Perceptions of proportionality in young children: matching spatial ratios

Preserved thematic and impaired taxonomic categorisation: A case study

“…A task taken from Sophian (2000) was used to investigate whether LEW also had implicit knowledge of shape. The original intention was to use the within-vs cross-category distinction to assess shape recognition as used for colours in Roberson et al (1999).…”

The Development of Proportional Reasoning: Effect of Continuous Versus Discrete Quantities

“…We propose that their success on the continuous problems is based on the use of an early emerging ability to perceptually code and compare relative quantities (Bryant, 1974;Duffy et al, 2005;Spinillo & Bryant, 1991;Sophian, 2000;Sophian & Wood, 1997). In addition to increasing our understanding of the development of children's ability to reason about proportions, these findings have instructional implications.…”

“…By 6 years of age, children had some success in matching the proportion shown in the picture to that shown in a block model. Similarly, Sophian and colleagues (Sophian, 2000;Sophian & Crosby, 1999;Sophian & Wood, 1997) also showed that preschool children were able to successfully match shapes that share proportional relations. By 5 years of age, they could make proportional matches on the basis of height-width ratio of rectangles and also on the basis of the size ratios of figure segments, even when the segments in the target and choice figures were arranged somewhat differently.…”

“…These findings contrast with those of Piaget and Inhelder (1967), who found that children did not match rectangles accurately until about 8 years of age, instead choosing matches that exaggerated the height-width relations of a target. Sophian (2000) suggested that this result may have been because the children in their study construed the task of finding the same shape in a more qualitative manner. Finally, using an analogical reasoning task, Goswami (1989) found that 4-year-old children could match proportional amounts of different geometric shapes.…”

“…Mix, Huttenlocher, and Levine (2002) pointed out that a salient difference between many studies reporting early versus later success on proportional reasoning tasks is the kind of quantity involved. In particular, tasks reporting early success involved relations between continuous quantities (e.g., Goswami, 1989;Huttenlocher et al, 1999;Lovett & Singer, 1991;Sophian, 2000;Spinillo & Bryant, 1991), whereas tasks reporting later success involved relations between discrete quantities (e.g., Noelting, 1980;Piaget & Inhelder, 1975). Mix et al suggested that continuous quantities may facilitate proportional reasoning because such quantities are often seen in containers that can serve as a perceptual referent (e.g., the glass is half full).…”