Functional magnetic resonance imaging study of Piaget's conservation-of-number task in preschool and school-age children: a neo-Piagetian approach.

Jean Piaget's theory is a central reference point in the study of logico-mathematical development in children. One of the most famous Piagetian tasks is number conservation. Failures and successes in this task reveal two fundamental stages in children's thinking and judgment, shifting at approximately 7 years of age from visuospatial intuition to number conservation.

Adult brains don't fully overcome biases that lead to incorrect performance during cognitive development: an fMRI study in young adults completing a Piaget-like task.

A current issue in developmental science is that greater continuity in cognition between children and adults may exist than is usually appreciated in Piaget-like (stages or 'staircase') models. This phenomenon has been demonstrated at the behavioural level, but never at the brain level. Here we show with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for the first time, that adult brains do not fully overcome the biases of childhood.