FIGURE 4 (S307M): Pseudoconceptual reasoning within a syncretic representation

The main interest of the three-year-old participant in Figure 4 (S307M) was in building towers accompanied by loud noises such as “Daing!”, “Pink!”, and “Whoops!” and finding that circular blocks could roll off the table – again and again (“Let’s do them to roll!”). When this participant (S307M) had earlier been asked why the blocks were being put together, his responses were: “coz”; “my mommy’s got a sore leg”; “green” (chosen at random and tossed into the group); “same” (colour); “same” (trapezoid to triangle); and “coz it’s blue here!”. This last explanation appeared almost to be a discovery – either that the blue blocks had somehow grouped themselves together or that I was too dense to see that it was in fact blue there. The participant’s attention then returned to rolling the circular blocks and making noises as he moved the other blocks around, apparently at random, but seeming quite at ease with the process of exploring the physical characteristics of the blocks.

Furthermore, his unstable pseudoconceptual reasoning about what constitutes “yellow” could be seen in the following sequence: after three “lello” blocks had been placed together because they were the same colour, the participant was asked to find blocks of a different colour. He selected a “lello” lag block and a “lello” mur block and then decided that they were a “different colour” when placed next to the three blocks placed earlier – possibly because size had gained prominence over “lello” and had therefore disrupted the “lello” link. No further explanation was forthcoming.