We've begun a brand new series called "A conversation with a luminary." In the series, we will chat with a trailblazing figure in developmental cognitive science about their journey in science, how they stumbled on the topic they're most known for, and advice they would give to young academics and junior faculty.
\n\nWe are kicking off this series with a conversation with the Letters & Science Mary Herman Rubinstein Professor Jenny Saffran! Professor Saffran is renowned for her groundbreaking research on infant statistical learning, which demonstrates how infants use patterns in sound to segment and learn language. Her work has fundamentally shaped our understanding of how cognitive mechanisms support early language acquisition.
\n\nIf there is a developmental cognitive scientist you'd like to hear from, be sure to email us at theitsinnatepodcast@gmail.com
Special Guest: Jenny Saffran.
","summary":"","date_published":"2024-11-18T16:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/9eaf3d89-ba17-4b8c-a661-fd2cbc6b68bb.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":64555777,"duration_in_seconds":4730}]},{"id":"1e5bcaa7-4b0f-40c2-9d7b-509c6f063cab","title":"Episode 20: 3-month-olds are rational?! And can represent others' goals?! (with Brandon Woo)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/20","content_text":"In this jam-packed episode, we chat with Dr. Brandon Woo about a recent study of his published in Developmental Science that was designed to examine whether 3-month-olds, who are not yet able to reach for and grab things on their own, can nonetheless infer the goal of another person's actions! We also get to chat with Dr. Woo about his journey in cognitive scientist and get to hear about what he'd be doing if he weren't a developmental cognitive scientist! Deon and Jenny also go back and forth a bit about how best to interpret these data! A great episode all around!\n\nLinks\n\nWoo, B. M., Liu, S., & Spelke, E. S. (2024). Infants rationally infer the goals of other people's reaches in the absence of first‐person experience with reaching actions. Developmental Science, 27(3), e13453. LinkSpecial Guest: Brandon Woo.","content_html":"In this jam-packed episode, we chat with Dr. Brandon Woo about a recent study of his published in Developmental Science that was designed to examine whether 3-month-olds, who are not yet able to reach for and grab things on their own, can nonetheless infer the goal of another person's actions! We also get to chat with Dr. Woo about his journey in cognitive scientist and get to hear about what he'd be doing if he weren't a developmental cognitive scientist! Deon and Jenny also go back and forth a bit about how best to interpret these data! A great episode all around!
\n\nLinks
\n\nWoo, B. M., Liu, S., & Spelke, E. S. (2024). Infants rationally infer the goals of other people's reaches in the absence of first‐person experience with reaching actions. Developmental Science, 27(3), e13453. Link
Special Guest: Brandon Woo.
","summary":"","date_published":"2024-11-02T15:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/1e5bcaa7-4b0f-40c2-9d7b-509c6f063cab.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":94732814,"duration_in_seconds":6043}]},{"id":"f32f7098-c664-4781-814e-d66eafbd9d92","title":"Episode 19: Is Word Learning Innate or Learned? Recent Evidence Suggests It Might be the Latter (with Wai Keen Vong)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/19","content_text":"Unless you live under a rock, you've no doubt heard about that recent Science paper showing that an artificial neural network trained on visual and linguistic data from a child's egocentric recordings was able to map words with their referents. What makes this paper particularly significant is that it demonstrates that there is sufficient structure in the environment to support children's ability to learn words, without the need for strong inductive and innate biases or domain-specific knowledge.\n\nWell, guess what? In this episode, we were joined by the lead author of that paper, Dr. Wai Keen Vong! We cover lots of ground in this episode — we talk about the paper, its motivations, Wei Keen's journey in science, how one might go about learning more about computational modeling, among other things. \n\nLinks\n\nVong, W. K., Wang, W., Orhan, A. E., & Lake, B. M (2024). Grounded language acquisition through the eyes and ears of a single child. Science. LinkSpecial Guest: Wai Keen Vong.","content_html":"Unless you live under a rock, you've no doubt heard about that recent Science paper showing that an artificial neural network trained on visual and linguistic data from a child's egocentric recordings was able to map words with their referents. What makes this paper particularly significant is that it demonstrates that there is sufficient structure in the environment to support children's ability to learn words, without the need for strong inductive and innate biases or domain-specific knowledge.
