Introduction

Professor of psychology at UC Berkeley

Groundbreaking research into how children develop
a theory of mind
Helped formulate the theory theory (idea that
children learn in same way scientists do
Believes that investigations of childrens minds
could help resolve deep philosophical ?s
Slide 1
30 years ago most psychologists thought babies and
young children were irrational, egocentric and
amoral
Unable to understand cause/effect, imagine
experiences of other people, or appreciate difference
b/w reality and fantasy

Slide 2
Past 3 decades scientists have discovered that even
the youngest children know more than we would
ever have thought possible
Studies suggest that children learn about the world
much in the same way that scientists do
Findings give fresh perspective on babies and human
nature itself
Slide 3
Late 1970s scientists began to look at what babies and young children do
instead of just what they say
Babies look longer at novel/unexpected events than at more predictable
one - can be used to figure out what babies expect to happen
Mid-1980s-1990s scientists discovered that infants understand
fundamental physical relations like movement trajectories, gravity and
containment
By age 3-4 they have elementary ideas about biology (growth/illness)
shows that children go beyond superficial perceptual appearances
Slide 4
Betty Repacholi and I found that 18 month olds can understand that I might want
one thing whereas you want another
Showed 14/18month olds a bowl of raw broccoli and a bowl of goldfish crackers
and tasted some of each, making either a disgusted face or a happy face
Experimenter put her hand out and asked Could you give me some?
18 month old gave her broccoli when she acted as if she liked it, even though they
would not choose it for themselves
Shows that children are not completely egocentric they can take perspective of
another person
Slide 5
How human beings learn about world form confusing
mess of sensory data
Begun to understand that babies and young children
have an extraordinary ability to learn from statistical
pattern
Played sequences of syllables w/ statistical regularities
babies listened longer to statistically unusual strings
Slide 6
Showed 8 month old babies a box full of mixed-up
ping pong balls: 80-20
Experimenter would take 5
Babies more surprised when experimenter pulled
4R and 1W than when she pulled out 4W and 1R


Slide 7
Evolutionary perspective: one of most striking things about
human beings is our long period of immaturity (much longer
childhood than any other species)
Why make babies so helpless for so long and thus require
adults to put so much work and care to keep their babies alive?
Division of labor b/w babies and adults: Babies get protected
time to learn about their environment w/o having to actually
do anything
Baby brains more flexible than adult brains, high level of
chemicals that make brains change connections easily
Lack of prefrontal control (focus/planning controlled in
prefrontal cortex which takes long time to mature mid 20s)
inhibits irrelevant thoughts or actions but being uninhibited
may help babies and young children to explore freely
Trade off
Babies are designed by evolution to change and create, to
learn and explore childhood and caregiving is fundamental
to our humanity