Informing about states in the actual world by means of pictures: the role of contiguity in children’s perception of reference in iconic signs

In preschool, and at home, pictures and movie are often used to communicate with children about states in the lived world. They are all media with perceptual similarity in relation to their references. In this presentation it is suggested, however, that indexicality, in the sense of a contiguity connecting visual events so as to form meaningful sequences in time and space, is the important factor rather than variations of iconicity, for the younger children's understanding of visually communicated information as information about the actual world.