Investigated whether children will relinquish belief in Piagetian concepts upon presentation of disconfirming evidence. The conservation of weight concept extinguished more readily than transitivity of weight, and only for the latter was a developmental trend evident. (DP)

Preschool and kindergarten nonconservers (N=114) were examined for their use of dimensions relevant to quantity in two conservation-of-substance tasks. The results were interpreted as being counter to Piaget's 4-step equilibration model of the development of compensation and conservation. (ST)

A pretheoretical model of cognitive development is proposed which is based on the empirical establishment of Gagne's cumulative learning sequences. (Author)

The conservation of distance and of length and the awareness of the horizontal and of the vertical do seem to significantly precede the measurement of length, but the results did not indicate that these four tasks have any developmental order among themselves. Bibliography, charts. (Author)

Questions concerning the effects of familiar and alien materials, age and culture, and the etiology of conservation are examined in number and continous quantity tasks assessing conservation in Yoruba children from traditional and educationally advantaged homes. (Author/AJ)

Results indicated that the training method (discrimination) induced 8 of the 12 subjects to acquire conservation of a stable kind. (Author/DR)

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)

Qualitative identity, qualitative identity and equivalence conservation were assessed in 60 retarded boys and girls in three groups (mental ages 5.4, 6.3, and 7.5). Half the subjects were provided a memory aid while the other half were not. (MS)

This study investigated the influence of knowledge of conservation on recall of an event by 4- to 7-year-old children. Changes in recall over time were found to follow an inconsistent pattern and seemed to be unrelated to changes in the subject's stage of development. (Author/JMB)

Suggests some difficulties and challenges in understanding and teaching Piaget's new theory. Outlines some differences between Piaget's new and standard theories, such as the diminished status of the emergent skills that mark the onset of concrete operational thinking and the perception of achievements in concrete operations as empirical…

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 was designed to determine the age relationships for each type of perceptual strategy used by nonconserving children during tests of conservation of quantity. The results indicate that the type of perceptual strategy reflected in children's answers varied with their age. (JMB)