Children's and adolescents' understanding of relationship among sensations and physical characteristics of objects

Authors

  • Lozena Ivanov Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar
  • Zvjezdan Penezić Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar
  • Josip Čirić Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15291/radovifpsp.2508

Abstract

In the last few decades a lot of attention has been given to the metacognitive development of children. Heedful of Piaget's theory of cognitive development the main areas of interest are development of thinking, emotions, coping mechanisms, the relationships between the real and apparent etc. But one of the problems which has not received proper attention is the appreciation of the distinction between two parallel kinds of description of the external world: subjective and objective description. The aim of this research was to compare children aged six and nine years, as well as adolescents according to the appreciation of the relationship between sensations and physical characteristics of objects. The results are compared with the results which Subbotsky (1997) obtained on the samples of British subjects. There are significant effects of age, with adolescents giving more "subjective" answers (localization of sensations in the higher cognitive structures and not in the objects) than children. That is in accordance to the expected stage of cognitive development. The results showed that there are significant differences among Croatian and British subjects' use of subjective and objective answers in the age of six years as well as in the age of nine years. Croatian subjects give more subjective answers than do British subjects.

References

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Published

2018-04-16

Issue

Vol. 38 No. 15 (1999)

Section

Original scientific paper