FIGURE 9 (S504F): Pseudoconceptual reasoning within a syncretic representation (immediately following the photograph above)

This five-year-old participant (S504F) retreated into a syncretic response when she was reminded that four groups were necessary (and not five as per the previous photograph in Figure 8). In this figure (Figure 9), she moved only the blocks from four of her groups into a long curve in front of her, and then pointed out that they were “a earth”. The blocks in the middle, which hadn’t been touched, were, upon questioning, “a desert”. These syncretic responses continued to demonstrate the participant’s associative mode of operation – at first, one block at a time had been placed to form groups of blocks of the same colour; next, the curve of the blocks in front of her was seemingly associated with the curve of the earth (and the curving sweep of the gesture that she used to indicate this), and the desert image was possibly because of the association of yellow with desert sands. The participant’s pseudoconceptual approach generally was evidenced in her inability to bear in mind the task as a whole, her lack of hierarchy or consistency, and her insensitivity to contradiction.