The Psychology Of The Child by Jean Piaget

Author:Jean Piaget
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-08-11T00:16:00+00:00

5. Images and Operations

Turning now to direct analysis of the relationship between imaginary representation and the operation, we shall consider only two examples, for they all demonstrate similar phenomena. The technique consists in presenting the customary tests for conservation of quantity (see Chapter 4, pages 97 ff.), but instead of questioning the subject about the transformations he has just observed, you ask him to anticipate what is going to happen by imagining the phases and results of the transformations. In the test of the conservation of liquids in which there is a standard glass A, a narrower glass B. and a wider glass C. subjects are asked to anticipate the result of pouring the liquid from A to B and C, and in particular to indicate the levels that will be reached by the water. Two interestin(y results (obtained by S. Taponier) are observed in the reactions of preoperatory subjects (five to seven). The majority anticipate that the levels in the three glasses will be the same and thus they predict that the quantity of liquid will he unchanged (conservation but for the wrong reason). It is after they actually see the results of the pouring-that is, the water rises higher in B than in A and less high in C-that they begin to deny all conservation of quantity.

However, a second group of subjects, smaller than the first, foresee correctly that the water will rise higher in B and less high in C than in A, but conclude from this in advance that the quantity of liquid is not the same. When you ask these children to pour equal amounts of water in A and B, they maintain the same level in both glasses. Even if the reproductive image of the levels is accurate, this is not sufficient for a judgment of conservation, as there is a lack of understanding of compensation. The child may say the water will rise higher in B "because the glass is narrower," but he does not therefore conclude that "higher X narrower = same quantity." For him, the narrowness of B is only an empirical indication that enables him to foresee (but not to understand) the rise in the level of the water.

Another experiment gives parallel results. A child of five or six places twelve red counters opposite twelve blue ones to make sure there is an equal number of each. Yet if you space out either the blue or the red counters. he concludes that the longer row contains more elements. The question arises whether this lack of conservation is due to a difficulty in imagining these displacements and a possible return of the displaced elements to their original positions. We therefore constructed a fan-shaped apparatus designed so that each blue counter in the compressed upper row communicated with a red counter in the spaced-out lower row by means of a lane within which the lower counter could move upward until it met its blue counterpart. This arrangement in no way altered the child's ideas.

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