ABSTRACT
The experience of "discovery" is at the root of Jean Piaget's description of cognitive development. He sees it as the basic and fundamentally motivating intellectual and emotional experience. The researcher can only meet real people who come along at a given moment in their life trajectories, situated in time and space, with their past experiences and future perspectives. For instance, interesting processes become noticeable when care is put in verifying that the individual learning observed after certain peer interactions is of an operatory nature and not only mere conformity or lip service to what peers are saying. Piaget used to compare the growth of the child's intelligence to embryogenesis: just as the body of the fetus undergoes major qualitative changes to become a baby, a child, an adolescent, and finally a full-grown adult, powerful, and informed, they are undergoing major qualitative changes.
