The Early Childhood Cognition Lab
at the University of Washington
As adults, we are adept at explaining and understanding the behavior of other people around us. Critical to this process is our ability to think about our own and other people's actions as guided or motivated by goals or intentions. For instance, upon seeing a woman reach toward a cookie jar, we go beyond focusing on the surface properties of the act (e.g., the speed and trajectory of the woman's reach) to interpret this action as directed toward the goal of obtaining a cookie. Our tendency to view action as motivated by goals is a powerful tool in our ability to navigate our social environment. It enables us to monitor and modify our own behavior, to predict the outcome of the actions of others, and to both teach and learn a variety of activities and skills. At the ECCL, we are interested in exploring the origins of the ability to represent human action in terms of goals and intentions. We do this by inviting infants and children (accompanied by their parents) to play age-appropriate and child-friendly games with us.
Browse our website to find out more about our research, who we are, and how you can participate in our studies at the Early Childhood Cognition Lab. At the end of each quarter, we post a newsletter with updates on our projects.
If you have questions, please contact us by phone (206-616-6770) or by email, eccl@u.washington.edu. We look forward to hearing from you!
News
Research presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies in Vancouver, BC.
Symposium Talk
Tool Use in the 1st Year of Life: Infants Select Appropriate Tool Use Actions Based on Tool and Goal Object Properties
J. Sommerville & E. Feldman
Posters
The Interrelation between Language Ability, Social Referencing Skills and Infants’ Goal Understanding at 9.5 Months of Age
R. Brainerd, C. Crane, &
J. Sommerville
Gender Differences in Infant Tool Use
E. Hodgson, E. Feldman, &
J. Sommerville
Understanding Others’ Actions: Comparing Active Participation and Observational Experience
K. Venema, K. Braun, &
J. Sommerville