\n\nWell, guess what? In this episode, we were joined by the lead author of that paper, Dr. Wai Keen Vong! We cover lots of ground in this episode — we talk about the paper, its motivations, Wei Keen's journey in science, how one might go about learning more about computational modeling, among other things.
\n\nLinks
\n\nVong, W. K., Wang, W., Orhan, A. E., & Lake, B. M (2024). Grounded language acquisition through the eyes and ears of a single child. Science. Link
Special Guest: Wai Keen Vong.
","summary":"","date_published":"2024-10-11T10:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/f32f7098-c664-4781-814e-d66eafbd9d92.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":77872813,"duration_in_seconds":5312}]},{"id":"5d7d4741-8504-498f-b68e-ac4ab1bd886a","title":"Episode 18: All about math (with Dana Miller-Cotto)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/18","content_text":"In this jam-packed episode with chat with Dr. Dana Miller-Cotto about all manner of things, from her path to higher education, to her thoughts on what it means to raise a kid as a faculty member, to her early relationship with mathematics, to her impressive body of research examining the relation between working memory and mathematics performance.\n\nYou don't want to miss this episode!\n\nLinks\n\nMiller‐Cotto, D., Smith, L. V., Wang, A. H., & Ribner, A. D. (2022). Changing the conversation: A culturally responsive perspective on executive functions, minoritized children and their families. Infant and Child Development, 31(1), e2286. Link\n\nMiller-Cotto, D., & Byrnes, J. P. (2020). What’s the best way to characterize the relationship between working memory and achievement?: An initial examination of competing theories. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(5), 1074–1084. LinkSpecial Guest: Dana Miller-Cotto.","content_html":"In this jam-packed episode with chat with Dr. Dana Miller-Cotto about all manner of things, from her path to higher education, to her thoughts on what it means to raise a kid as a faculty member, to her early relationship with mathematics, to her impressive body of research examining the relation between working memory and mathematics performance.
\n\nYou don't want to miss this episode!
\n\nLinks
\n\nMiller‐Cotto, D., Smith, L. V., Wang, A. H., & Ribner, A. D. (2022). Changing the conversation: A culturally responsive perspective on executive functions, minoritized children and their families. Infant and Child Development, 31(1), e2286. Link
\n\nMiller-Cotto, D., & Byrnes, J. P. (2020). What’s the best way to characterize the relationship between working memory and achievement?: An initial examination of competing theories. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(5), 1074–1084. Link
Special Guest: Dana Miller-Cotto.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-07-17T07:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/5d7d4741-8504-498f-b68e-ac4ab1bd886a.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":41876994,"duration_in_seconds":5683}]},{"id":"ed2305cd-052f-43a7-9d8c-5a6bd5f12043","title":"Episode 17: Is It Language of Thoughts (LoTs) All the Way Down? (with Melissa Kibbe)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/17","content_text":"How is the mind structured? Does it come equipped with its own \"language\"? These are questions that humans have been pondering as early as history goes. Yet cognitive scientists today still have drastically different opinions about the answers to these questions. We chatted with Professor Melissa Kibbe from Boston University about her journey as a cognitive developmental scientist. We then focused on her recent article on what \"Language of Thought\" is and how we can find empirical evidence for its presence (or absence) in the infant mind.\n\nLinks\n\nKibbe, M.M. (in press). The Language of Thought as a working hypothesis for developmental cognitive science. Commentary on Quilty-Dunn, Porot, & Mandelbaum, in Behavior & Brain Sciences. Link\n\nQuilty-Dunn, J., Porot, N., & Mandelbaum, E. (2022). The best game in town: The re-emergence of the language of thought hypothesis across the cognitive sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1-55. LinkSpecial Guest: Melissa Kibbe.","content_html":"How is the mind structured? Does it come equipped with its own "language"? These are questions that humans have been pondering as early as history goes. Yet cognitive scientists today still have drastically different opinions about the answers to these questions. We chatted with Professor Melissa Kibbe from Boston University about her journey as a cognitive developmental scientist. We then focused on her recent article on what "Language of Thought" is and how we can find empirical evidence for its presence (or absence) in the infant mind.
