Eye movements and conservation acceleration

Abstract

Thirty nonconservers from first- and second-grade classrooms, 15 of whom had received perceptual/attentional training, were tested on four Piagetian conservation tasks (number, length, and continuous quantity solid/liquid) presented on 16 mm movie film with taped instructions. Eye movements were recorded during the response period for each task. Subsequent analyses of eye-movement patterns showed clear differences between the training and control groups. Trained conservers showed more visual exploratory activity and less perceptual centration than control group subjects. Moreover, the eye-movement patterns of trained conservers closely approximated those shown by natural (i.e., untrained) conservers in previous studies. The findings were discussed in terms of possible cognitive structural changes resulting from conservation training.