8/11/2019 Article Review Conservation

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Article Review

Conservation

This article deals with the experiment done by Jean Piaget to demonstrate how children at a very

early age do not understand the concept of conservation of matter. Conservation of matteressentially means that certain mass, no matter in what shape or form, will always retain the same

mass. The way he designed the experiment was to take two identical beakers filled with the exact

same amount of liquid, and pour the liquid of one beaker into a taller, thinner beaker and the

liquid of the other into a beaker with a wider diameter. The results consistently showed that

younger children in early stages of cognitive development could not comprehend that the amount

of liquid was the same, and that the taller thinner beaker had more liquid. The same result

happens when two lines of coins are placed parallel, and then one line is spaced further apart.

Consequently, the children said that the line of coins with more spacing had more coins. Piaget

came to the conclusion that young children had not yet developed the mental capacity to consider

two dimensions simultaneously, the idea of conservation. He then proposed that the ability tocomprehend conservation means the maturing to a higher cognitive level. Essentially, Piaget was

able to prove that childrens minds have different stages of development in terms of cognition.

One aspect of testing whether a child can understand conservation that seems to be faulty is the

repetitive asking of the same question, which could possibly make the child think that the first

choice is wrong, and thus change their mind.

I thought this research was interesting because I actually do not have a conscious memory of

whether or not I knew about conservation. There was never a moment I can remember where I

either could or couldnt recognize conservation of mass. But this, however, is the most

interesting part. The fact that I havent even realized my own cognitive development means thatthere could hundreds of other aspects of cognition that we have not tested. Why? Because these

aspects of cognition are so ingrained into our heads, both by learning and evolutionary processes,

that we are not even conscious of it. Thus, just as I cant differentiate between the time I couldnt

and could understand the concept of conservation, people in general do not realize the

developments of their own minds. How did we learn to use utensils? When do we recognize and

interpret facial expressions? When do we learn how to decipher emotion in tone of voice? These

cognitive skills are all subconsciously developed through the experiences we have consciously.

Perhaps this is why humans can achieve higher learning; humans can live day to day functioning

with their current brains, but the brain improves itself in order to move to higher forms of

thinking. I suppose that is why there are no toddlers in AP Calc.