Area-matching strategies used by young children

Across three studies, conditions were varied under which children aged 4-5 years matched the area of a rectangle with a given width (or height) to that of a square. In the first study, subjects observed the rectangle being changed in height from trial to trial and had access to their immediately preceding response. Under these conditions, rectangle width (the dimension under subject control) was a linear decreasing function of rectangle height. This function was interpreted as evidence for a hypothetical addition/subtraction strategy for maintaining equality in area between the comparison rectangle and the standard square. As a test of this hypothesis, in a second experiment the subjects were denied access to their immediately previous response, and in a third study they were also unable to observe the rectangle as it was altered by the experimenter between trials. The purpose of these changes was to remove the information necessary for readily implementing an addition/subtraction strategy. In both studies, area matches seemed to be based on a side-matching strategy, such that subjects matched one dimension of the rectangle to one side of the standard square. It was suggested that young children use different cues or strategies with different variants of the matching task because they do not possess a fixed, specific concept of area.