Primary Investigator

The infrastructure of human cognition -- our commonsense understanding of the physical and social world -- is constructed during early childhood. I study the representations and learning mechanisms that underlie this feat. My research looks at 1) how children infer the concepts and causal relations that enable them to engage in accurate prediction, explanation, and intervention; 2) the factors that support curiosity and exploration, allowing children to engage in effective discovery and 3) how the social-communicative context (e.g., demonstrating evidence, explaining events, disagreeing about hypotheses) affects children’s learning.

Computational models of human cognition inform much of the research in the lab. I have been especially interested in understanding trade-offs in the inferential process, such that the same inductive biases that constrain the hypothesis space and allow us to draw rich inferences from sparse data can also make it difficult for us to revise our beliefs. This paradox poses a challenge for educators but also provides insight into the factors that might promote effective learning and teaching.

Most of the research in the lab involves babies and children. Since babies and children have limited prior knowledge and no formal training, understanding how children reason about the world can give us insight into the origins of knowledge and fundamental principles of learning. We have on-site laboratories that constitute the PlayLab at the Boston Children’s Museum, where we use a variety of approaches, ranging from infant-looking time methods to free-play paradigms in our studies.

Curriculum Vitae (updated September, 2011)

Hyowon Gweon - Graduate Student

Humans possess a powerful learning mechanism which allows to make sophisticated inferences from very sparse data. This mechanism not only allows us to learn so much from so little but also to learn from many different sources of information. The data can sometimes be generated by the learner, by a naturally occurring events, from another person’s unintentional actions, and sometimes by someone who has the explicit intent to teach. And in each of these contexts, the learner makes different assumptions and inferences. How can we formally characterize the differences between these contexts, and how do they affect what is learned? How do learners make use of others’ knowledge in order to learn about what they have no direct access to? What is the role of Theory of Mind in social learning, and what neural mechanisms underlie our ability to learn from others?

[personal site]

Julian Jara-Ettinger - Graduate Student

My research is focused on the development of social cognition during childhood from a computational perspective. More specifically, I work on understanding how children infer unobservable variables of an agent (such as cost and competence as well as beliefs and desires) using the principle of rationality and how this influences their moral judgments and social evaluations. I am also interested in how reputation and Theory of Mind are involved in both the development and day-to-day working of a social self-concept.

[personal site]

Melissa Kline - Graduate Student

I am interested in language and conceptual development, and in particular how children (and adults) use abstract linguistic structure to make inferences about what sentences mean. In my current work I am exploring how children use their conceptual and linguistic representations of causation to make inferences about the meanings of constructions such as the transitive (Jane broke the lamp) and periphrastic causative (Jane made the lamp break). I use methods including corpus linguistics, computational modeling, and behavioral studies in the traditions of psycholinguistics and cognitive development. I am especially interested in exploring how insights from cognitive development and computational approaches inform our understanding of the language learning process.

[personal site]

Kimberly Scott - Graduate Student

Mina Cikara - Postdoctoral Associate

I am interested in the neurodevelopment of social cognitive processes, and how stereotypes and prejudice disrupt these processes in children and adults. I use a wide range of tools—standard laboratory experiments, implicit and explicit behavioral measures, fMRI and psychophysiology—to study how misunderstanding, failures of empathy, and dehumanization unfold in the brain. I am equally interested in the behavioral consequences of these processes (e.g., harm, bullying). My primary line of research examines the conditions under which people fail to empathize, and even feel pleasure in response to others' misfortunes.

[personal site]

Paul Muentener - Postdoctoral Associate

My research explores the development of causal reasoning in infancy and early childhood. What is the range of events that we are able to reason about causally early in development? What kind of information enters into these causal representations? I am particularly interested in the role that representations of intentional agency play in causal reasoning. In my infant studies, I employ looking time measures and action-based tasks to explore our earliest causal reasoning skills. I also study children’s descriptions of causal events to investigate the relationship between children’s conceptual and linguistic representations of causality across development.

