Not neutrals

In the course of reading the paper at reference 1, inter alia about the development of what psychiatrists are pleased to call the theory of mind, I wanted to be reminded of the age at which children start to realise that, for example, a picture of a an interesting rattle is not the same as the rattle. And perhaps having got the answer to that one, I would move onto animals.

So I thought I would ask Bing, giving it the search term 'child picture not real'. Bing thought my interest was in what sort of pictures could I decently take of a child. When did family snaps become child pornography? Not what I wanted at all, so I tried Google, with much the same result.

I shall try a bit harder shortly, but in the meantime, I share the thought that Bing and Google are not neutrals. Rather, they are very much part of their time, this in that their search results depend on interests and concerns of people at large, as captured on the Internet. Child pornography is a live issue and both products snapped my search term onto that issue, rather as Powerpoint can be asked to snap elements of a diagram onto a grid. These interests and concerns of people at large trumped whatever Bing and Google knew about me in particular - with both of them, at times, being surprisingly good at working out what I am after. Presumably on the basis of my email, search and browsing history. 

My next search term was 'child picture understand', with which both Bing and Google did much better. With Google turning up reference 2, which, while not answering the question on the first page, does look as if it will eventually point me somewhere that does.

But being in a hurry, I thought to tack 'age' onto the end of my Google search term, which then turned up reference 3. Where the answer, or at least an answer of sorts, is to be found on the first page.

Reference 1: Domain specificity in conceptual development – Leslie, A.M., & Thaiss, L. – 1992.

Reference 2: Children’s Picture Interpretation: Appearance or Intention? - Emma Armitage and Melissa L. Allen - 2015.

Reference 3: Toddlers’ referential understanding of pictures - Patricia A. Ganea, Melissa Allen Preissler, Lucas Butler, Susan Carey and Judy S. DeLoache - 2009.