Cognitive correlates of complexity of children's drawings

240 children (60 each at ages 4, 6, 8, and 10 years) were administered Dennis' (1987) Five Drawing Tasks and five additional developmental tasks. Three hypotheses were tested: that object recognition and working memory would be related to increasing complexity, that both would load on separate factors, and that higher-order analyses would indicate an underlying second-order spatial factor. Analysis included very strong zero-order correlations with age. When age was partialed out, three first-order factors were obtained. Higher-order analyses yielded one second-order factor which appeared related to a general factor of spatial intelligence.