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

Background: Traditional studies of children's mastery of conservation of volume in liquids and solids have reported that conservation of volume in liquids is an easier concept to master than its solid counterpart. However, the two concepts have been assessed in different ways, with the assessment tool for solids employing a more complex process.…

Two experiments investigated which of two factors is responsible for decalage between Piaget's equivalence and identity conservation tasks. Performance of 78 primary school students between 57 and 79 months of age was compared on equivalence and identity tasks and a third task, equivalence I, which retains transitivity requirement of Piaget's task…

Displays that by themselves always elicited chance judgment of number were shown to three- to four-year-olds and six- to seven-year-olds. The first display was transformed into the second, and so on. Results indicated that three- to four-year-olds do not understand conservation of number because judgements of successive displays were independent…

The processes by which children construct images of anticipated end states of a transposition movement were examined on two tasks. Results support Piaget's (1977) hypothesis that reasoning on the basis of state correspondence defines a developmental level which precedes the development of transformational thought. (Author/MP)

This study is a partial replication and extension of research reported by Golomb and Cornelius in 1977. Training in the present study was significantly less effective than in the earlier research. Findings suggest experimenter and testing effects on performance. (RH)

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)

For 89 White children 6 to 11 years old and of upper middle class, scores on Piagetian tasks of conservation of length and volume were related to age but field independence was correlated significantly to these scores. (Author)

Eight quantitative comparison tasks were administered to four- to seven-year-olds. Findings indicated that performance on comparison tasks was related to performance on a number conservation test and to age. Factor analysis yielded a unitary factor. (RH)

Children with mild learning difficulties (MLD) who had not developed conservation of number, length, weight, and volume worked on conservation problems. MLD children who worked on the problems with another child who challenged their nonconserving responses made more progress on the problems than did MLD children who worked on the problems in…

Purpose: The authors investigated mental representations of Piagetian conservation tasks in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing peers. Children with SLI have normal nonverbal intelligence; however, they exhibit difficulties in Piagetian conservation tasks. The authors tested the hypothesis that conservation…

Questions concerning the conservation of a nonequivalent volume were posed to 65 nonconservers in terms of an imagined reward. Results indicated significantly more nonconservers demonstrated an awareness of empirical reversal or performed the preference relational operation correctly as compared to conditions that required comparative-relational…

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…

In the first experiment, observations were made of children ages four-and-a-half to five-and-a-half years of age who were induced to use counting or matching in a Piagetian number conservation task. The spontaneous matching and counting behavior of a more mature but not yet conserving sample was investigated in the second experiment. (RH)

Reports on a study designed (1) to modify one of the few existing standardized tests of conservation so that it can be used to assess the conservation of identity as well as the conservation of equivalence and (2) to use both versions of the test to gather additional evidence on the question of developmental priority among young children. (MP)