[personal site]

Nathan Winkler-Rhoades - Postdoctoral Associate

My research asks what makes it possible for humans to communicate with each other. Because the media through which we express ourselves are not exclusive to communication--we do more than talk with our vocal sounds, hand motions, scribblings, etc.--infants face the challenge of figuring out what counts as communication and what doesn't. Some of my studies have focused on how infants decipher the referential intentions behind spoken language, and others have examined how young children interpret the referential intentions behind visual representations. Currently I am studying one offshoot of children's representational understanding--their ability to engage in pretend play--where I ask what impact pretending has on cognitive development more generally.

Daniel Friel - Lab Coordinator

I'm interested in how babies and young children compile information from their observations and experiences to create and update their understanding of the world. What kinds of observations and experiences are influential for children as they learn? How do their experiences with learning from others help them to make judgments about other people, and how do infants and young children update these attributions as they gather more data?

Elise Herrig - Research Assistant

In childhood, playing is learning. How does how we play relate to our cognitive development? My research asks how exploratory behavior develops in infants and toddlers and how this behavior connects to cognitive functioning. Does exploratory behavior in infants and toddlers develop in a typical pattern? What can we learn about cognitive functioning from deviations from typical exploratory behavior?

Hilary Richardson - Research Assistant

While I was a research assistant at the University of Michigan I became extremely interested in developmental neuroscience and studies surrounding the theory of mind. I am intrigued by the different hypotheses explaining the development of the theory of mind, and am interested in how various life experiences affect this development. I am excited to be a part of the effort to clarify when and how this complex construct forms in the human brain.

Nanette Witte-van der Laan - Research Assistant

I have a Master’s degree in Clinical Child and Educational Studies. How children develop and how the world around us influences this, has always been my interest. The ECCL has given me the opportunity to study the mechanisms underlying the development of empathy of typically-developing children. At what age do children become more sensitive to social dominance hierarchies and in what way? I am excited to get more experience in behavioral research and discover and learn about neural mechanisms underlying specific behaviors.

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Lizz Albany

The Early Childhood Cognition Lab was one of the main reasons I chose to study at MIT, as it is a window into the incredible world of childhood. We learn the majority of what we know and understand about the world, including language, causality, number concepts, and social interaction, by the time we are five years old, before we ever have any formal education. I want to know how children do this, and that is exactly what the ECCL explores. Currently, I am studying symbolic reasoning in children, namely their understanding of labels, which is one of the many complex processing abilities that young children have. Working in the ECCL during my time as an undergraduate student has been an amazing opportunity and I can't wait to discover what the kids teach me next! 

Asha Albuquerque

I am a sophomore at Wellesley College majoring in Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences. I have always been interested in the process of language development and I am interested in how children learn new words and creatively use language in structural ways they have never been exposed to. I am very excited to work with young children at the Early Childhood Cognition Lab and learn more about the development of causal reasoning!

Mika Asaba

I am an undergraduate at Wellesley College majoring in neuroscience, and I’m excited to be working with the Early Childhood Cognition Lab. I have always enjoyed playing with young children and attempting to unravel their minds that are so unlike those of adults. Specifically, I am interested in how and when children attain the ability to understand other people’s perspectives. I want to know how this ability to read minds relates to other cognitive abilities and social skills. 

Luke Chellis

I am an undergraduate at MIT studying Brain and Cognitive Sciences. I like to study the brain because I figure I have one, probably always will, and wish I used it more. As a part of the Early Childhood Cognition Lab, I am interested in studying children because I suspect that children whose only job is figuring out how the world works and what is good and fun might be better at this job than their sometimes more harried adult counterparts. Also, I hope that studying the cognition of babies and children might lend some insight into the cognitive potential of the human race.

