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…

Critical thinking when engaged in science problem solving around even simple tasks such as the Piagetian volume conservation task is a complex endeavor. Tasks such as the conservation task often require the interaction of multiple cognitive systems. Parity judgment, retrieval, and lateral thinking are three examples of such systems interacting…

The aim of this paper is to highlight and discuss advantages and constraints of different methods applied within the field of children's thinking studies, through the test of the repeated question hypothesis validity, using the conservation of liquid task. In our perspective, the Piagetian interview is an ecologically valid context for…

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…

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)

Reports on an exploratory study of the ideas that students in the fourth semester of engineering have about conservation. Reviews the Piagetian position on the importance of conservations in logical operational structures in child development. Discusses the development of conservations in science during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and…

Some experiments concerning concrete-operational Piagetian skills are discussed in light of the interbehavioral approach in order to highlight the interacting role of antecedent stimuli and the setting of events in complex cognitive behaviors. Conservation, class inclusion, and classification are considered. Implications for a theory of…

This study tested 148 preschoolers between the ages of 48 and 72 months on a Piagetian number conservation task. Children's judgment accuracy, estimation, and response latency were measured. Children were also questioned about the number conservation principle. A four-step developmental sequence was hypothesized: (1) nonconservation; (2) correct…

The study examined the rate and order of conservation in 24 deaf children, ages 8.2 to 12.9 years using standard Piagetian instructions and procedures in sign language. Even the older children failed to demonstrate control over the conservation concept suggesting the presence of a cognitive difference in deaf children. (DB)

This study found that 23 hearing-impaired and 25 normally hearing children (ages 7-14) did not differ on nonverbal intelligence, but the hearing-impaired children obtained lower scores than normally hearing peers on a social decentration task and a nonsocial decentration task. Social decentration was positively correlated with nonsocial…

This study of 145 middle class first grade students investigated whether a relationship exists between early acquisition of Piagetian conservation tasks and gifted performance on a mental abilities test. Students were evaluated individually on tasks involving the conservation of number, of liquid quantity, and of mass. A moderate correlation was…

Describes study that investigated whether the use of LOGO accelerates cognitive development of five- and seven-year-old kindergarten students as measured by Piagetian-based tests of conservation of length, number, and ability to identify geometric shapes. Pretests and posttests are described and directions for future research are given.…

Three experiments explored the developmental relationship between counting and number conservation in children from three to six years old. Results indicated that there was a close relationship between the two; that only the oldest children gave evidence of conserving; and that, in general, there is evidence of protracted development in young…

A study was made to assess the extent to which social interaction is beneficial to cognitive development. A total of 154 boys and girls, 5 through 9 years of age, initially participated individually in a conservation-like pretest requiring prediction of the way a beam would tip when different numbers of weights were placed at differing distances…

Two studies demonstrated dissociation between preschoolers' understanding of pictorial and mental representations. Results showed that false picture tasks were significantly easier than false belief tasks. There was no correlation between performance on the two. Children were trained on false belief, false picture, or number conservation tasks;…