1993 — 1997 |
Wynn, Karen |
R29Activity Code Description: Undocumented code - click on the grant title for more information. |
Nature of Infants'Mental Representation of Numbers
The planned research investigates the initial nature and the development of the concept of number in humans, with emphasis on its mental representation. Initial studies in this laboratory have shown that 5- month-olds can determine the results of simple additions and subtractions of physical objects (e.g., they know that one object added to another identical object results in 2 such objects). Five main issues will be addressed: (1) The first series of studies investigates the extent and developmental progression of infants' knowledge of arithmetical relationships. (2) Nothing is yet known of infants' ability to represent continuous quantity (e.g., amount of substance); the quantificational processes underlying their arithmetical abilities may be specific to discrete quantities (e.g., numbers of individual objects), or they may apply to continuous quantities as well. Series 2 investigates whether infants possess an ability to quantify continuous amounts, and, if so, whether this ability stems from the same underlying processes as does their ability to quantify discrete amounts or if they are two distinct quantificational mechanisms. (3) Series 3 investigates the structure of the mental representations resulting from infants' arithmetical calculations, by seeing how generalizable they are to perceptually different situations. Infants' arithmetical abilities may be inextricably tied to their tracking of individual objects through space; if so, one would expect them to have a situation-specific structure (e.g., "a red cup and another red cup"). If, however, they are truly numerical representations that infants are capable of manipulating numerically, they should not depend on situational properties (e.g., a representation of 'two red cups' that includes a situation-general component is "two red cups'; another is "xx red cups"). (4) Series 4 addresses what constitutes for infants a discrete, countable individual. There is evidence that infants can determine the numerosity, not only of sets of physical objects, but of sequences of sounds as well. Yet little is known about how infants individuate sounds, though much is known about infants' individuation of physical objects. The experiments in series 4 examine infants' individuation of entities such as sounds and actions. (5) Finally. series 5 examines the structure of children's early mental representation of number in a somewhat different manner, by studying preschoolers' acquisition of the linguistic counting system. These issues relate to health concerns in a broad way; by developing a detailed and accurate understanding of the typical course of cognitive development and of underlying cognitive processes, we will be better able to understand and address the problems of populations whose cognitive development and processes deviate from the norm.
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0.97 |
1997 — 1998 |
Wynn, Karen Devon, Richard |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Mpwg: the Wiser Research Program to Retain First Year Women in Science and Engineering Majors @ Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
The objective of this proposal is to conduct a multi-phased evaluation of an experimental,multi-disciplinary coordinated program (WISER) that pairs first-year female students with faculty in research environments. First-year students are mentored and given duties and instruction in an on-going research project over two semesters. The program is united through its common objectives and a common recruitment process that leads to freely chosen, interdisciplinary parings. Faculty and staff at Penn State will construct an evaluation instrument which will allow them to refine the program to better retain or support three groups of participants: WISER interns themselves, graduate students who supervise them, and faculty who have accepted first year students into their research labs and who provide essential training, mentoring and role modeling. The project will demonstrate how this program can be disseminated to two-year institutions that are crucial in the SEM pipeline for women. A two-year urban campus on Penn State at Abington-Ogontz will begin a WISER program to test the model. They will use the faculty-student matching which is a key attribute of this program. Participating at both institutions are faculty and graduate students from the colleges of earth and mineral sciences, engineering, agricultural sciences and health science, a majority of whom are female. Based on the results of the evaluation, the proposers will present the WISER program (modified by the result of the evaluation) to 400 affiliated colleges and universities that form the 52 NASA Space Grant Consortia in every state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The final goal is to impact communities by sponsoring WISERs to present descriptions of their experiences with research in the sciences and engineering to the K- 12 students at their former middle or high schools.
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0.97 |
2009 — 2013 |
Wynn, Karen |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Social Evaluation in Infants and Toddlers
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Humans in every culture judge some actions and people as positive, others as negative. It is clearly beneficial to distinguish supportive and friendly individuals from harmful and malicious ones, and evolutionary biologists, comparative psychologists, and cultural anthropologists have argued that an ability to evaluate others is essential for navigating the social world. Studies proposed here will explore the developmental origins of social evaluation;specifically, how infants &toddlers (a) understand and predict how other individuals evaluate social actions and the agents who perform them;and (b) form their own positive and negative attitudes towards agents based on the actions that they engage in. Series 1 employs looking-time measures to investigate infants'assessment and understanding of several types of positive and negative interactions, including those involving reciprocation and retaliation. Series 2 examines infants'positive and negative evaluations of individuals based on their social actions, using infants'reaching behaviors as an indication of their assessments. Series 3 explores the extent to which young children's social evaluations are explicitly available, using verbal judgments and choices of whom to reward or punish;and explores how children's social evaluation of an individual influences their willingness to learn from that individual. The study of the development of social evaluation connects to disciplines such as social psychology, cultural anthropology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary theory. Results from these experiments will shed light both on central questions in developmental psychology, and on broader questions about the role of innate knowledge and cultural learning in the genesis of human social interaction. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: By learning more about the nature and development of social evaluation, we will be in a better position ultimately to understand atypical development of these processes in, for example, individuals with autism and Asperger's syndrome, and disorders of psychopathy. A successful theory of the etiology of these serious disorders requires research into the nature, sequence, and mechanisms underlying typical development. More generally, such research is a critical step in developing a richer understanding, as a society, of the psychological bases underlying affective states such as empathy, anger, and guilt, as well as moral notions of obligation, fairness, &just punishment;as such, this research has implications for broader social and educational issues.
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