Catherine Olsson

I'm a senior double majoring in Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Computer Science, which means that I approach the study of intelligence from both a psychology and an AI perspective. My work in the ECCL is on how kids control variables when exploring the world. Although kids often have trouble systematically and exhaustively exploring variables, recent studies suggest that even kids' unplanned explorations are sensitive to confounded evidence and show a bias towards exploring relevant dimensions. I hope to further explore what conditions affect kids' abilities to perform systematic and informative experiments when exploring a novel domain, and to develop computational models that explain kids' behavior.

Hannah Pelton

I am an undergraduate at MIT majoring in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. I love working with ECCL because childhood is the best part of life. I am interested in the aspects of cognition, such as Theory of Mind, that change drastically from childhood to adulthood, because I want to know how children's minds change as they grow, and why we are not born with an adult mind. 

Audra Podany

I am a junior at MIT and am thrilled to be working with the ECCL this semester. I have always been drawn to the concept of causality and how children interpret events in their lives. Children are constantly being exposed to new experiences and I am interested in how they use these experiences to form views about the world around them. Being able to work directly with young children and toddlers has been very rewarding and has allowed me to discover more about how children interact with their surroundings.

Katie Tingle

I am an undergraduate at Wellesley College majoring in Psychology. I enjoy working with the ECCL and learning how infants and toddlers engage and gain their maturing cognition. I hope to apply what we learn with the ECCL in future research and therapy with children with disorders such as autism.

Phyllis Yan

I am an undergraduate at MIT majoring in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. My main research interest at the ECCL is in causal reasoning in infants. I am very interested in how babies understand different events and use them to learn about the world.

Amanda Young

I am an undergraduate at Wellesley College majoring in Neuroscience. I am excited to work in the ECCL because it combines two of my passions -- psychology and kids! The development of infants and toddlers, and how babies process new information has always interested me. What exactly do they know about the world around them? And how can we as adults can help them learn?

ECCL Alumni

Liz Baraff Bonawitz - Graduate Student

My research program explores causal learning from the perspective of two research traditions: developmental psychology and computational modeling. Specifically, I'm interested in understanding how causal theories are learned and how these theories affect the aquisition of new evidence via children's inferences, actions, and explanations.

Liz is currently a post-doctoral associate at the University of California, Berkeley.

Andrew Shtulman - Post-doctoral Associate

Andrew is an assistant professor in the Psychology Department at Occidental College.

Kate Hoopell - Graduate Student

Tessa van Schijndel - Visiting Graduate Student (University of Amsterdam)

Anna Jenkins - Research Assistant/Lab Coordinator

Anna is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.

Darlene Ferranti - Research Assistant/Lab Coordinator

Ali Horowitz - Research Assistant/Lab Coordinator

Ali is currently a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University.

Sydney Katz - Research Assistant

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Tayyba Anwar

Stephanie Brenman

Brendan Callahan

Hamsika Chandrasekar

Isabel Chang

Emily Chen

Yiling Chen

Catherine Clark

Sara Dahan

Chloé Dames

Clifton Dassuncao

Jenny Dohlman

Camille Doykan

Kristin Falciglia

Adina Fischer

Melina Flores

Michelle Garber

Eric Garr

Sarah Gumlak

Zahra Ghadyali

Irene Headen

Kallie Hedberg

Rosa Hernandez

Alexandra Hsu

Elina Hu

Caroline Huang

Mariam Kandil

Emily Kasman

Anuja Khettry

Danbee Kim

Joseph Kim

Olivia Kim

Jaclyn Konopka

Cheryl Kwinn

Chanelle Lansley

Suejean Lim

Anita Lin

Renee Lizcano

Samantha Marquart

Mike Obilade

Claire O'Connell

Christine Perlow

Kiersten Pollard

Maggie Renno

Meekerley Sanon

Shyamli Sinha

Holly Standing

Leslie Stephens

Kyi-Sin Than

Stephanie Tong

Chris Watson

Yunji Wu

Amanda Young

Jennifer Yu

High School Research Assistants

Veronica Chu

Jordan Horowitz

Phoebe Neel

Tara Venkatesan