1986 — 1989 |
Spelke, Elizabeth |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Object Perception in Infancy |
0.872 |
1986 — 2002 |
Spelke, Elizabeth S |
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. R37Activity Code Description: To provide long-term grant support to investigators whose research competence and productivity are distinctly superior and who are highly likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner. Investigators may not apply for a MERIT award. Program staff and/or members of the cognizant National Advisory Council/Board will identify candidates for the MERIT award during the course of review of competing research grant applications prepared and submitted in accordance with regular PHS requirements. |
Perceptual Knowledge in Infancy
Sixteen experiments investigate the development, in human infants, of knowledge of the immediately perceivable world. The experiments focus primarily on infants' knowledge of physical objects, and they investigate whether infants are sensitive to 5 principles governing object behavior: continuity (objects move on connected, unobstructed paths), cohesion (objects move as connected, bounded units), contact (objects act upon each other only on contact), gravity (objects move downward in the absence of support), and inertia (objects move smoothly in the absence of obstacles). Infants' knowledge in investigated by means of three methods: (1) a reaching method, focusing on infants' ability to reach predictively for a moving object by extrapolating its motion, (2) a standard preferential looking method, focusing on infants' tendency to look longer at events in which a visible object moves anomalously and (3) and invisible displacement preferential looking method, focusing on infants' tendency to look longer at the outcomes of events in which an object moves from view and then reappears at an impossible location. If infants are sensitive to a principle governing object motion, then they are expected to reach for a moving object by extrapolating its motion in accord with that principle, and they are expected to look longer at visible or partly hidden events in which an object's motion violates this principle. The long-term objectives of this proposal are (1) to elucidate core human conceptions of the world through studies of their origins in infancy, (2) to assess the accessibility, generality, and strength of infants' understanding of their surrounding, and (3) to elucidate the mechanisms by which knowledge is acquired, through study of the acquisition process. An understanding of core physical knowledge and its development might shed light on the structure and acquisition of knowledge more generally, and it should aid efforts to facilitate knowledge acquisition in formal science instruction. In the future, such understanding may contribute to the detection and treatment of children with early developing cognitive impairments.
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1 |
1993 |
Spelke, Elizabeth S |
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. R37Activity Code Description: To provide long-term grant support to investigators whose research competence and productivity are distinctly superior and who are highly likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner. Investigators may not apply for a MERIT award. Program staff and/or members of the cognizant National Advisory Council/Board will identify candidates for the MERIT award during the course of review of competing research grant applications prepared and submitted in accordance with regular PHS requirements. |
Perceptual Knowlege in Infancy @ Cornell University Ithaca
Sixteen experiments investigate the development, in human infants, of knowledge of the immediately perceivable world. The experiments focus primarily on infants' knowledge of physical objects, and they investigate whether infants are sensitive to 5 principles governing object behavior: continuity (objects move on connected, unobstructed paths), cohesion (objects move as connected, bounded units), contact (objects act upon each other only on contact), gravity (objects move downward in the absence of support), and inertia (objects move smoothly in the absence of obstacles). Infants' knowledge in investigated by means of three methods: (1) a reaching method, focusing on infants' ability to reach predictively for a moving object by extrapolating its motion, (2) a standard preferential looking method, focusing on infants' tendency to look longer at events in which a visible object moves anomalously and (3) and invisible displacement preferential looking method, focusing on infants' tendency to look longer at the outcomes of events in which an object moves from view and then reappears at an impossible location. If infants are sensitive to a principle governing object motion, then they are expected to reach for a moving object by extrapolating its motion in accord with that principle, and they are expected to look longer at visible or partly hidden events in which an object's motion violates this principle. The long-term objectives of this proposal are (1) to elucidate core human conceptions of the world through studies of their origins in infancy, (2) to assess the accessibility, generality, and strength of infants' understanding of their surrounding, and (3) to elucidate the mechanisms by which knowledge is acquired, through study of the acquisition process. An understanding of core physical knowledge and its development might shed light on the structure and acquisition of knowledge more generally, and it should aid efforts to facilitate knowledge acquisition in formal science instruction. In the future, such understanding may contribute to the detection and treatment of children with early developing cognitive impairments.