\n\nLinks
\n\nKibbe, M.M. (in press). The Language of Thought as a working hypothesis for developmental cognitive science. Commentary on Quilty-Dunn, Porot, & Mandelbaum, in Behavior & Brain Sciences. Link
\n\nQuilty-Dunn, J., Porot, N., & Mandelbaum, E. (2022). The best game in town: The re-emergence of the language of thought hypothesis across the cognitive sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1-55. Link
Special Guest: Melissa Kibbe.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-04-29T09:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/ed2305cd-052f-43a7-9d8c-5a6bd5f12043.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":72764166,"duration_in_seconds":6316}]},{"id":"b843f9b7-d385-452a-93ac-bd370a59a724","title":"Episode 16: Does alcohol make for worse mommies? (with Debrielle Jacques)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/16","content_text":"Debrielle Jacques join us in this episode to talk about her wonderful research on the relation between maternal alcohol dependence and harsh parental practices, including one possible mechanism by which the former leads to the latter. Plus, we talk about the critical role of and need for representation and diversity in science.\n\nLinks\n\nJacques, D. T., Sturge-Apple, M. L., Davies, P. T., & Cicchetti, D. (2020). Maternal alcohol dependence and harsh caregiving across parenting contexts: The moderating role of child negative emotionality. Development and psychopathology, 32(4), 1509-1523. LinkSpecial Guest: Debrielle Jacques.","content_html":"Debrielle Jacques join us in this episode to talk about her wonderful research on the relation between maternal alcohol dependence and harsh parental practices, including one possible mechanism by which the former leads to the latter. Plus, we talk about the critical role of and need for representation and diversity in science.
\n\nLinks
\n\nJacques, D. T., Sturge-Apple, M. L., Davies, P. T., & Cicchetti, D. (2020). Maternal alcohol dependence and harsh caregiving across parenting contexts: The moderating role of child negative emotionality. Development and psychopathology, 32(4), 1509-1523. Link
Special Guest: Debrielle Jacques.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-04-06T21:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/b843f9b7-d385-452a-93ac-bd370a59a724.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":65501047,"duration_in_seconds":6066}]},{"id":"b303d504-c549-4ec3-b882-e4c7c5e353b0","title":"Episode 15: Foreshadowing forgiveness? (with Meltem Yucel)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/15","content_text":"We didn't mean to keep you waiting but, in this episode, Candy and Deon interview Dr. Meltem Yucel. We open the episode by discussing Meltem's outstanding project, the Psych Research List, which is geared towards making psychology more transparent and accessible to all.\n\nWe then discuss one of Dr. Yucel's papers, which concern the role of disclaimers in eliciting forgiveness! This was a fascinating discussion to have, and we hope you enjoy!Special Guest: Meltem Yucel.","content_html":"We didn't mean to keep you waiting but, in this episode, Candy and Deon interview Dr. Meltem Yucel. We open the episode by discussing Meltem's outstanding project, the Psych Research List, which is geared towards making psychology more transparent and accessible to all.
\n\nWe then discuss one of Dr. Yucel's papers, which concern the role of disclaimers in eliciting forgiveness! This was a fascinating discussion to have, and we hope you enjoy!
Special Guest: Meltem Yucel.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-04-05T21:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/b303d504-c549-4ec3-b882-e4c7c5e353b0.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":88562988,"duration_in_seconds":5716}]},{"id":"2a1629de-21c7-46b7-9ea1-b1adfc1443f9","title":"Episode 14: The \"moral principles\" infants live by (with Fransisca Ting)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/14","content_text":"In this episode, we talk with Dr. Fransisca Ting about her chapter on infant morality, \"Principles and Concepts in Early Moral Cognition\". We specifically discuss whether, in fact, infants are born with moral principles, what those principles might, and whether there is evidence for such a position.\n\nLinks \n\nTing, F., Dawkins, M. B., Stavans, M., & Baillargeon, R. (2019). Principles and concepts in early moral cognition. The social brain: A developmental perspective, 41-65. LinkSpecial Guest: Fransisca Ting.","content_html":"In this episode, we talk with Dr. Fransisca Ting about her chapter on infant morality, "Principles and Concepts in Early Moral Cognition". We specifically discuss whether, in fact, infants are born with moral principles, what those principles might, and whether there is evidence for such a position.
