Abstract
As a part of the “Young Children’s Conceptual Development about Object” research series, this study aimed to explore the emerging reasoning mechanisms of young children’s distinguishing the actual existence of object, hole and shadow through indicating, counting, constituting and dividing. In this study, a relatively simpler test was developed in accordance with the developmental level of young children in order to acquire an authentic picture of the thinking process in early human life. This study provided following results: (1) Young children were able to indicate objects, holes and shadows clearly. Their judgments were object-first and they tended to give priority to visibility over invisibility. (2) Young children made relative more mistakes counting the objects of a complex assemblage than a simple assemblage. They failed in object dividing (object), shape interfering (hole) and object interfering (shadow). (3) Children above 5 years old could readily distinguish objects from non-objects by constitutions, ways of expansion and their weights; while children under 4 years old tended to materialize non-objects. (4) Young children were able to judge the divisibility of objects (age 3 and above), holes (age 5 and above), and shadows (age 6). In addition, 3-year-olds were able to recognize that an object divided is not equivalent to its original, but constitutes the same material. In other words, a rudimentary concept of the macroparticulate may be developing. Overall, for children’s object conceptions, our findings indicated a better performance in children’s potential than previous research studies.
| Keywords: | conceptual development; matter; non-object; weight |
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