Cognitive development

How thinking changes over time, as children are enculturated

Cognition varies not just across groups but within individual people over time. By studying how thinking changes over development, we can clarify which aspects of cognition are universal and which are culture-specific.

The lab conducts developmental studies in the lab, in science museums, and in the classroom. They consist of simple games designed to test features of memory, reasoning, or preference.
Our development studies include children in various cultures, including those living in small-scale societies like the Tsimane' of Bolivia. By comparing cognitive development across cultures, we get empirical leverage on the effects of schooling, age, material culture, ecology, and other factors.

Example study: How do children conceptualize the space around them?

The way we move our bodies can reveal which cognitive system we use to think about space. Here a preschooler learns a short dance routine that starts with her stepping to her right. But after turning around 180 degrees, she repeats the dance not to her right (an egocentric response) but toward the same part of the room (an allocentric response). Children can remember both kinds of spatial information, but the one they use depends on whether they are moving side-side or front-back (Pitt et al., 2023).

References

2023

  1. Flexible spatial memory in children: Different reference frames on different axes
    Benjamin Pitt, Sahra Aalaei, and Alison Gopnik
    In Proceedings of the annual meeting of the cognitive science society, 2023
    PDF