\n\nLinks
\n\nTing, F., Dawkins, M. B., Stavans, M., & Baillargeon, R. (2019). Principles and concepts in early moral cognition. The social brain: A developmental perspective, 41-65. Link
Special Guest: Fransisca Ting.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-04-05T20:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/2a1629de-21c7-46b7-9ea1-b1adfc1443f9.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":74939947,"duration_in_seconds":5968}]},{"id":"5d9881fb-7a07-4b97-9ca6-2fdb16cf4c40","title":"Episode 13: What is a developmental mechanism? What is developmental change?","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/13","content_text":"Do you need a PhD to get a PhD? An odd question, no doubt, but unless you were born yesterday or under a rock, you've likely noticed that applicants for PhD programs are becoming increasingly more competitive. For example, whereas in the past it would be uncommon to encounter an applicant with one or more publications, these days this seems to be the rule rather than the exception. We open the episode by talking about this phenomenon and why it might be unhealthy for the field. We also talk about what could be done to fix it.\n\nWe then transition to the main segment to talk about a recent paper by Deon, published in Developmental Review, about \"developmental mechanisms\". We talk about what they are, about how to study developmental mechanisms, and about what is meant by \"developmental change\".\n\nLinks\n\nBenton, D. T. (2022). The Elusive “Developmental Mechanism”: What they are and how to study and test them. Developmental Review, 65, 101034. Link to paper","content_html":"Do you need a PhD to get a PhD? An odd question, no doubt, but unless you were born yesterday or under a rock, you've likely noticed that applicants for PhD programs are becoming increasingly more competitive. For example, whereas in the past it would be uncommon to encounter an applicant with one or more publications, these days this seems to be the rule rather than the exception. We open the episode by talking about this phenomenon and why it might be unhealthy for the field. We also talk about what could be done to fix it.
\n\nWe then transition to the main segment to talk about a recent paper by Deon, published in Developmental Review, about "developmental mechanisms". We talk about what they are, about how to study developmental mechanisms, and about what is meant by "developmental change".
\n\nLinks
\n\nBenton, D. T. (2022). The Elusive “Developmental Mechanism”: What they are and how to study and test them. Developmental Review, 65, 101034. Link to paper
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-03-31T20:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/5d9881fb-7a07-4b97-9ca6-2fdb16cf4c40.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":100251988,"duration_in_seconds":6717}]},{"id":"18d18eac-d90e-473a-aa10-80f7081bbb62","title":"Episode 11: Birds of a Feather... Share Saliva?","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/11","content_text":"In this episode, We chat with Ashley Thomas about her recent paper in the journal Science on whether infants use saliva sharing to infer relationship closeness as well as about some of the more recent controversial papers in Developmental Psychology! \n\nPlus, Deon and Ashley discover—perhaps much to Deon's chagrin—that their views may be more in common than they are different.\n\nLinks \n\nThomas, A. J., Woo, B., Nettle, D., Spelke, E., & Saxe, R. (2022). Early concepts of intimacy: Young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships. Science, 375(6578), 311-315. [Link to paper](Thomas, A. J., Woo, B., Nettle, D., Spelke, E., & Saxe, R. (2022). Early concepts of intimacy: Young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships. Science, 375(6578), 311-315.)Special Guest: Ashley Thomas.","content_html":"In this episode, We chat with Ashley Thomas about her recent paper in the journal Science on whether infants use saliva sharing to infer relationship closeness as well as about some of the more recent controversial papers in Developmental Psychology!
\n\nPlus, Deon and Ashley discover—perhaps much to Deon's chagrin—that their views may be more in common than they are different.
\n\nLinks
\n\nThomas, A. J., Woo, B., Nettle, D., Spelke, E., & Saxe, R. (2022). Early concepts of intimacy: Young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships. Science, 375(6578), 311-315. [Link to paper](Thomas, A. J., Woo, B., Nettle, D., Spelke, E., & Saxe, R. (2022). Early concepts of intimacy: Young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships. Science, 375(6578), 311-315.)
Special Guest: Ashley Thomas.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-02-15T21:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/18d18eac-d90e-473a-aa10-80f7081bbb62.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":81211501,"duration_in_seconds":6673}]},{"id":"914ac109-10d1-4e4f-908d-8c3b7898bffe","title":"Episode 12: A fresh new look","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/12","content_text":"We are excited to be back! In this episode, Deon introduces new co-host, Jenny Wang. Then Jenny and Deon discuss their origin stories; that is, they discuss how they got to where they are!","content_html":"We are excited to be back! In this episode, Deon introduces new co-host, Jenny Wang. Then Jenny and Deon discuss their origin stories; that is, they discuss how they got to where they are!
