title: Young children's performance on the balance scale: the influence of relational complexity.
abstract: Three experiments investigated the effect of complexity on children's understanding of a beam balance. In nonconflict problems, weights or distances varied, while the other was held constant. In conflict items, both weight and distance varied, and items were of three kinds: weight dominant, distance dominant, or balance (in which neither was dominant). In Experiment 1, 2-year-old children succeeded on nonconflict-weight and nonconflict-distance problems. This result was replicated in Experiment 2, but performance on conflict items did not exceed chance. In Experiment 3, 3- and 4-year-olds succeeded on all except conflict balance problems, while 5- and 6-year-olds succeeded on all problem types. The results were interpreted in terms of relational complexity theory. Children aged 2 to 4 years succeeded on problems that entailed binary relations, but 5- and 6-year-olds also succeeded on problems that entailed ternary relations. Ternary relations tasks from other domains--transitivity and class inclusion--accounted for 93% of the age-related variance in balance scale scores.
authors.affiliation: University of Queensland, Australia. gsh@psy.uq.edu.au
authors.forename: Graeme S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Halford
authors.forename: Glenda
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Andrews
authors.forename: Cherie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dalton
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Boag
authors.forename: Tracey
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zielinski
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D011340:Problem Solving; D011581:Psychological Tests; D014892:Weight Perception