FIGURE 11 (S509M): Pseudoconceptual reasoning within an associative complex

The explanations by the five-year-old participant in Figures 11 and 12 (S509M) were indicative of associations and not early collections or chains precisely because the participant offered post hoc descriptions (as opposed to explanations in advance or as running commentaries) of what he saw after the groups had been formed. The associations he made throughout his session were generally fluid and inconsistent and his post hoc descriptions did not tally with the moves he was making, but tallied rather with what he was describing after the fact.

A clear example of pseudoconceptual thinking was revealed near the end of this five-year-old participant’s (S509M) second attempt to sort the blocks (Figure 11): he was insisting that the two circular mur blocks (top right) would be cev blocks “because they are circles”. Five of the cev blocks had their names revealed, and only one of them was a circle, and it appeared that the function of the cev circle (shape) served as the nucleus block in the participant’s mind. Further, when his attention was drawn to the fact that the lag and the bik groups (both names revealed) also contained a circle in each, he persisted in reasoning that the two mur circles would belong to the cev group because they were both circles and looked “nearly the same” and also because there was also a blue blocks and a white block in the cev group already (further supporting his argument by adding colour to the justification). The shapes of the other cev blocks were not important in this participant’s focus (and neither, at this stage, were their sizes), and this focus on shape (and then colour) revealed the complexive mode of thinking in the participant at this stage of the session: he was making associations between one of the cev blocks in terms of shape, and two of the cev blocks in terms of colour to bolster his line of reasoning.