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-02-15T21:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/914ac109-10d1-4e4f-908d-8c3b7898bffe.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":64152439,"duration_in_seconds":5591}]},{"id":"4ed7f969-92fa-41c5-a759-40bff0fbb190","title":"Episode 8: Don't judge a wagden by its category label (with Lisa Scott)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/8","content_text":"In this episode, Candy and Deon talk with Lisa Scott about her work on the role of labels on category learning in young infants, in addition to what the mechanism is that enables labels to exert their influence on category acquisition. Plus, we open the episode by discussing student feedback. Do we disregard all feedback? Do we consider some and ignore others? Do we use feedback to improve future courses? We conclude by asking Lisa about her views on innateness as well as whether her research is relevant to the debate between nativists and empiricists. \n\nLinks \n\nPickron, C. B., Iyer, A., Fava, E., & Scott, L. S. (2018). Learning to individuate: The specificity of labels differentially impacts infant visual attention. Child development, 89(3), 698-710. Link to paperSpecial Guest: Lisa Scott.","content_html":"In this episode, Candy and Deon talk with Lisa Scott about her work on the role of labels on category learning in young infants, in addition to what the mechanism is that enables labels to exert their influence on category acquisition. Plus, we open the episode by discussing student feedback. Do we disregard all feedback? Do we consider some and ignore others? Do we use feedback to improve future courses? We conclude by asking Lisa about her views on innateness as well as whether her research is relevant to the debate between nativists and empiricists.
\n\nLinks
\n\nPickron, C. B., Iyer, A., Fava, E., & Scott, L. S. (2018). Learning to individuate: The specificity of labels differentially impacts infant visual attention. Child development, 89(3), 698-710. Link to paper
Special Guest: Lisa Scott.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/4ed7f969-92fa-41c5-a759-40bff0fbb190.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":88478354,"duration_in_seconds":6319}]},{"id":"b279dee5-7c8a-4d0c-908c-66425618b979","title":"Episode 5: A positive take on the \"positivity bias\" (with Janet Boseovski)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/5","content_text":"Candy and Deon open the episode by introducing the guest for this episode, Dr. Janet Boseovski, and then discuss life as first-generation academics. Spoiler. It's difficult, but there may be advantages! In the second half of the episode, Candy and Deon discuss Janet's work on the \"positivty bias\" in children, including the mechanism (or mechanisms) that may yield such a bias. In particular, Candy, Janet, and Deon discuss what is meant by \"positivity bias\" as well as why and how it emerges. \n\nLinks \n\nBoseovski, J. J. (2010). Evidence for “rose‐colored glasses”: An examination of the positivity bias in young children’s personality judgments. Child Development Perspectives, 4(3), 212-218. Link to paper \n\nThe music used during intermission was created by David Pizarro of the Very Bad Wizards podcast. The particular sample used is called \"Murgatroyd.\" Special Guest: Janet Boseovski.","content_html":"Candy and Deon open the episode by introducing the guest for this episode, Dr. Janet Boseovski, and then discuss life as first-generation academics. Spoiler. It's difficult, but there may be advantages! In the second half of the episode, Candy and Deon discuss Janet's work on the "positivty bias" in children, including the mechanism (or mechanisms) that may yield such a bias. In particular, Candy, Janet, and Deon discuss what is meant by "positivity bias" as well as why and how it emerges.
\n\nLinks
\n\nBoseovski, J. J. (2010). Evidence for “rose‐colored glasses”: An examination of the positivity bias in young children’s personality judgments. Child Development Perspectives, 4(3), 212-218. Link to paper
\n\nThe music used during intermission was created by David Pizarro of the Very Bad Wizards podcast. The particular sample used is called "Murgatroyd."
