Where Things Belong: The Development of Scene Knowledge in Childhood

Humans develop semantic and syntactic expectations about what objects typically appear where in everyday scenes. This study examined how children aged 6 to 10 process such scene-grammatical rules and how this ability develops. We assessed scene knowledge implicitly using two eye-tracking tasks: a free viewing and a visual search task featuring scenes with either consistent object placements or semantic/syntactic violations. We also measured explicit knowledge by asking children to furnish a dollhouse. Results showed that children looked less at consistent objects in the free viewing task. Our visual search task further revealed earlier fixations and faster reaction times to consistent objects. These results replicate previous findings in adults indicating more efficient processing and stronger expectations for objects placed consistent to scene grammar. Additionally, children who were more sensitive to syntactic violations in images showed greater accuracy in the dollhouse task. Scene knowledge grew more robust with age, as evidenced by shorter dwell times in the free viewing task and earlier fixations and faster responses to consistent objects in the visual search task. Together, these findings highlight the ongoing development of scene grammar in children and offer new insights into how implicit and explicit measures can tap into children’s visual cognition.