Note 108 — Chapter IX

Touching the power of recognizing pictorial representations among animals, this unquestionably occurs in dogs (see Animal Intelligence, pp. 455, 456), and there is some evidence to show that it is likewise displayed by monkeys. For Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire relates of a species of Midas (Corinus) that it distinguished between different objects depicted on an engraving; and Audouin “showed it the portraits of a cat and a wasp, at which it became much terrified: whereas, at the sight of a figure of a grasshopper or a beetle, it precipitated itself on the picture, as if to seize the objects there represented” (Bates, Nat. on Amaz., p. 60). The age at which a young child first learns to recognize pictorial resemblances no doubt varies in individual cases. I have not met with any evidence on this subject in the writings of other observers of infant psychology. The earliest age at which I observed any display of this faculty in my own children was at eight months, when my son stared long and fixedly at my own portrait in a manner which left no doubt on my mind that he recognized it as resembling the face of a man. Moreover, always after that day when asked in that room, “Where’s papa?” he used at once to look up and point at the portrait. Another child of my own, which had not seen this portrait till she was sixteen months old, immediately recognized it at first sight, as was proved by her pointing to it and calling it “Papa.” Two months later I observed that she also recognized pictorial resemblances of animals, and for many months afterwards her chief amusement consisted in looking through picture-books for the purpose of pointing out the animals or persons depicted—calling “Ba-a-a” to the sheep, “Moo” to the cows, grunting for the pigs, &c., these sundry sounds having been taught her as names by the nurse. She never made a mistake in this kind of nomenclature, and spontaneously called all pictorial representations of men “Papa,” of women “Mama,” and of children “Ilda”—the latter being the name which she had given to her younger brother. Moreover, if a picture-book were given into her hands upside-down, she would immediately perceive and rectify the mistake; and whenever she happened to see a pictorial representation of an animal—as, for instance, on a screen or wall-paper—she would touch it and utter the sound that was her name for that animal. With a third child, who was still wholly speechless at eighteen months, I tried the experiment of spreading out a number of photographic portraits, and asking him “Which is mamma? Which is papa?” &c. Without any hesitation he indicated them all correctly.