INIBIOMA   20415
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN BIODIVERSIDAD Y MEDIOAMBIENTE
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Enaction can favor children's cognitive processes in Piagetian Conservation Tasks
Autor/es:
LOZADA, MARIANA; CARRO, NATALIA
Lugar:
Amsterdam
Reunión:
Congreso; 48th Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society. The Dynamics of Development: Process, (Inter-)Action, & Complexity; 2018
Institución organizadora:
Jean Piaget Society
Resumen:
Aim and Introduction: Increasing evidence demonstrates the significant role of enaction in cognition. The enactive theory highlights the importance of active manipulation and agency, and proposes that perception and action are inseparable. Among Piaget's invaluable contributions is his discovery that quantity conservation tends to happen in children of 5-8 years of age. Piaget and his collaborators designed a series of tasks in which children observed, then evaluated whether a certain quantity remained the same when nothing was added or removed, but changes in visual appearance were introduced. Thus, he analyzed children's ability to understand conservation despite the apparent transformation of number, matter, or liquid quantity. According to Piaget (1965) and several other investigators, 5-7 year olds have difficulty understanding the conservation concept, whereas 7-8 year olds usually become aware of the invariance principle. Thus, three developmental stages were established: children who consistently identify the invariance principle (Total Conservers, TC), those who partially identify it (Partial Conservers, PC) and those who do not identify it in any task (Non-Conservers, NC). These tasks are ideal for evaluating the role of action in children?s understanding. In the present work we sought to analyze whether enaction could favor cognitive understanding of the Piagetian conservation tasks in 6-7 year olds. Quantity conservation conceptualization was evaluated by comparing two conditions: children who actively participated in the transformation process, and children who observed an adult?s demonstration of the transformation process. We hypothesized that hands-on experience would aid understanding of the invariance principle beyond the chronological age differences of the children within this transitional developmental stage. Thus, we expected to find that children who enacted the transformation process would recognize the conservation principle in a higher proportion than those who only observed the demonstration. Methods: The study was conducted with 105 children of first grade from public and private schools of Bariloche, Argentina (48.57% boys, 51.43% girls). The participants were all in good health, and there were no significant differences in body mass index or socioeconomic level. One child at a time carried out an experimental session of 20-30 min. Two conditions were performed: an observation (N=47), and an action condition (N=58). Half the children were randomly assigned to each condition. ProcedureEach child performed the tasks in a silent room in the school, sitting at a table (in front of the researcher) on which the task materials were set out. Each answer per task per child was evaluated.In the action condition the researcher asked each child to enact the seven Piagetian conservation tasks: two liquid quantity tasks, two mass quantity tasks, a number task and two length tasks. Each task consisted of three stages: Sameness condition, changing condition and judgment stage. In the judgment stage the researcher asked the child two questions: Do both containers have the same quantity? and Can you tell me why? Can you explain why they are the same/different? Answers to the first question were recorded as the judgment response, and to the second as the explanation.In the observer condition the child observed demonstrations of the seven tasks performed by a researcher, and the same stages were conducted.We analyzed children's answers related to each task. Depending on each child's conservation judgment, participants were classified as TC (conservation recognition in all tasks), PC (conservation in some of the tasks), or NC (no conservation recognition in any task)Explanations were categorized as follows: (1) describing reversibility; (2) describing compensation (i.e. that the quantity is the same although one dimension of the object changed and was compensated for by another dimension; (3) describing that the relevant dimension remained unaltered in spite of appearance being changed (i.e., identity); (4) stating that the quantity was the same before and after the transformation; (5) explaining that the quantity was the same because the researcher neither added to nor subtracted from the original quantity; and (6) explanations that included sensory and physical perceptions (Table 1). Children who did not acknowledge conservation described why they perceived a change in quantity, and this was considered a Non-equivalence explanation, categorized as: (1) explanations describing actions that had been performed without recognizing the possibility of reversibility; (2) two dimensions were described without showing an understanding of the principle of compensation; and (3) explanations focusing on a single dimension without taking other dimensions into account.Results: When comparing the action and observation groups, we found that in all tasks the proportion of conservation answers was significantly higher in the action group than in the observation one. We detected a higher proportion of TC in the action group and a lower proportion of NC; no differences were detected between the relative proportions of PC. Moreover, there were no differences in age between TC, PC and NC in the observation or action groups. When evaluating equivalence explanations in both groups, we found that children used embodied ways of expressing their experience in the action group. They mentioned having felt; they also mentioned their fingers, hands and steps. There was more diversity of equivalence explanations in the action group than in the observation group. No differences between groups were observed in the nonequivalence explanations.Discussion: The present study shows how active participation in the Piagetian conservation tasks, as opposed to mere observation of a demonstration carried out by the researcher, increased understanding of the conservation principle. The fact that conservation performance was higher in the action group than in the observation one suggests that the experience of manipulating objects throughout the transformation processes facilitated conservation awareness. The fact that active experience during the transformation process was effective in facilitating conservation performance highlights the crucial role of agency. Our findings, which are in line with the enactive theory, provide new evidence of how enaction and agency can favor conceptual processes in children.