You’ve probably also noticed that infants love to observe the people in their world, and learn from them rapidly! In our lab, we have been interested in how infants and young children begin to form categories of people. For example, how do they first come to notice social categories based on gender (male; female) or even race
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With so much to learn in the world, are infants overwhelmed about what to focus on? We now know that infants use their natural ‘tutors’ (e.g, parents and older siblings!) as guides to what’s important. Infants pay particular attention to the things that parents take the time to show and teach them. This kind of
Developmental psychologists used to believe that for infants, ‘out of sight is out of mind.’ We now know better! Very young infants can think about objects—even hidden ones—in some sophisticated ways. Still, they have a lot to learn, and their memories for detail remain fragile. Recently, we’ve discovered that infants learn best about objects when they are
As you’ve probably noticed, very young infants would rather listen to human speech than almost anything else! But recently, we’ve discovered that listening to speech also plays an important developmental role: it gives infants a big cognitive ‘boost.’ We’ve found that when infants listen to human speech, they are more successful at cognitive tasks, like detecting
A 15-month-old nestled in his mother’s lap points curiously at an object in a book he’s never seen before. “Whisk,” coos his mom, answering her son’s implied query. Reading books together is a cherished bonding ritual that takes place in homes across the nation every day, but what exactly is the boy learning during these
It’s a perfect spring day, and in the midst of a park full of picnic-goers and dogs playing fetch, a boy waves a yellow balloon in the air. From one corner of the park, a dad playing with his 2-year-old daughter draws her attention to the action. “I see a boy, and a balloon,” he
“Name everything you can think of that is alive.” How would you or your child respond to this prompt? Would your list be full of relatives, animals from movies and books, or perhaps neighborhood pets? Would the poppies blooming on the front steps make the list, or the oak tree towering over the backyard? And
“Up?” pleads the 13-month-old, reaching in the direction of her mother, who then sweeps the baby into her arms. For parents, our infants’ first one-word utterances feel like the magical entrance into a world in which infants can finally express their thoughts and understand ours. In the last decade, though, developmental psychologists have discovered that
Figuring out how objects and ideas relate to each other is at the core of learning; this capacity helps the preschooler solve her very first puzzle, the fledgling scientist see the connection between an atom and the solar system, and the young dancer stomp his feet in time to the beat. When you hand your
A growing number of infant studies show that well before very young babies begin forming words, simply hearing language boosts their thinking. We’ve demonstrated at our own research center that speech helps infants as young as 3 months old learn about the world: babies who are shown a group of objects while listening to speech