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0.957 |
1993 — 1997 |
Spelke, Elizabeth |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
U.S.-Sweden Cooperative Research: the Early Development of Physical Knowledge
This three-year award will support U.S.-Sweden cooperative research in cognitive psychology between Elizabeth S. Spelke of the University of Cornell and Claes von Hofsten of Umea University, Umea, Sweden. The investigators propose to study the early development of knowledge of motion of physical objects through two different, yet parallel sets of experiments: one using looking methods of object identification (Cornell) and the other utilizing predictive reaching methods (Umea). They will investigate infants' knowledge and perception of physical properties of objects such as gravity, inertia, continuity and solidity. Infants will be presented with a fully visible or partly occluded moving object and their responses measured accordingly. The research attempts to answer two questions: how infants' knowledge of the physical world is developed and whether the same knowledge guides their inferences either through visual perception (looking) or physical action (reaching). Dr. Spelke brings to this collaboration her extensive background and work on infants' understanding of physical properties of objects and events. This is complemented by Dr. von Hofsten's expertise in the development of action and perception/action relationships in infants. The proposed experiments could not be conducted without the unique equipment for investigating object-directed reaching in infants which is only available in the Umea laboratory. This cooperative research effort will advance knowledge of two larger issues in cognitive psychology: how humans learn to operate in and understand the physical world.
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0.872 |
1996 — 2000 |
Spelke, Elizabeth S |
T32Activity Code Description: To enable institutions to make National Research Service Awards to individuals selected by them for predoctoral and postdoctoral research training in specified shortage areas. |
Development of Cognition @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
0.888 |
2000 |
Spelke, Elizabeth S |
F06Activity Code Description: Undocumented code - click on the grant title for more information. |
Development and Neural Bases of Number Representation @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This fellowship would support collaborative research with Stanislas Denaene on the nature and development of number representations in human infants, young children, and human adults. Adults' number representations will be assessed using both behavioral and neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, ERPs) to test the hypothesis that mature representations of number depend on two distinct subsystems: an exact small-number system and an approximate large-number system, that are coordinated by natural language. Children's number representations will be assessed using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques (ERPs) to test the hypothesis that children assemble the same two systems in learning number words and verbal counting. Finally, infants' number representations will be assessed using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques (ERPs and optical imaging) in an initial effort to chart the developmental origins of these two systems. The research will be conducted. during two visits by Spelke to Dehaene's lab in Paris: an initial visit of 10 months (from 11/O1/00 to 8/31/01). and a follow-up visit of 2 months (from 07/01/02 torn 08/31/02)
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1 |
2001 — 2014 |
Spelke, Elizabeth Kanwisher, Nancy (co-PI) [⬀] Hauser, Marc |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Sources of Mathematical Thinking @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology
To understand mathematical cognition both as it develops in the young child and as it is taught in school, one must understand the cognitive systems from which it is constructed and the processes by which those systems are coordinated to produce new concepts and skills. Based on previous research, we hypothesize that elementary school mathematics builds on three representational systems: a system for representing exact small numerosities, a system for representing approximate large numerosities, and natural language with its system of number words and other quantifiers. The proposed research investigates each of these building block systems and their interactions through experiments on human infants, non-human primates, preschool children learning counting, elementary school children learning arithmetic and fractions, and adults. To study the building block cognitive systems directly, experiments investigate spontaneous number representations in human infants and in untrained adult monkeys, using in each population the same three converging behavioral measures: looking time to arrays of different numerosities and to addition or subtraction events (building on the finding that both infants and monkeys look longer at novel arrays or unexpected events), manual search (building on the finding that the number of times that an infant or monkey will search in a container depends on the number of objects it represents within the container), and locomotor approach to containers with different numbers of attractive objects (building on the finding that infants and monkeys will approach the container with the greater number of objects). Further experiments investigate how preschool children assemble these components in learning number words and the counting routine, by using verbal and pointing tasks to assess developmental changes in children's understanding of number words and counting procedures. To uncover the neural substrates underlying mathematical cognition, both behavioral and neuroimaging experiments investigate whether and how human adults use each of the three representational systems in performing numerical comparisons and elementary arithmetic. Finally, experiments investigate number concepts and arithmetic learning in elementary school children. Training studies in which children are taught new facts or concepts and then are tested on a range of related problems will serve to investigate the subsystems involved in this learning, to probe the processes by which those subsystems are assembled to meet new educational challenges, and to explore ways of enhancing mathematics learning in elementary school. This research promises to shed light on the teaching and learning of mathematics through coordinated, laboratory-based studies in which monkeys, infants, children and adults are given the same stimuli and often the same tasks. This coordinated effort should provide a broad portrait of the sources of mathematical thinking, from its phylogenetic and ontogenetic origins to its culmination in educated adults.
