Social learning and cognition in infancy: Does agency matter?
Description
The field of cognitive development was founded on a key Piagetian principle: children construct their knowledge of the world through their actions on the world. Yet, research over the past several decades has produced a plethora of evidence that infants possess abstract knowledge in the absence of sophisticated motor capabilities and experience acting on the world. In this talk, I will argue that, despite these empirical advances, investigating the role that agency and active experience plays in infants’ cognition, learning, and behavior is still a worthwhile endeavor. Using work from my own lab, as well as that of other labs, I will examine 3 ways in which agency and active experience provide infants with information that is powerful, robust and unique. Infants are social learners par excellence, in part due to their experiences as agents and their awareness of their own agency.
Speaker Bio
The Toronto Early Cognition Lab investigates social, moral and cognitive development in infancy through early childhood. Our current work is primarily focused on two lines of research. One line of work investigates the developmental origins and nature of infants’ socio-moral cognition and behavior; the other line of research investigates the role that active experience plays in infants’ learning and cognition. We use a range of techniques including behavioural responses, eye tracking, and ERP/EEG.