Infant Cognition Lab

David Rakison DPhil | Carnegie Mellon University

Distinctions in Animacy

Do infants cause inanimate objects to move even when inanimate objects have animate-like parts?

Do Infants Understand Physics?

Can infants tell the difference between different angles, and can they tell the difference between accurate and inaccurate angles?

Roles in Causation

Can infants learn about the causal role of different objects? Are some objects more likely to be causes than others?

Animals as Causal Agents

Do infants understand that animals, not artifacts, are causal agents with the ability to produce effects in the world?

Association Activation

Can infants learn an association between three animal features without seeing them together?

Role of Evolutionarily Fearful Objects

Will infants learn things associated with predators more quickly than non-predators with shapes as opposed to positive stimuli?

BLicket

When reasoning about causal events, do adults use explicitly in information about probability or associations?