The conceptual level, working memory capacity and domain-specific skills of two girls (aged 7 and 11 years old) and two boys (aged 9 and 10 years old) who displayed exceptional intellectual performance were investigated from Case's neo-Piagetian theoretical perspective. Five measures of conceptual level and two measures of working memory capacity…

Cognitive-learning theories hold a unique place in history: they explore the depths of the mind from the perspective of process. This paper discusses the history of cognitive-learning theories and how they grew to shape the way one perceives, organizes, stores, and retrieves information. The paper, after providing a definition and synopsis of…

Reviews two books, the first of which explores how children conceive possible ways to solve problems and differentiate among real, possible, and necessary solutions. The second book explains the construction of knowledge as a dialectical tension of the opening of new possibilities constrained by increasingly stronger necessities from which a…

This new edition of one of the classic works of psychology highlights the achievements of this pioneer in the study of intelligence and child development. (SLD)

Playing games, particularly pretense games, is one of the areas where young children first enter into collective, conventional practices. This chapter reviews recent empirical data in support of this claim and explores the idea that games present a cradle for children's growing into societal and institutional life more generally. (Contains 2…

Piagetian tasks have more to do with the child's ability to inhibit interference than they do with the ability to grasp their underlying logic. Here we used a chronometric paradigm with 11-year-olds, who succeed in Piaget's conservation-of-weight task, to test the role of cognitive inhibition in a priming version of this classical task. The…

In this article, we trace the development of Hatano's research, focusing on the core of his research interest, namely, expertise, conceptual development, and classroom learning. He held both Piagetian constructivist views and Vygotskian sociocultural perspectives in balance, and preferred to study human cognition executed in everyday life. This…

Investigators influenced by Anglo-American epistemology have frequently misinterpreted Piaget's genetic constructivism as an empirical psychology, seeing knowledge acquisition as a process in which representations of the world come into increasingly close correspondence with an ontologically unproblematic external reality. Both this interpretation…

This brief paper argues that structural analysis--an extended form of cognitive task analysis--demonstrates that both domain dependent and domain independent knowledge can be derived from specific content domains. It is noted that the major difference between the two is that lower order rules (specific knowledge) are derived directly from specific…

From the ancient mythological motif of the divine child to the perspectives of Freud and Piaget, this historical inquiry traces the philosophical images of the young child in Western thought. (Author/BB)

Examines the relationship of intelligence to the internal and external world of the individual and to the experience of the individual. Also examines competing models and metaphors that have motivated questions about these relationships. Indicates that a theory that addressed all three areas simultaneously is the triarchic theory. (JN)

Results of two experiments involving 11-, 14-, 17-, or 20-month-old infants indicated that 14-month and older infants did not differentiate the combination of properties that affords containment and that understanding of the causal basis of that function did not begin to emerge until about 17 months. (RH)

Notes the tumultuous relationship between researchers and theorists who identify with either Jean Piaget or Lev Vygotsky. Argues that both theorists start from basically the same place in developing their contributions to the study of human development and that new and important theoretical contributions may be possible through a dialectical…

This article analyses the way in which Piaget links the analogy between the child and the primitive with a theory of the history of the sciences, that is, it analyses Piaget's version of Haeckel's principle in which ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis. From this analysis, we reconstitute the operations through which Piaget forms and expresses…

This study describes how medical and nursing students develop their conceptions and understanding of science during 3 years of study at the academic level. The point of departure is the students' commonsense conceptions at the start of the undergraduate programme, which are seen as alternative ways of thinking to the more theoretical explanatory…