Firstly, it is crucial to understand how children obtain visual information and how they explore this through sensory discovery and how various variables and models can be identified to display this activity. It is via these behavioral and biological responses that we can initiate the investigation between the relationship of cognition and picture books and what these positive outcomes are and how they correlate.
It is commonly stressed by educators that children discover the world through the five immediate senses of sight, smell, sound, taste, touch (Gainsely, 2011). Indicating that, visual input is an opportunity for children to extract information and begin building the early stages of emotional, spiritual, physical and mental development. For example, when applying the Atkinson and Shiffin 1971 Multistore Model of Memory, see Fig.2, to Blake’s 1996 illustrations in Dahl and Blake’s 1996 publication of Fantastic Mr Fox, see Fig.3. It can be identified that the illustrations from the literature act as the environmental input, which will then be visually acquired into the sensory memory of the child, combined with the aesthetic appeal of the illustrations, gaining the child’s attention, shall enter the short-term memory.
Reinforcing this concept is the biological work proposed by Crystal 2010, p.218-219. He comments on how eye movement does not fall in linear patterns when reading words but in fact travel via fixations and saccades; fixations being the longer focus of the two movements. It is the fovea, a collection of receptor type cells that are reached by the nerves of the eye that process light into electrical pulses that contain the visual data extracted by the sense, sight, that then receives transmission to the optic nerve for brain processing. If applied to the imagery as well as text under the Multistore Model of Memory, the fixations exercised by the eye would suggest a sensory rehearsal thus transferring information into the long term memory.
Supporting the notion of sensory input as a form of extracting visual information to lead into cognitive development is neurological Japanese study conducted by Ohgi, Loo and Mizuike, 2010. The aim of the research was to identify any changes of frontal brain activity in two scenarios in fifteen children; eight of which were girls, seven of which were boys. Scenario one consisted of the measure of activity whilst children read picture books with their mothers. Scenario two was the viewing of the book on screen. Results displayed that oxy-Hb significantly increased in both the left and right frontal parts of the brain during scenario one compared to that of scenario two. This suggests that children engaging in both picture books particularly with parental communication provides significant opportunity to develop cognitively and I this case socially also. Consequently, this would demonstrate that children reading Fantastic Mr Fox (Dahl and Blake, 1996), whilst focusing on the illustrations, would instigate the process of information travelling down the Multistory Model of Memory (Atkinson and Shiffin, 1971) lending chance for cognitive development.
The Public Thought.
Moreover, in a survey questioning the public opinion with regards to the importance that they believed illustrations in picture books have as an important role in child cognitive development, 83 of 84 participants expressed that picture books were important (Phillips and Facebook, 2016). Including statements such as: ‘Of course. For young children, pictures help them relate to the world around them,’ and ‘Absolutely, as it is said a picture paints a thousand words!’. In continuity with this, Fig.4 and Fig.5 present that 97% 100 participants, 38% of which were caregivers to children, believed that illustrations play a crucial role in the development of children. Although this is expressed opinion, some experienced countenance, it contributes consistent validity to the notion that cognition and picture books have a significant and effective positive correlation with one another in regards to context of children.
The Professional Thought.
‘A good illustration takes them by the hand, and feeds their brain something they can connect with that is outside their realm of experience’, (Bucci, 2016). The illustrator advocates that children are born with a mind of innocence in conjunction with a mind full of creativity. However, creativity requires experience to function in the optimum effective way; a quality children lack. It is his belief that an illustrator can stipulate an impression of this experience to begin feeding their personal imagination resulting in the development of the child’s creative cognitive development, reinforcing the previous views that illustrators hold powerful responsibility when crafting their work for this young audience. In the case of Fig.6: Guess How Much I love You. Jeram 1994 illuminates the text with beautiful imagery of Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare, which with application of a blank mind, introduce more immediate ideas of what the physical appearance of a hare is alongside interaction but more sensitively introduces semiotics of intimacy, friendship, love and happiness. Which through eye fixation and sensory input, will transmit into the brain, resulting in cognitive development.