ABSTRACT
The drawings described in chapter 4 are based on a simple denotation rule: Use round regions to stand for lumps and long regions to stand for sticks. The term lump is used here to describe objects such as heads and houses that are about equally extended in all three dimensions in space, and the term sticks is used to describe objects such as arms and legs that are extended in only one dimension. The marks used to represent these picture primitives are either single lines or areas enclosed by outlines. Single lines, or long areas, are used to stand for long regions, and round areas are used to stand for round regions. In addition, small round regions (represented by small areas or dots) are often used to stand for small objects such as eyes that are not significantly extended in any direction. But this leaves out of account a whole class of objects that are neither round nor long, but flat. This class includes objects such as the tabletops, hat brims, hands, and wheels. I refer to objects of this kind as disks or slabs, depending on whether they are more or less round or rectangular. After the very earliest drawings, one of the things that
children have to discover is how to represent objects that are flat, as well as objects that are round, long, or small.
