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My
research interests are focused on the development of categorization, generalization,
and deliberate selective attention. All of these are fundamental
cognitive abilities, however their mechanisms early in development are
not well understood at present. My research program consists of several
theoretically inter-related projects aimed at uncovering these mechanisms.
In particular, I am interested in (1) understanding how linguistic, perceptual,
and conceptual information affects categorization and induction, and how
the importance of each of these sources of information changes in the course
of learning and development; (2) understanding the relationship between
inductive generalization, categorization, and recognition memory in young
children and adults; and (3) understanding mechanisms and developmental
course of deliberate selective attention in relation to categorization
and induction.
Development
of Induction
The
ability to generalize is crucial for acquiring new knowledge. For example,
when one learns that a pet poodle Fluffy uses enzymes to digest food, one
might generalize this property to other pet poodles, dogs of other breeds,
other canines, and maybe even to other mammals. Even young children
can perform such generalizations; however it is still unclear what drives
induction early in development. What is the role of perceptual similarity
and categorical relatedness? What is the role of linguistic labels?
Do mechanisms of induction change with learning and development?
Do mechanisms of induction differ across domains? For example, would generalization
about poodles be any different from generalization about chairs?
These are some of the questions I address in my research in order to improve
our understanding of this fundamental process.
Relationship
between Induction and Recognition Memory
More
insights can be gained from people’s inductive generalizations when induction
tasks are followed-up by memory tasks probing the nature of encoding during
induction. For example, one should be successful at discriminating
between presented and non-presented items on a recognition memory task
if one relied on perceptual information during a preceding induction task.
At the same time, if one relied on category-level information to perform
induction, discriminating between presented and non-presented items on
a memory task might prove difficult. Would older participants be
more likely to rely on category-level information during induction than
younger participants? Can younger participants be trained to rely
on category-level rather than on item-specific information during induction?
Conversely, can adults be led to rely on item-specific information?
Are conceptual or attentional factors central to the success of training
at different points in development? Does categorization distort our
memories? This line of research is aimed at obtaining answers to
these questions and improving our understanding of the mechanisms of induction
at different points in development, as well as understanding of the relationship
between the processes of induction, categorization, and recognition.
Development
of Deliberate Selective Attention
Some
theories posit that many fundamental cognitive achievements, such as word
learning, categorization, and induction, are possible because there exist
innate or early developing constraints on learning. These constraints
guide young children to focus on the relevant information in the environment
while ignoring multiple irrelevant cues. One of the implicit assumptions
this view is based on, is an assumption that deliberate selective attention
is sufficiently developed to make it possible for young children to attend
to some stimuli dimensions while ignoring the others. This line of
research is aimed at (1) examining whether this assumption is justified
with regards to very young children, and (2) at mapping out the developmental
course of deliberate selective attention.
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