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The child's conception of movement and speed
Piage's Theories on Child Development.
341 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
27 people want to read
About the author
Jean Piaget
266 books686 followersJean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was a Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental theorist, well known for his work studying children, his theory of cognitive development, and his epistemological view called "genetic epistemology." In 1955, he created the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva and directed it until his death in 1980. According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget was "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing."
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October 24, 2025
A ‘SEQUEL’ (OF SORTS) TO HIS BOOK ON THE CHILD’S CONCEPTION OF TIME
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as "genetic epistemology."
He wrote in the Preface to this 1946 book, “These studies of the child’s conception of movement and speed are a sequel to those recently published on the concept of time… these three basic concepts are interdependent… Now the concepts of movement and speed especially touch upon the fields of mathematics and general science teaching, in which it would be of great value to know precisely the way in which these concepts develop; in other words, their psychological as well as their logical build-up…
“But there is still more. The most fruitful use of psychology will not be found purely by seeking an immediate application. The gradual passage from intuitive thinking, still tied to the information of the senses, towards operational thinking, which forms the basis of reasoning itself, may be studied in the light of the particularly simple examples which are to be found in the fields of movement and speed…
“In this work… we shall take the term ‘operations’… to mean actions or transformations at once reversible and capable of forming systematic wholes. We have tried to show that prior to the formation of mathematical ‘groups,’ which always imply the occurrence of a metrical or at least an extensive quantity, logical operations already form systems, which are likewise reversible and capable of synthesis… at the level of intensive quantity, though far less rich, which we have called ‘groupings.’ … Thus the essential problem which we shall study in relation to movement and speed is the passage from image-using or perceptual intuition to the forming of operational systems.” (Pg. vii-viii)
He asks, “Is it not a simple internalization of pure experiences to go from experimental rotations with simple authentication of the result obtained, to operational rotations grouped into a deductive system? But it is just here that the genetic point of view blocks any discussion aimed at settling, once and for all, between activity of the subject and pressure of objects outside. The truth is that, at the starting point, the co-ordination on the part of the subject and the data of the object are undifferentiated in the highest degree and that their differentiation is defined in the course of development… So we must say, and this at every level, that action---starting point common to image---using intuitions and operations---adds something to the actual fact, instead of merely taking from it… the elements of its own structure.” (Pg. 35-36)
He says, “Let us recall … how greatly the primacy of the point of arrival of movements, as opposed to that actual path traversed, is tied up with the finalism which impels the child to consider each change of location as directed towards some goal, i.e. precisely towards its given finishing point.” (Pg. 61)
He observes, “There appears to be nothing simpler than a change of position: setting aside its speed, it seems obvious that movement should be immediately understood intuitively as a path travelled…. Speed, on the other hand, may appear more complex: in so far as it is a relationship between space and time its formation would seem to have to wait until the operations relating to the construction of the ideas of the ‘path traveled’ and of duration had been completely formed… might not the comparison of two speeds follow on from this other ideas of order, namely change of position?” (Pg. 133)
He states, “it has not yet been understood how the initial intuition of over-taking can be generalized to every possible case by virtue of operations translating overtaking in terms of relationships between time and space traversed. This is what will be investigated during the present chapter in the case of synchronous movements… [and] in the case of movements in succession.” (Pg. 174)
He reports, “acceleration, even if intuitively correlated with the incline, is not yet, for the reasons just seen (partial journeys to be compared being in succession, and not simultaneous), conceived as a relation between time and distance traveled.” (Pg. 300)
He summarizes, “so long as the subject has not succeeded in forging the hypothetico-deductive tools allowing him to reason simultaneously about two distinct situations, he is left to make what use he can of intuitive procedures, from which he has only just freed himself on the concrete level; even more he will not be aware of the contradictions involved in these procedures, as in order to see them he would have to possess the formal logical mechanism which is just what he still lacks in the case of two different situations to be compared mentally.” (Pg. 303)
He concludes, “movement and speed give rise to a long elaboration of responses at first sensorimotor, then intuitive, and finally operational… we were in fact led to distinguish six great operational systems, operating ever more closely together, of which four depend only upon qualitative logic… These are:
1. Operations of ‘placement’ which engender the ideas of succession in space or of order a first type of qualitative grouping, necessary for the construction of the idea of displacement.
2. Operations of ‘displacement’ (or change of position) which from the qualitative point of view, form one single grouping …
3. Operations of ‘co-displacement,’ i.e., correspondence between placements or displacements, operations which simultaneously engender the ideas of succession in time, or duration and of absolute speed…
4. Operations of ‘relative displacements and co-displacements’ permitting composition of correlative movements and their speeds.
5. Operations which are ‘extensive,’ i.e., mathematical and no longer qualitative, but still not metrical, which permit construction of relations of ratios, or proportions between time taken and lengths travelled.
