Dual representation (psychology)

Representational insight is the ability to detect and mentally represent the relation between a symbol and its referent. Whether or not a child gains this insight depends on the similarity between the symbol and its referent, the level of information provided about the relationship between the symbol and the referent, and a child's prior experience with symbols. An essential part of representational insight is dual representation or the existence of multiple mental representations of a single symbolic entity. Judy DeLoache coined this term after conducting many studies in which young children would watch an experimenter hide a toy in a model room and were then asked to retrieve a similar, but larger toy from a larger room.[1]

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