The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget frequently analyzed children’s conception of time via their ability to compare or estimate the time taken by pairs of events. In a typical experiment, two toy cars were shown running synchronously on parallel tracks, ____________________. The children were then asked to judge whether the cars had run for the same time and to justify their judgment. Preschoolers and young school-age children confuse temporal and spatial dimensions: Starting times are judged by starting points, stopping times by stopping points and durations by distance, though each of these errors does not necessitate the others. Hence, a child may claim that the cars started and stopped running together (correct) and that the car which stopped further ahead, ran for more time (incorrect).

* synchronously: 같은 시간에