Research Topics
| Elizabeth SpelkeSummaryAffiliation: Harvard University Country: USA Publications
Research Grants
| Collaborators
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Detail Information
Publications
Infants' ability to connect gaze and emotional expression to intentional actionAnn T Phillips
Department of Psychology, 525 East University Avenue, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 1109, USA
Cognition 85:53-78. 2002..These studies provide evidence that the ability to use information about an adult's direction of gaze and emotional expression to predict action is both present, and developing at the end of the first year of life...
Core systems of geometry in animal mindsElizabeth S Spelke
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 1130 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 367:2784-93. 2012..In return, research on humans, relating core cognitive capacities to symbolic abilities, sheds light on the content of representations in animal minds...- Sex differences in intrinsic aptitude for mathematics and science?: a critical reviewElizabeth S Spelke
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 1130 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Am Psychol 60:950-8. 2005..These capacities lead men and women to develop equal talent for mathematics and science... - Core knowledgeElizabeth S Spelke
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Dev Sci 10:89-96. 2007..Converging research on human infants, non-human primates, children and adults in diverse cultures can aid both understanding of these systems and attempts to overcome their limits... - Kindergarten children's sensitivity to geometry in mapsElizabeth S Spelke
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA
Dev Sci 14:809-21. 2011..These findings provide evidence that some map-reading abilities arise prior to formal instruction, are common to both genders, and are used spontaneously to guide children's spatial behavior... 
Young children's representations of spatial and functional relations between objectsKristin Shutts
Harvard University, USA
Child Dev 80:1612-27. 2009....- Children's multiplicative transformations of discrete and continuous quantitiesHilary Barth
Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459, USA
J Exp Child Psychol 103:441-54. 2009..The ability to apply simple multiplicative transformations to analog magnitude representations of quantity may form a part of the toolkit that children use to construct later concepts of rational number... - Non-symbolic arithmetic in adults and young childrenHilary Barth
Laboratory for Developmental Studies, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Cognition 98:199-222. 2006..Abstract numerical quantity representations therefore are computationally functional and may provide a foundation for formal mathematics... - Social categories guide young children's preferences for novel objectsKristin Shutts
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA
Dev Sci 13:599-610. 2010..These findings suggest that gender and age categories are encoded spontaneously and influence children's preferences and choices. For young children, gender and age may be more powerful guides to preferences than race... - Nonsymbolic, approximate arithmetic in children: abstract addition prior to instructionHilary Barth
Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459, USA
Dev Psychol 44:1466-77. 2008..The findings provide clear evidence for nonsymbolic numerical operations on abstract numerical quantities in children who have not yet been taught formal arithmetic... - The double-edged sword of pedagogy: Instruction limits spontaneous exploration and discoveryElizabeth Bonawitz
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Cognition 120:322-30. 2011..Thus, pedagogy promotes efficient learning but at a cost: children are less likely to perform potentially irrelevant actions but also less likely to discover novel information... - Children's use of geometry for reorientationSang Ah Lee
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Dev Sci 11:743-9. 2008.... - All numbers are not equal: an electrophysiological investigation of small and large number representationsDaniel C Hyde
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
J Cogn Neurosci 21:1039-53. 2009..They appear to treat small-number arrays as individual objects to be tracked through space and time, and large-number arrays as cardinal values to be compared and manipulated... - The native language of social cognitionKatherine D Kinzler
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104:12577-80. 2007..Early-developing preferences for native-language speakers may serve as a foundation for later-developing preferences and conflicts among social groups... - Spontaneous mapping of number and space in adults and young childrenMaria Dolores de Hevia
Laboratory for Developmental Studies, William James Hall, 11th Floor, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Cognition 110:198-207. 2009..Numerical and spatial representations therefore are linked prior to the onset of formal instruction, in a manner that suggests a privileged relation between spatial and numerical cognition... - Judgments of the lucky across development and cultureKristina R Olson
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
J Pers Soc Psychol 94:757-76. 2008..These findings are discussed in relation to M. J. Lerner's (1980) just-world theory and J. Piaget's (1932/1965) immanent-justice research and in relation to the development of intergroup attitudes... - Children's biased evaluations of lucky versus unlucky people and their social groupsKristina R Olson
Harvard University, USA
Psychol Sci 17:845-6. 2006 - Reorientation and landmark-guided search by young children: evidence for two systemsSang Ah Lee
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Psychol Sci 17:577-82. 2006.... - Object boundaries influence toddlers' performance in a search taskKristin Shutts
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Dev Sci 9:97-107. 2006..These findings suggest a parallel between the object representations of young children and those of adults, whose attention is directed to objects and spreads in a gradient-like fashion within an object... - Chronometric studies of numerical cognition in five-month-old infantsJustin N Wood
Laboratory for Developmental Studies, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Cognition 97:23-39. 2005.... - Core knowledge and its limits: the domain of foodKristin Shutts
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Cognition 112:120-40. 2009..The category-specific patterns of perception and categorization shown by human adults, children, and adult monkeys therefore were not found in human infants, providing evidence for limits to infants' domains of knowledge... - Infants' enumeration of actions: numerical discrimination and its signature limitsJustin N Wood