6. Finally metrical operations permitting measurement (through the construction of repeatable units) of these distances and durations, hence of the paths traversed and the speeds.” (Pg. 311-312)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying Piaget.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as "genetic epistemology."
He wrote in the Preface to this 1946 book, “These studies of the child’s conception of movement and speed are a sequel to those recently published on the concept of time… these three basic concepts are interdependent… Now the concepts of movement and speed especially touch upon the fields of mathematics and general science teaching, in which it would be of great value to know precisely the way in which these concepts develop; in other words, their psychological as well as their logical build-up…
“But there is still more. The most fruitful use of psychology will not be found purely by seeking an immediate application. The gradual passage from intuitive thinking, still tied to the information of the senses, towards operational thinking, which forms the basis of reasoning itself, may be studied in the light of the particularly simple examples which are to be found in the fields of movement and speed…
“In this work… we shall take the term ‘operations’… to mean actions or transformations at once reversible and capable of forming systematic wholes. We have tried to show that prior to the formation of mathematical ‘groups,’ which always imply the occurrence of a metrical or at least an extensive quantity, logical operations already form systems, which are likewise reversible and capable of synthesis… at the level of intensive quantity, though far less rich, which we have called ‘groupings.’ … Thus the essential problem which we shall study in relation to movement and speed is the passage from image-using or perceptual intuition to the forming of operational systems.” (Pg. vii-viii)
He asks, “Is it not a simple internalization of pure experiences to go from experimental rotations with simple authentication of the result obtained, to operational rotations grouped into a deductive system? But it is just here that the genetic point of view blocks any discussion aimed at settling, once and for all, between activity of the subject and pressure of objects outside. The truth is that, at the starting point, the co-ordination on the part of the subject and the data of the object are undifferentiated in the highest degree and that their differentiation is defined in the course of development… So we must say, and this at every level, that action---starting point common to image---using intuitions and operations---adds something to the actual fact, instead of merely taking from it… the elements of its own structure.” (Pg. 35-36)
He says, “Let us recall … how greatly the primacy of the point of arrival of movements, as opposed to that actual path traversed, is tied up with the finalism which impels the child to consider each change of location as directed towards some goal, i.e. precisely towards its given finishing point.” (Pg. 61)
He observes, “There appears to be nothing simpler than a change of position: setting aside its speed, it seems obvious that movement should be immediately understood intuitively as a path travelled…. Speed, on the other hand, may appear more complex: in so far as it is a relationship between space and time its formation would seem to have to wait until the operations relating to the construction of the ideas of the ‘path traveled’ and of duration had been completely formed… might not the comparison of two speeds follow on from this other ideas of order, namely change of position?” (Pg. 133)
He states, “it has not yet been understood how the initial intuition of over-taking can be generalized to every possible case by virtue of operations translating overtaking in terms of relationships between time and space traversed. This is what will be investigated during the present chapter in the case of synchronous movements… [and] in the case of movements in succession.” (Pg. 174)
He reports, “acceleration, even if intuitively correlated with the incline, is not yet, for the reasons just seen (partial journeys to be compared being in succession, and not simultaneous), conceived as a relation between time and distance traveled.” (Pg. 300)
He summarizes, “so long as the subject has not succeeded in forging the hypothetico-deductive tools allowing him to reason simultaneously about two distinct situations, he is left to make what use he can of intuitive procedures, from which he has only just freed himself on the concrete level; even more he will not be aware of the contradictions involved in these procedures, as in order to see them he would have to possess the formal logical mechanism which is just what he still lacks in the case of two different situations to be compared mentally.” (Pg. 303)
He concludes, “movement and speed give rise to a long elaboration of responses at first sensorimotor, then intuitive, and finally operational… we were in fact led to distinguish six great operational systems, operating ever more closely together, of which four depend only upon qualitative logic… These are:
1. Operations of ‘placement’ which engender the ideas of succession in space or of order a first type of qualitative grouping, necessary for the construction of the idea of displacement.
2. Operations of ‘displacement’ (or change of position) which from the qualitative point of view, form one single grouping …
3. Operations of ‘co-displacement,’ i.e., correspondence between placements or displacements, operations which simultaneously engender the ideas of succession in time, or duration and of absolute speed…
4. Operations of ‘relative displacements and co-displacements’ permitting composition of correlative movements and their speeds.
5. Operations which are ‘extensive,’ i.e., mathematical and no longer qualitative, but still not metrical, which permit construction of relations of ratios, or proportions between time taken and lengths travelled.
6. Finally metrical operations permitting measurement (through the construction of repeatable units) of these distances and durations, hence of the paths traversed and the speeds.” (Pg. 311-312)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying Piaget.
Displaying 1 of 1 review