Development of Recursive Thinking: Procedural Variations

Abstract

Sixty children participated in two studies designed to investigate the development of recursive thinking. They were from three age groups with ages 5, 7, and 9 years. To achieve this aim, Miller, Kessel and Flavell's (1970) task assessing children's abilities to conceptualize thought structures was presented in two versions. In the first study, employing the same procedure as used by Miller et al., the results reported by the latter authors were replicated. In the second study, in which a verbal comprehension, instead of a verbal production procedure was employed, the results indicated that the understanding of the recursive nature of thought appeared approximately two years earlier than with the original procedure.