Experiments in seriation with children: Towards an information processing explanation of the horizontal decalage.

Abstract

Thirty-seven children between the ages of 5 and 10 were tested on three seriation tasks: length, weight, and a specially constructed "hidden length" seriation designed to eliminate the typically observed horizontal decalage between the length and weight tasks. The experimental results confirmed the main hypotheses: that the hidden length seriation was more difficult than the normal length seriation and of approximately equal difficulty to the weight seriation. An information processing analysis was then carried out with one child at the operational level of cognitive development, Pierre (8;1). This led to the construction of a performance model, a computer program cast as a set of production rules, that simulated in detail Pierre's behavior on the three tasks. The general and task specific elements of the program show how the length sedations are facilitated by perceptual factors and the organization of memory, though within the framework of a common insertion strategy that Pierre employed on all three tasks. Piaget and Inhelder (1962) and Piaget and Szeminska (1941) demonstrated a horizontal decalage of about three years between length and weight seriation. A horizontal decalage arises when a cognitive structure that can be successfully applied to task X cannot, though it is composed of the same organization of logical operations, be extended to task Y as well (Flavell, 1963). Since both seriation experiments are supposed to reflect the same underlying logical structures, namely, the transitive asymmetric relations of groupement v (Piaget, 1972), why should there be such a timelag? According to Piaget (1957) it can be explained by perceptual factors: length seriation is a "facilitating situation" (Pascual-Leone & Bovet, 1966) where the visual simultaneity of the perceived elements favours the construction of an ascending or descending series, for example, a staircase. Weight seriation, on the other hand, constrains the child to use a more conceptual strategy since all elements look alike and information is only supposed to be obtainable by means of a scale. 9 We wish to thank Nicole Pothier, whose data (Pothier-Desaulniers, 1971) figure in this research, for her active participation; also, J. Gascon, D. Klahr, L. Laurencelle, J. Pascual-Leone, and Z. Pylyshyn. This research has been supported by le Ministere de l'Education du Quebec as part of its "Programme de formation de chercheurs et d'action concertee.

Reevaluation of the literature on the development of transitive inferences.

“…One would expect even greater diversity in processing strategies among different tasks requiring similar logical operations-for instance, among various measures of transitive reasoning, such as verbal transitivity tasks, measurement tasks, and seriation tasks. Baylor and Lemoyne (1975) and Retschitzki (1978), for example, discovered differences in processing strategies among subjects of the same developmental level on various seriation tasks, namely, weight seriation, length seriation, and length seriation tasks designed to simulate weight seriations by the reduction of perceptual cues.…”

The Development of Size Sequencing Skills: An Empirical and Computational Analysis

“…These were the production systems of Young () and the connectionist model of Mareschal and Shultz (). In the 1970s, and prior to Young's model, several production systems characterizations of seriation emerged adopting a similar methodology (Baylor, Gascon, Lemoyne, & Pothier, ; Baylor & Lemoyne, ). We choose here to analyze that of Young () due to his exclusive focus on size (as opposed to weight) seriation, his “concern for empirical confirmation” (p. 16), as compared with the production systems by Baylor and colleagues, and the availability of his models for hands‐on experimentation for interested readers (Scott & Nicolson, ).…”

Processus du développement de la sériation.

“…Elle a aussi confirme les hypotheses de Pascual-Leone (Pascual-Leone, 1970, Note I;Case, 1972) concernant les liens entre operativite et espace mental (Mspace), l'espace mental etant associe a la memoire a court terme. La memoire a court terme est aussi apparu determinante dans le developpement logique, comme en temoignent les travaux de simulation des comportements logiques (Baylor & Gascon, 1974;Baylor & Lemoyne, 1975;Klahr& Wallace, 1976;Young, 1973).…”

“…Les epreuves complementaires different d'une periode a l'autre. A la premiere periode, elles sont constitutes de seriations de trois et quatre batons, et de trois et quatre blocs; a la seconde periode, elles sont constitutes d'une epreuve de seriation de trois blocs et d'une epreuve de seriation de sept batons caches(Baylor & Lemoyne, 1975). Les epreuves complementaires servent a valider ou a complete!'…”