Conservation and executive function (EF) are important early childhood skills; however, knowledge about their relationship is scarce. Hence, in this study, this relationship is investigated, and a comparison is conducted between the Piagetian conservation and EF tasks to obtain the total hemoglobin (mMmm) for the left and right brain activity in…

A total of 4six children with a mean age of 6 years were randomly assigned to either a standard or modified testing condition in order to assess their conservation judgments. Significantly higher levels of "conserving" judgments were obtained in the modified condition. (Author/CI)

Micronesian children residing on Truk and Kosrae were examined for performance on eight conservation tasks and on one task each of centration and reversibility (generally precursors of conservation in Piaget's theory of cognitive development). A total of 75 children were tested--33 in the village of Moen, Truk, and 42 in all the villages of…

Twenty-one male and 21 female adolescents were tested individually for conservation of mass, weight, and volume. (CM)

Tests Piaget's assertion that the anticipation of conservation among otherwise nonconserving children is a pseudoconservation since it is limited to those lacking knowledge of covariation. Number, area, and length conservation tasks and a covariation task were given to 96 children from kindergarten through the fifth grade. (Author/SS)

Gifted (N=19) and average-functioning (N=19) hearing impaired adolescents were examined for ability to perceive that still water remains horizontal regardless of degree to which the container is tilted. Gifted Ss performed better on this task than average functioning Ss and the straight-sided containers induced more errors than containers with…

The results of four studies involving three to seven year olds revealed that, by age three, some children (1) appreciated conservation of matter despite visual disappearance and the existence of invisible particles; and (2) made use of the particle concept to explain how a particle can continue to exist and maintain its properties despite visual…

In a longitudinal study conducted in Reykjavik, Iceland, 60 male and 61 female subjects were tested at 7, 8, and 9 years of age in order to investigate their comprehension of three concrete-operational concepts (conservation, class inclusion, and logical multiplication). This report focuses on a logical reconstruction of the developmental sequence…

The strength of the tendency of children (aged 4 1/2 to 7 1/2 years) to give phenomenist reading of neutral questions about object properties was investigated. Phenomenist answers decreased with age, and social dominance and conversational context affected answers. (SKC)

Studied the development of the concepts of energy conservation and entropy in 5- to 15-year-old children. Energy conservation was not well understood until about age 15. Entropy was understood by 9- to 15-year-olds when the concept was illustrated by the gradual mixing of differently colored, rolling marbles. (Author/DB)

Attempted to determine to what extent the conservation concepts of young children change in the period between kindergarten and first grade. (DD)

Findings on 20 children who passed an area conservation task and 20 who didn't suggested that conserving children applied an additive rule, while nonconserving children presented patterns suggesting centration on one of the two dimensions. Implications for Anderson's and Piaget's conceptions of conservation development are discussed. (RH)

Preschoolers made judgments about solutions in which substances were dissolved. Preschoolers (1) distinguished visual appearance from underlying reality; (2) recognized the conservation of taste, smell, and dangerous properties; and (3) by age five recognized that matter can be decomposed into pieces too tiny to be seen by the naked eye. (BC)

This study tests the hypothesis that components of play such as immagination contribute to cognitive development. Twenty-four middle-class children attending a university-affiliated preschool were observed for 20 one-minute play observations during the Spring Semesters of 1978 and 1979. Play was coded using categories for both social (solitary,…

This paper discusses research on how concepts differ in their internal organization and how these differences interact with and affect cognitive processing in children. Two types of natural concepts are focused on: classes (nouns with class-inclusion organization, such as "trees,""students,""soldiers" and collections…