What projects are currently being conducted?
Infants' understanding of action categories:
        In this study, we are interested in how infants learn to understand that the same action can be performed using different movements.  For example, there are many ways to grasp a teddy bear: you can grasp it around the middle using your whole hand, grasp it by the paw using a couple of your fingers and your thumb, or grasp it by the ear using a pincer grip.  Each of these different motions is an example of grasping.  Adults understand that these different specific motions result in the same kind of action.  Adult also understand that these acts of grasping are different from other similar motions such as patting the bear’s tummy, tapping its paw, or pointing to its ear.  Babies are shown an actor grasping a toy in many different places.  Following familiarization, babies are shown 2 events, the actor grasping the toy in a new place and the actor grasping the toy in a new manner.  If babies are sensitive to action categories, we may see longer looking at the new grasping manner as opposed to the new grasping location. Click here to view a Quicktime movie of the events!

Infants' understanding of action sequences:
        This study is focused on how babies make sense of simple action sequences such as pulling a support to get to an object which is resting on top of it.  More specifically, imagine a cloth with an out of reach toy sitting on top of it.  To get that toy, a person might be inclined to pull the cloth to bring the toy within reach.  We are looking to see whether babies understand that the act of pulling a cloth to obtain a toy is related to the toy and not necessarily the cloth on which it sits.  Furthermore, we are looking to see how this correlates with babies’ own abilities to perform these simple action sequences.  Click here to view a Quicktime movie of the events!

Infants' understanding of rationality:
        In this study, we are investigating when babies begin to understand that actions are carried out in the most rational or efficient manner.  For example, if you were to reach for and grab a cup of coffee, you would most likely take the most direct route to get that cup.  If you reached for it in an odd way (such as waving your arm up and down while reaching for it) this may look a bit strange to adult observers.  We are looking to see whether babies also expect goal-directed actions to be rational or efficient.  We are also investigating whether this expectation for rational action is limited to humans or if babies expect all things to behave rationally (even inanimate objects such as toys).  Babies are familiarized to an even in which an adult repeatedly reaches over a barrier to obtain a toy.  Following familiarization, the barrier is removed, and babies see the actor move directly for the toy (a rational action), or follow the same path as in familiarization (now an irrational action).  If babies look longer at irrational teset events, we might infer that they have at least some expectation for human action to be rational or efficient.  Click here to view a Quicktime movie of the events!

Infants' expectations about a person's future actions:
        Adults can use a person's prior actions to generate a prediction about how that person is likely to act in the future.  If you know that a person loves teddy bears, for example, you would likely predict that when presented with a teddy bear and another toy, he will likely reach for the bear.  In this study, we investigate whether infants also generate predictions of this sort.  First, we familiarize infants to an event in which a person repeatedly grasps the same one of two toys.  Then, we change the positions of the toys and the person begins to reach.  We are interested to see whether infants anticpate the person's reach by looking at one of the toys, and if so, whether they anticipate that the person will reach for the same toy as during the famliarization phase.  Click here to view a Quicktime movie of the events!

The origin of action understanding:
        Our prior work has shown that by 6 months of age babies interpret some behaviors as being directed at goals. In particular, babies of this age are able to understand that the important aspect of a reaching and grasping action is the goal of the reach instead of simple physical properties.  In this study, we are exploring the origins of this insight about other people's actions.  Specifically, we ask whether infants' understanding of grasping in other people is related to their own developing ability to reach for toys.  In this study we are testing very young infants, who do not yet reach for objects on their own.  We have a special set of velcro mittens that allows infants to pick up toys.  We are testing whether experience with these mittens affects their understanding of other people's actions with the mittens. 

Early word learning:
        In these studies, we investigate the earliest stages of language learning.    Around their first birthdays, many babies begin to produce words.  At this age, spoken language is very limited.  However, one-year-olds seem to understand many of the words that they hear.  For this reason, our study focuses on babies' understanding of words rather than their ability to say words.  We are investigating the conditions under which one-year-olds can learn new words.  To do this, we introduce babies to new words, given as the name for unfamiliar objects, and then assess whether babies remember which objects the new words name.  We are currently investigating the number of new words infants can learn in the same session, and also whether it is easier or harder for infants to learn very similar sounding words.
 

 

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