Special Guest: Janet Boseovski.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/b279dee5-7c8a-4d0c-908c-66425618b979.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":75311966,"duration_in_seconds":5379}]},{"id":"0d97acb4-99bf-4f0e-b536-630e4f9ddbd0","title":"Episode 7: Is poking the cat causal? (with Jonathan Kominsky)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/7","content_text":"Candy, Deon, and Jonathan open this episode by talking about #kindscience. For example, should scientist even worry about being kind? What does #kindscience even look like? And is it even possible to be kind to other scientists if your theoretical perspective is at odds with their own? In the second half of the episode, Jonathan talks about his work in Psychological Science on an understudied, but important, aspect of infant causal perception—namely, their sensitivity to certain physical constraints on causal events. Candy, Deon, and Jonathan then go back and forth about whether infants' sensitivity to these constraints is innate and what the mechanism may be that support such sensitivity. \n\nLinks \n\nKominsky, J. F., Strickland, B., Wertz, A. E., Elsner, C., Wynn, K., & Keil, F. C. (2017). Categories and constraints in causal perception. Psychological Science, 28(11), 1649-1662. Link to paperSpecial Guest: Jonathan Kominsky.","content_html":"Candy, Deon, and Jonathan open this episode by talking about #kindscience. For example, should scientist even worry about being kind? What does #kindscience even look like? And is it even possible to be kind to other scientists if your theoretical perspective is at odds with their own? In the second half of the episode, Jonathan talks about his work in Psychological Science on an understudied, but important, aspect of infant causal perception—namely, their sensitivity to certain physical constraints on causal events. Candy, Deon, and Jonathan then go back and forth about whether infants' sensitivity to these constraints is innate and what the mechanism may be that support such sensitivity.
\n\nLinks
\n\nKominsky, J. F., Strickland, B., Wertz, A. E., Elsner, C., Wynn, K., & Keil, F. C. (2017). Categories and constraints in causal perception. Psychological Science, 28(11), 1649-1662. Link to paper
Special Guest: Jonathan Kominsky.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/0d97acb4-99bf-4f0e-b536-630e4f9ddbd0.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":97214537,"duration_in_seconds":6943}]},{"id":"2e9cd71a-7def-43bd-ba1c-41ececce9900","title":"Episode 3: An Innate Fear of the Term Innate? (with David Rakison)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/3","content_text":"In this episode, we talk with the esteemed Dr. David Rakison about his research on categorization in older infants and young children. We then ask David to give us his hot take on the term innate and what evidence he'd need to convince him that something is, in fact, innate. We also discuss what the term mechanism really means as well as how to identify one when you see it. We also spend some time talking about how David teaches students to think about mechanism as well as the larger debate between nativists and empiricists. We conclude this episode by having David talk about his upbringing, what got him into psychology in the first place, and what he'd be doing if he weren't a developmental psychologist. There's even a brief discussion on the psychology of murder! PS. Deon woud like to apologize for the quality of his audio. He hopes to have this issue fixed by the next episode.Special Guest: David Rakison.","content_html":"In this episode, we talk with the esteemed Dr. David Rakison about his research on categorization in older infants and young children. We then ask David to give us his hot take on the term innate and what evidence he'd need to convince him that something is, in fact, innate. We also discuss what the term mechanism really means as well as how to identify one when you see it. We also spend some time talking about how David teaches students to think about mechanism as well as the larger debate between nativists and empiricists. We conclude this episode by having David talk about his upbringing, what got him into psychology in the first place, and what he'd be doing if he weren't a developmental psychologist. There's even a brief discussion on the psychology of murder! PS. Deon woud like to apologize for the quality of his audio. He hopes to have this issue fixed by the next episode.
Special Guest: David Rakison.
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/2e9cd71a-7def-43bd-ba1c-41ececce9900.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":88476672,"duration_in_seconds":5529}]},{"id":"18f375d1-865e-415b-abf5-08a9ebb608b0","title":"Episode 6: Do children theorize about academic performance? (with Melis Muradoğlu)","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/6","content_text":"Candy, Deon, and Melis begin this episode by discussing how they've gone about conducting research with children during the pandemic. Then, in the second half of the episode, Melis talks about her work in Child Development that examined children's developing understanding of academic performance. Specifically, she argues that children consider a person's effort and intrinsic skill when evaluating and interpreting their performance, which is at odds with a classic view that maintained that children only considere effort when evaluating performance. \n\nLinks \n\nMuradoglu, M., & Cimpian, A. (2020). Children’s Intuitive Theories of Academic Performance. Child development, 91(4), e902-e918. Link to paper","content_html":"Candy, Deon, and Melis begin this episode by discussing how they've gone about conducting research with children during the pandemic. Then, in the second half of the episode, Melis talks about her work in Child Development that examined children's developing understanding of academic performance. Specifically, she argues that children consider a person's effort and intrinsic skill when evaluating and interpreting their performance, which is at odds with a classic view that maintained that children only considere effort when evaluating performance.
