ABSTRACT
Problems of chance are relevant to the study of formal thought from two standpoints. In a general way, formal thought has the property of dealing with what is possible and not only with what is real. But the probability that an event will occur is nothing more than the relationship between the possible instances of an event and those which actually occur. Moreover, a probability estimate of relations or laws presupposes certain special operational instruments such as the calculation of “correlations” or “associations.” In its simplest form, the notion of correlation is a formal operational schema related to those we have just studied— particularly the proportionality schema. The aim of this chapter is to analyze the two-sided problem of how subjects from 5 to 15 years react to chance fluctuations that occur during the experiments and how they construct the correlation schema.