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0.915 |
2003 — 2012 |
Spelke, Elizabeth S |
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. |
Cognition in Infancy
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Experiments investigate the early development of knowledge of the immediately surrounding world. Three series of experiments focus on human infants? developing perception and understanding of objects, investigating how infants perceive visible objects, represent the existence, location, and behavior of hidden objects, and learn about objects in the categories of animals, tools, and food. Three further series of experiments focus on infants? developing sensitivity to number, investigating how well infants discriminate among numerosities in visual-spatial arrays and in visual and auditory event sequences, whether they detect numerical correspondences both across auditory and visual modalities and across temporal and spatial formats, and whether they are sensitive to numerical order. Three classes of methods are used to assess infants? perceptual and cognitive development. First, preferential looking and head-turning methods focus on infants? tendency to attend longer to events that are novel or to objects that are self-propelled. Second, reaching methods focus on infants? tendency to reach predictively for moving objects and to reach preferentially for objects that have been observed to exhibit a particular behavior or function. Third, methods for recording high-density event-related potentials following the introduction of a novel object or numerosity serve to investigate both the time course and the developing cerebral mechanisms of object and number representation. The long-term goals of this proposal are to discover core human conceptions of the world through studies of their origins in infancy, to chart the role of these core systems in the development of cognitive skills, and to explore the biological mechanisms that support these systems. An understanding of object and numerical cognition in infancy promises to shed light on the structure and acquisition of knowledge more generally, to aid efforts to foster children?s formal and informal learning of science and mathematics, and to contribute to the detection and treatment of children with developmental disabilities such as attention disorders and calculation deficits.
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1 |
2014 — 2019 |
Spelke, Elizabeth |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Core Systems For Learning Mathematics
Although human infants readily develop some capacities for representing number and geometry, children's thinking extends far beyond these capacities when they learn school mathematics. The basic concepts and skills of arithmetic and geometry that children learn in elementary school are critical for all subsequent learning and practicing of mathematics and science, but their acquisition, in relation to younger children's preexisting numerical and geometrical concepts, is not well understood. The proposed experiments are guided by the hypothesis that children learn school mathematics by using symbols- both language and visual-spatial symbols such as pictures and maps- to combine productively the early-developing numerical and spatial representations that emerge in infancy. To test this hypothesis, the proposed experiments probe the relationship between children's performance on tests of core numerical and geometrical abilities and their performance on tests of symbolic arithmetic, map reading, and abstract geometrical reasoning. Some experiments use individual difference methods to test whether variability in children's sensitivity to core numerical or geometric information is associated with variability in the mastery of language or symbols or of more abstract mathematical concepts. Further experiments use training methods to investigate whether tasks that exercise children's core abilities or use of symbols enhance children's numerical or geometrical reasoning in tests of school mathematics. The training experiments probe both the existence of relationships between core and constructed mathematical abilities and the underlying cognitive and motivational processes that may account for these relationships. Through these investigations, the experiments aim both to contribute to basic understanding of mathematical cognition and to inform efforts to enhance children's mathematical learning and reasoning.
The proposed research has two complementary goals. First, it aims to shed light on the fundamental cognitive capacities that allow humans to develop knowledge of elementary school mathematics, especially the abstract concepts and rules of arithmetic and Euclidean geometry. Second, the research aims to develop better ways to aid children's learning of mathematics, by building on basic research findings concerning the nature and early development of reasoning in the core cognitive domains on which elementary school mathematics may be founded. To accomplish these goals, tasks that previously were developed as tools to probe the fundamental numerical and geometrical abilities of infants, children, and adults in diverse cultures are deployed both to assess patterns of variability in children's mathematical abilities and to serve as training interventions with the potential to enhance school math abilities. The experiments investigate not only the direct relations between early and later developing numerical and geometrical concepts, but also the ways in which children's developing mastery of symbols, cognitive control, and attitudes toward learning may modulate those relations and impact on children's learning and performance of school mathematics. Through these laboratory experiments, the research aims to achieve a better understanding of mature mathematical reasoning and to discover new ways to aid children's mastery of this critical domain of knowledge.
By investigating the sources of variability in children's mathematical reasoning and the experiences that enhance children's reasoning, the proposed research promises to contribute to efforts both to foster all children's learning of mathematics and to aid children who experience difficulty with learning in this domain. Because children's learning of mathematics is affected by motivational patterns as well as cognitive abilities, the experimental interventions aim to enhance not only the cognitive processes underlying mathematical reasoning but also children's attitudes towards mathematics, belief in the malleability of mathematical skills with practice, and sense of their own competence as mathematical learners. Because children often learn best in social contexts, the interventions aim to create a set of training materials that children can use to play with others, and experiments will compare these interventions to those instantiated in individualized interactive computer-training programs. The findings of this research should inform efforts to enhance children's learning of mathematics both in and outside of school, for 4- to 10-year-old children at all ability levels.
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0.915 |