\n\nLinks
\n\nMuradoglu, M., & Cimpian, A. (2020). Children’s Intuitive Theories of Academic Performance. Child development, 91(4), e902-e918. Link to paper
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/18f375d1-865e-415b-abf5-08a9ebb608b0.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":73769691,"duration_in_seconds":5269}]},{"id":"c418f779-64a9-4d89-b6df-21e5cfa7c8bd","title":"Episode 4: What's morals got to do with it?","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/4","content_text":"Candy and Deon begin the episode by discussing their respective plans for teaching this fall. Specifically, they discuss whether they'll be teaching fully in person, fully remotely, or some combination of both. Note that since recording this episode, Deon has decided that he'll teach fully remotely—in the episode he was leaning toward a hyflex approach. In second segment, Candy and Deon discuss Kiley Hamlin's classic study on infants' developing sociomoral evaluations as well as a recent replication attempt of the original study by Schlingloff, Csibra, and Tatone (2007). Candy and Deon also discuss whether the data reported in either the original study or replication attempt support the claim that infants possess a \"innate moral core\" (Hamlin, 2013). And in an episode first Candace and Deon actually disagree about something! Does this spell the end for this nascent podcast? \n\nLinks \n\nHamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450(7169), 557-559. Link to paper \nSchlingloff, Csibra, & Tatone, D. (2020). Do 15-month-old infants prefer helpers? A replication of Hamlin et al. (2007). Royal Society Open Science, 7(4), 1-7. Link to paper","content_html":"Candy and Deon begin the episode by discussing their respective plans for teaching this fall. Specifically, they discuss whether they'll be teaching fully in person, fully remotely, or some combination of both. Note that since recording this episode, Deon has decided that he'll teach fully remotely—in the episode he was leaning toward a hyflex approach. In second segment, Candy and Deon discuss Kiley Hamlin's classic study on infants' developing sociomoral evaluations as well as a recent replication attempt of the original study by Schlingloff, Csibra, and Tatone (2007). Candy and Deon also discuss whether the data reported in either the original study or replication attempt support the claim that infants possess a "innate moral core" (Hamlin, 2013). And in an episode first Candace and Deon actually disagree about something! Does this spell the end for this nascent podcast?
\n\nLinks
\n\nHamlin, J. K., Wynn, K., & Bloom, P. (2007). Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature, 450(7169), 557-559. Link to paper
\nSchlingloff, Csibra, & Tatone, D. (2020). Do 15-month-old infants prefer helpers? A replication of Hamlin et al. (2007). Royal Society Open Science, 7(4), 1-7. Link to paper
After taking a semester-long hiatus, Candy and Deon are back! In this episode, they talk about classic work that examined how infants segment continous speech. Specifically, they discuss a classic paper published in Science by Jenny Saffran, Richard Aslin, and Elisa Newport (1996) (as well as follow-up papers) that examined infants' ability to segment speech by tracking the internal statistics of that speech. This episode is unique and unlike other episodes in that Candy and Deon pick on their own kind this time—empiricists! Hide your natvisists, hide your empiricists—no one's safe!
\n\nLinks
\n\nAslin, R. N., Saffran, J. R., & Newport, E. L. (1998). Computation of conditional probability statistics by 8-month-old infants. Psychological science, 9(4), 321-324. Link to paper
\n\nPelucchi, B., Hay, J. F., & Saffran, J. R. (2009). Statistical learning in a natural language by 8‐month‐old infants. Child development, 80(3), 674-685. Link to paper
\nSaffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274(5294), 1926-1928. Link to paper
\nSlone, L. K., & Johnson, S. P. (2018). When learning goes beyond statistics: Infants represent visual sequences in terms of chunks. Cognition, 178, 92-102. Link to paper
This was a fun episode to record with our latest guest, Dr. Charisse Pickron. In the first segment, we talk about politics and, specically, about what a Joe Biden presidency means and what another Donald Trump presidency would mean. Spoiler:We all agree that a second Trump term would be absolutely catastrophic. In the second segment, we talk with Charisse about her work on infant individuation of male and female faces as well as speculate on the processes and mechanisms that support such individuation.
