| Abstract: | Asked a total of 84 children and adults in 4 age groups (means = 5.11, 7.8, 9.8, 11.5, and 24.4 yrs) to match, by the method of adjustment, the lengths of 2 horizontal lines staggered so as to form 2 sides of a parallelogram under 2 main conditions (variable over the standard or standard over the variable) and a control condition (variable and standard in prolongation). Results show that the variable was generally overestimated, this overestimation did not differ significantly from 1 condition to another, and this overestimation decreased significantly with age. Results suggest that this systematic error would not be attributed to the top positioning but rather to the movement of the variable, which would be a source of overestimation by drawing the relative frequency of S's perceptive centrations. The decrement of the error with age could be explained by the development of perceptual activity, allowing a more balanced centration on the standard and the variable. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
