Are young children's judgements of liquid inequality rule guided or stimulus driven?

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that children below the age of 4 years are more likely to judge liquid quantity on the basis of the relative fullness of two containers than on the heights of the liquid columns. Two experiments are reported that investigated this phenomenon further in the context of judgements of liquid inequality. When relative fullness information was available children below the age of 4 years performed significantly better than children above that age. An explanation that young children use a relative fullness rule is contrasted with an explanation based on stimulus salience. It is argued that young children do not use a single strategy but rather that their judgements are determined by salient stimulus dimensions.

The child's understanding of functional relations in the domain of liquid quantity

“…A study by Kaplan (1987) linked conservation of continuous quantity (liquid) to the child's capacity to use measurement in comparing liquid quantity. McShane & Morrison (1983Morrison ( , 1985 found that, while 3-year-olds tend to use a relative-fullness strategy in judging liquid quantity, 4-year-olds are more likely to rely on height cues. These studies employed single-item measures of the constructs under investigation; their results were, therefore, subject to some unreliability.…”