\n\nLinks
\n\nPickron, C. B., & Cheries, E. W. (2019). Infants’ Individuation of Faces by Gender. Brain sciences, 9(7), 163. Link to paper
","summary":"","date_published":"2023-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/e7d55467-26ad-4d13-aa3b-ffe8a883b0bb/9fbd15d2-187f-45b2-b89c-e6f809448eb5.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":93752320,"duration_in_seconds":6696}]},{"id":"167f36d4-6ae3-4348-bd83-441e0cef159f","title":"Episode 2: When 1+1 equals more, not 2","url":"https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/2","content_text":"Candy and Deon begin this episode by discussing a recent email exchange between Jonathan Kominsky and Martin Packer about whether studies that use puppets are really testing young children's theory of mind rather than, for example, their \"theory of puppets.\" Spoiler: Candy is less optimistic that they are; Deon is much more optimistic that, at the very least, they are approaching the question in the right way . Candy and Deon then discuss a seminal paper by Wynn (1992) that examined 5-month-olds' capacity to add and subtract small numbers. Specifically, they discuss whether the claim \"that infants are able to compute the precise results of simple additions and subtractions\" (Wynn, 1992, p. 749) is supported by the data. Candy and Deon discuss why they think that the claim is not supported by the data and then go on to discuss some mixed evidence for this claim from follow-up replication attempts. \n\nLinks \n\nCohen, L.B., & Marks, K.S. (2002). How infants process addition and subtraction events. Developmental Science, 5(2), 186-201. Link to paper \nSimon, T.J., Hespos, S.J., & Rochat, P. (1995). Do Infants Understand Simple Arithmetic? A Replication of Wynn (1992). Cognitive Development, 10, 253-269. Link to paper \nWynn, K. (1992). Addition and subtraction by human infants. Nature. 358, 749-750. Link to paper","content_html":"Candy and Deon begin this episode by discussing a recent email exchange between Jonathan Kominsky and Martin Packer about whether studies that use puppets are really testing young children's theory of mind rather than, for example, their "theory of puppets." Spoiler: Candy is less optimistic that they are; Deon is much more optimistic that, at the very least, they are approaching the question in the right way . Candy and Deon then discuss a seminal paper by Wynn (1992) that examined 5-month-olds' capacity to add and subtract small numbers. Specifically, they discuss whether the claim "that infants are able to compute the precise results of simple additions and subtractions" (Wynn, 1992, p. 749) is supported by the data. Candy and Deon discuss why they think that the claim is not supported by the data and then go on to discuss some mixed evidence for this claim from follow-up replication attempts.
\n\nLinks
\n\nCohen, L.B., & Marks, K.S. (2002). How infants process addition and subtraction events. Developmental Science, 5(2), 186-201. Link to paper
\nSimon, T.J., Hespos, S.J., & Rochat, P. (1995). Do Infants Understand Simple Arithmetic? A Replication of Wynn (1992). Cognitive Development, 10, 253-269. Link to paper
\nWynn, K. (1992). Addition and subtraction by human infants. Nature. 358, 749-750. Link to paper
During the first half of their very first episode, Candy and Deon introduce themselves, discuss why they chose to start this podcast, and share why they'd even dare to name their show the It's Innate! podcast given the longstanding and often contentious debate in the developmental literature surrounding this term. During the second half of the episode, Candy and Deon discuss Candy's research with young children. This research examined the role of social comparison on children's self-evaluations. Spoiler alert: It turns out that, to everyone's absolute surprise, children very much dislike being outperformed by novices. Following this discussion, Candy and Deon turn their attention to Deon's recent work in which he examined how a novel mechanism, called second-order correlation learning, might support young children's causal inferences. Candy and Deon conclude by discussing how second-order correlation learning can be leveraged to support children's developing theory of mind, on the one hand, and to mitigate possible racial bias in children, on the other hand.
\nLinks
Benton, D. T., Rakison, D. H., & Sobel, D. M. (2021). When correlation equals causation: A behavioral and computational account of second-order correlation learning in children. Link to paper
\nLapan, C., & Boseovski, J. J. (2017). When peer performance matters: Effects of expertise and traits on children's self‐evaluations after social comparison. Child development, 88(6), 1860-1872. Link to paper