Laboratory for Development Studies, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Dev Sci 8:173-81. 2005..All of these findings agree with those of studies using visual-spatial arrays and auditory sequences, providing evidence that a single, abstract system of number representation is present and functional in infancy... - Evolutionary foundations of number: spontaneous representation of numerical magnitudes by cotton-top tamarinsMarc D Hauser
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Proc Biol Sci 270:1441-6. 2003..These results provide strong support for the hypothesis that representations of large, approximate numerosity are evolutionarily ancient and spontaneously available to non-human animals... - Origins of number sense. Large-number discrimination in human infantsJennifer S Lipton
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA, USA
Psychol Sci 14:396-401. 2003.... - Number-space mapping in human infantsMaria Dolores de Hevia
Laboratory for Developmental Studies, William James Hall, 11th Floor, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Psychol Sci 21:653-60. 2010..A central foundation of mathematics, science, and technology therefore emerges prior to experience with language, symbol systems, or measurement devices... - Young children's spontaneous use of geometry in mapsAnna Shusterman
Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459, USA
Dev Sci 11:F1-7. 2008..These findings begin to chart the nature and limits of the use of core geometry in a uniquely human, symbolic task... - Preschool children's mapping of number words to nonsymbolic numerositiesJennifer S Lipton
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 1120, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Child Dev 76:978-88. 2005..These findings provide evidence that large, approximate numerosity representations become linked to number words around the time that children learn to count to those words reliably... - Abstract number and arithmetic in preschool childrenHilary Barth
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102:14116-21. 2005..Abstract knowledge of number and addition therefore precedes, and may guide, language-based instruction in mathematics... - Preschool children master the logic of number word meaningsJennifer S Lipton
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Cognition 98:B57-66. 2006..Before beginning formal education or gaining counting skill, children possess a productive symbolic system for representing number... - Thinking of things unseen: infants' use of language to update mental representationsPatricia A Ganea
Department of Psychology, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Psychol Sci 18:734-9. 2007..This developmental advance inaugurates a uniquely human and immensely powerful form of learning about the world... - The development of language and abstract concepts: the case of natural numberKirsten F Condry
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA
J Exp Psychol Gen 137:22-38. 2008..Children construct the system of abstract, natural number concepts from these foundations... - When is four far more than three? Children's generalization of newly acquired number wordsYi Ting Huang
Harvard University, Psychology Department, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Psychol Sci 21:600-6. 2010..g., three cows). Both findings suggest that children fail to map newly learned words in their counting routine to the fully abstract concepts of natural numbers... - Core systems in human cognitionKatherine D Kinzler
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 1130 William James Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Prog Brain Res 164:257-64. 2007..Research on infants and children may contribute both to understanding of these systems and to attempts to overcome misconceptions that they may foster... - Foundations of cooperation in young childrenKristina R Olson
Psychology Department, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Cognition 108:222-31. 2008..5-year-old children, despite their limited experience with complex cooperative networks. Three pillars of mature cooperative behavior therefore appear to have roots extending deep into human development... - Children's understanding of the relationship between addition and subtractionCamilla K Gilmore
Laboratory for Developmental Studies, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA
Cognition 107:932-45. 2008..Prior to formal schooling, children therefore show generalized understanding of at least one logical principle of arithmetic. The teaching of mathematics may be enhanced by building on this understanding... - The construction of large number representations in adultsHilary Barth
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Cognition 86:201-21. 2003..These findings suggest that modality-specific stimulus properties undergo a non-iterative transformation into representations of quantity that are independent of the modality or format of the stimulus... - Newborn infants perceive abstract numbersVeronique Izard
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106:10382-5. 2009..Their performance provides evidence for abstract numerical representations at the start of postnatal experience... - rTMS over the intraparietal sulcus disrupts numerosity processingMarinella Cappelletti
Center for Non Invasive Brain Stimulation, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Exp Brain Res 179:631-42. 2007.... - Conceptual precursors to languageSusan J Hespos
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203, USA
Nature 430:453-6. 2004..Language learning therefore seems to develop by linking linguistic forms to universal, pre-existing representations of sound and meaning... - Number sense in human infantsFei Xu
Northeastern University, Boston, USA
Dev Sci 8:88-101. 2005..In contrast, infants may fail to represent small numerosities in visual-spatial arrays with continuous quantity controls, consistent with the thesis that separate systems serve to represent large versus small numerosities... - Motion and edge sensitivity in perception of object unityW Carter Smith
School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002, USA
Cogn Psychol 46:31-64. 2003..In addition, young infants are able to retain information about edge orientation over short intervals in determining connectedness via a process of spatiotemporal integration... - Symbolic arithmetic knowledge without instructionCamilla K Gilmore
Learning Sciences Research Institute, University of Nottingham, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, UK
Nature 447:589-91. 2007..Our findings help to delimit the sources of children's difficulties learning symbolic arithmetic, and they suggest ways to enhance children's engagement with formal mathematics...
Research Grants
- Cognition in InfancyElizabeth Spelke; Fiscal Year: 2007..abstract_text> ..
- Cognition in InfancyElizabeth Spelke; Fiscal Year: 2009....
- Cognition in InfancyElizabeth S Spelke; Fiscal Year: 2010....