CHILDRENS COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF LIVED-EXPERIENCED TIME AND PHYSICAL TIME

Cognitive processing of temporal information is based on multiple domains of knowledge including psychological and physical ones. The notion of age is an aspect of psychological time that can be conceived as a 'lived-experienced' time, whereas the notion of duration is an aspect of physical time. This research examines whether the acquisition of the notions of age and duration during cognitive development is simultaneous, as is suggested by the piagetian thesis, or successive, as recent research has shown. Four problems concerning past and future age and duration notions were presented to 146 Greek pupils aged 6 to 9 yrs. Pupils were asked to answer the questions and justify their answers. It is shown that a) in problems asking about past events, both age and duration are very difficult for children, b) problems asking about the future are easier and, contrary to the piagetian thesis, the acquisition of age in fact precedes duration. Moreover, cognitive boundaries during development are considered.