revealed significant facts about how children think that new ones cannot discover " minimalist methods.

There is no consensus in modern society as to how accurate a conclusion we can draw from a look, a grimace, or a hand gesture. This behavior clearly indicates curiosity about what's going on in other people's minds, and likely an early intuition coupled with a willingness to learn further. This paves the way for richer and more explicit forms of understanding other people's minds. But they can never replace a child's growing ability to articulate and refine their understanding of how people behave and why.

The Importance of Piaget's Research

Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of infants, perhaps due to a lack of necessary tools. But his understanding of how a child gradually comes to understand the world around him and who he is in society remains as inspiring as it was 50 years ago. The challenge for developmental scientists today is integrating the new with the old, and understanding how infants' sensitivity to the minds of others gradually develops into a full-blown understanding of the people around them.

For a little baby, the world seems so big and unknown! Adults often forget that a child sees the world around him in a completely different way. Knowing some of the subtleties of children's perception, parents will be able to quickly help the child adapt to environment and avoid stress. After all, sometimes even the most ordinary crackling of branches outside the window can play out the baby’s fantasy and frighten him in earnest.

Acquaintance with the outside world and its stages

First you need to figure out how the baby gets acquainted with the world around him and how to help him in this difficult matter. Observation of the surrounding world has a very great importance for the baby. Observing the behavior of adults, animals, objects, the baby tries to give them an emotional assessment. He can respond with laughter to laughter, to the next joke to answer with crying. Most often, a child correctly understands this or that emotion, so there is even an opinion that a child cannot be deceived - he feels everything on an intuitive level.

In addition to observation, babies get to know the world around them using physical methods: they touch with pens, try by mouth, etc. It is necessary to select toys for the child according to age, so that gradually the child can master more and more new horizons. For example, if in the first months the baby simply rattled rattles, then in the subsequent months he develops logical thinking - he can already assemble a pyramid, and later even assemble a designer. Next, the baby begins to learn to draw, sculpt, weave, etc. With the help of play and creativity, the baby learns the world further and further. Nature occupies an important place in getting to know the world around the child. Children often need to be in nature so that they can observe natural phenomena, animals, etc.

Various natural phenomena make the little man think and fantasize, for example, acquaintance with snow can cause great delight in the baby, and when he learns that snowballs or a snowman can be made from it, he will be even more delighted. It is important to instill in the child love and careful attitude to nature, to make it clear to the child that nature is alive, and it cannot be offended.

The closest environment for a child is the family, so family relationships and harmony greatly affect the child's perception of the world as a whole. It is important to understand that for a child, parents are undeniable authorities and role models. The situation in the family instills in a person certain habits and views of the world, and this happens on a subconscious level. It is important to create a calm and warm atmosphere in the house, then the child will look at many things more calmly, if, on the contrary, there are often swearing and scandals in the family, the child can behave rudely in society.

Also, the perception of the world around the child is influenced by the social contacts of the child. The kid can communicate with other children in the yard near the sandbox, in kindergarten, and then at school, as well as in various circles and extracurricular activities. Communicating with other children, the child feels his belonging to a group, and also begins to understand that he is surrounded by other individuals who must be reckoned with. If parents help their child to correctly perceive the world around him, then in the future it will be much easier for him to adapt to an independent adult life, as well as to form his own character. Lack of parental help can lead to aggression, misunderstanding of simple things and generally accepted morals.

Children's perception of time

Children perceive time differently than adults. For a child, the phrase "Time flies unnoticed" seems incomprehensible. Children perceive time much more slowly. The child cannot sit quietly even for a couple of minutes - it seems to him that a lot of time has passed, but he has not done anything. It is necessary to constantly interest the child in something, from time to time to change the situation. Especially long stretches of time for children on trips and queues. Here you need to grab a few for the baby interesting games and be patient. Also, the children will not immediately answer the question you asked, because the children perceive what they hear with a delay of a couple of seconds.

Visual perception of children

The visual perception of children differs from that of an adult in the first two months of life. The visual apparatus of the child is not yet developed, he sees the image washed out and blurry. There is an opinion that a newborn child sees the world around him upside down. There is a lot of controversy about this, because. The fact that the image is upside down on the retina does not guarantee that the child also sees it upside down. For the development of the visual apparatus in the first months of life, the child should be shown toys of yellow and red colors, because. at this age for the baby they will be more understandable.

Children's taste perception

Taste perception in children is more developed than in adults. From the different ages the child is already able to distinguish sweet, sour, salty, etc. It is believed that the tastes of salty and sweet are most preferred for children, because. they are more pronounced. Therefore, children often refuse healthy food - cereals, vegetables, etc. Just them taste qualities not very pronounced. Bitter children are perceived extremely negatively.

Single source of perceptual information in children

It is believed that up to the age of 8, a child is able to analyze information about the world around him from only one sense organ, and cannot analyze them all together. Scientists conducted a series of experiments where children showed the best results in the perception of the world, using only one source of information.