Category Archives: Infants

Infants Learning Words from Pictures

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Giorgio Bertini

This experiment was designed to clarify the referential status of infants’ newly learned words. We introduced 15- and 17-month-olds to a novel noun, presented in conjunction with pictures of two whisks that differed in color. We asked whether infants would … Continue reading →

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Infants are Big Thinkers

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Giorgio Bertini

Psychologists at Harvard University have found that infants younger than a year old understand social dominance and use relative size to predict who will prevail when two individuals’ goals conflict. Lead author Lotte Thomsen says the work suggests that we … Continue reading →

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The Developmental Origin of Metacognition

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Giorgio Bertini

We explain metacognition as a management of cognitive resources that does not necessitate algorithmic strategies or meta-representation. When pragmatic, world-directed actions cannot reduce the distance to the goal, agents engage in epistemic action directed at cognition. Such actions often are … Continue reading →

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Natural Pedagogy

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Giorgio Bertini

We propose that human communication is specifically adapted to allow the transmission of generic knowledge between individuals. Such a communication system, which we call ‘natural pedagogy’, enables fast and efficient social learning of cognitively opaque cultural knowledge that would be … Continue reading →