Cognitive Science Speaker Series | Making Sense of the Social World
Speaker: Laura Schulz, Ph.D.
Title: Making Sense of the Social World
Short Bio: Laura Schulz is the Associate Department Head and the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Cognitive Science in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in philosophy and from the University of California, Berkeley with a PhD in developmental psychology. Her research focuses on the problem of induction: how children learn so much from so little so quickly. She and her students have worked on a wide range of topics including causal reasoning, play and learning, and social cognition. Work in her lab is influenced by computational models of cognition and she is especially interested in bridging the gap between formal models of learning and children’s behavior. She has been honored with the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions to Psychology, the Society for Research in Child Development Award for Early Career Contributions, the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences, and the Presidential Award Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
Abstract: I will present five new projects on social cognition, looking at children's inferences about informing, helping, attending to, and identifying with, others. Although they are separate studies, they are united in investigating the development of children's understanding of the social world, revealing both its sophistication, and some surprises. Thus for instance, in early word production, toddlers selectively communicate information in common ground, rather than information new to the listener. However, by age four, children are sensitive enough to audience-design that children (like adults) adjust their online communication to provide more redundant information to younger listeners. In third party contexts, four to seven-year-olds have a nuanced understanding of prosocial behavior (i.e., recognizing that offers to help can backfire and offend the would-be recipient); however, at this same age, children are strikingly insensitive to the difference between attentive and distracted social partners. In the last study, I will suggest that children's sensitivity to social roles affects their insight learning: Children are much faster to overcome functional fixedness when a tool is demonstrated by peers of a different gender than the same gender.
ASL-English interpreters have been requested. Light refreshments will be provided.
Event Snapshot
When and Where
Who
Open to the Public
Interpreter Requested?
Yes