ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the crucial concept of theory of mind and its tight connection with the depiction of characters in picturebooks as well as the related ability of perspective-taking and explains how a cognitive approach to picturebooks might look. Many 'cognitive' aspects of picturebooks have been discussed with respect to so-called literacy. One way of sorting out the field is to distinguish several subfields of literacy, for example, linguistic literacy, visual literacy, and literary literacy. A cognitive theory of picturebooks should address the question of how language acquisition, visual literacy, and literary literacy interact, and how these interactions may be related to other cognitive processes, such as theory of mind or emotional and social development. The foremost goal of an interdisciplinary critical synthesis of cognitive studies and picturebook research consists in gaining a better awareness of what children may learn by looking at picturebooks.
