Stage theories are prominent and controversial in science. One possible reason for their appeal is that they provide order and predictability. Participants in Experiment 1 rated stage theories as more orderly and predictable (but less credible) than continuum theories. In Experiments 2-5, we showed that order threats increase the appeal of stage…

Investigates why young children who cannot seriate on the standard Piagetian task do seriate when given a task that uses different materials. Explores the process by which various levels of seriation ability are achieved. Findings are consistent with information-processing analyses of development but conflict with Piagetian stage theory.…

A total of 14 psychotic children with a mean age of nine years, two months, and 14 normal children having a mean age of six years, four months, were compared in terms of structural level and functional abilities on classification and seriation tasks. (Author/RH)

Five-year-old children were trained on the length relationships between adjacent members of a five-term series of sticks, and subsequently tested on their abilities (1) to judge the length relationships between nonadjacent pairs of the series, and (2) to incorporate an unseen novel stick into the series through inference. (CM)

Looked for evidence of an intermediate stage between the second and third stages in multiple seriation during which subjects seriate the material on one dimension and classify it on the other. Fine grained analysis of stages is considered useful in elucidating the mechanisms of progression through a stage sequence. (GO)

A 3-year longitudinal study assessed cognitive changes among rural children 3 to 5 years old and validated the construct validity of the Nebraska Wisconsin Cognitive Assessment Battery (NEWCAB). Multistage area sampling techniques were used with a repeated measures, control group design. Participants in the sample were 40 3-year-olds, 57…

The way that children construct the representation they use to solve transitive inference problems was examined. Forty-eight children 4.5 to 5 years old and 48 children 6 to 7 years old were asked to learn either a three-item series or a four-item nonseries. They were asked to learn the relationships between different colors of faces that were all…

Three experiments are reported which utilized a five-term transitive inference task to investigate the development of preschool childrens', elementary school students', and college students' ability to solve transitive inferences on length relations. A developmental model specifying changes at two stages of constructing an internal linear order is…

Seriation refers to the process of ordering objects along single or multiple magnitude dimensions such as length, weight, and color. The ability to order objects in terms of some attribute is essential for the child's understanding of the properties of numbers. This study investigated the effect on seriation performance of increasing both the…

Investigates the role of operative schemes in explaining older children's superior memory on past Piagetian memory tasks. Contrasts were made between the performance of normal v learning disabled grade school children, and between preschool children who either possessed or lacked seriation schemes. (Author/SS)

Six Piagetian-type tasks, designed to examine associated topological groupings, were examined to determine if a hierarchical relationship existed among them. The groupings examined were: the partitioning of sets and addition of subsets, reciprocity of proximities, one-to-one multiplication of elements, order of placement, symmetrical interval…

New conceptions of learning, analogy, and capacity have fundamentally changed scientists' view of cognitive development. New conceptions of learning help to explain how representations of the world are acquired. New models of analogical reasoning have suggested that logical inferences are often made by mapping a problem into a mental model, or…

This article discusses the challenge mathematics educators face in deciding what and how mathematics is to be taught, and offers some suggestions for teachers of young children based on Piaget's developmental theory of mathematics. Piaget's cognitive stages are briefly described and the concrete stage, which spans the age range included in early…

This unit of the Flexible Learning System (FLS), the second of a 3-volume series on children's thinking, focuses on the development of order relations (seriation) in children between 3 and 8 years of age. The series is based on the application of Jean Piaget's work to early childhood education. Seriation concerns the way children reason about…