Critics assert that Piaget's tests seriously underestimate operational thinking by failing to consider experimenter and presentation variables. This experiment studied the impact of these social influences on number conservation performance. Subjects viewed videotapes in which the task was presented by an adult or by puppets. Presentation mode…

Seventy percent of the children (non-conservers in length) who had to respond to length equality as opposed to inequality made the correct invariance judgment and could characterize their choices in invariance language, while still failing the standard verbal task in which the experimenter used such phrases. (Author/SJL)

A series of item analyses of the Concept Assessment Kit Conservation (Goldschmid) conducted for a sample of educable mentally retarded children showed that the probability of a correct response differed from task to task. Evidence indicated that the order of difficulty of the tasks resembled that for nonretarded children. (Author)

Elderly women volunteers were given a pretest battery of conservation tasks. Conservation scores were the highest yet recorded by elderly participants; consequently, training was not implemented. Results suggest that advanced chronological age does not guarantee poor conservation performance. (Author)

Examines the imaging processes that children at different operatory levels use on a spatial rotation task. Subjects were 80 elementary school girls ranged in age from 5 to 10.2 years. (MP)

The majority of 63 elderly women were able to pass tests in the conservation of mass (98 percent), volume (100 percent), and surface area (65 percent). These results conflict with previous research about Piagetian abilities of elderly people. (RL)

Five-year-olds were found to give more conserving responses to small number versions than to a large number version of a test of identity conservation. Superiority of performance with small number versions was reduced but not eliminated when the opportunity to requantify was removed. (Author/SJL)

Results provide little support for viewing decentering ability as the major cognitive skill underlying developmental trends on tasks of cognitive perspective taking, peer description, humor understanding, and causal attribution. (Author/BH)

Investigated the role of schooling and urbanization on the acquisition of conservation of physical quantities in 384 Senagalese children of 7, 9, 11, and 13 years. Results revealed functional divergences in the acquisition of physical quantities. (RJC)

Presents the Astro-Blaster as a method of the laws of conservation of momentum and energy during the creation of a supernova. Several elastic balls are aligned for a drop, followed by multiple collisions which result in the top ball reaching tremendous heights relative to the drop height. (JRH)

We describe an iteratively designed sequence of activities involving the modelling of one-dimensional collisions between moving objects based on programming in ToonTalk. Students aged 13-14 years in two settings (London and Cyprus) investigated a number of collision situations, classified into six classes based on the relative velocities and…

Area and measurement tasks representative of those used by Piaget were administered to 168 primary students. Data were analyzed to determine effects of sex, age, and task sequence. (SD)

Two Piagetian tests which require manipulation, two conservation tasks, and the Longeot pencil and paper formal reasoning test were administered to 62 high school biology students. For all measures the males' mean level was higher than that of the females. (MLH)

Tasks administered to sixty females 60-120 months of age show that it is possible to test for Piagetian logic by using problems structured in a social context and also suggest that the order of acquisition of logical operations with social stimuli is consistent with the order which has been established with the use of physical stimuli. (Author/CS)

A decrement toward lowered levels of cognitive functioning was noted in a study of aged residents of a dependent care facility when tested on a series of cognitive conservation tasks. (Author/KM)