web02.fireside.fm Wed, 22 Apr 2026 08:15:23 -0500 Fireside (https://fireside.fm) The It's Innate! Podcast - Episodes Tagged with “Mechanism” https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/tags/mechanism Sun, 19 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0500 Two opinionated developmental cognitive scientists wax theoretical about how infants and children acquire knowledge! en-us episodic A podcast by two developmental cognitive scientists Deon Benton & Jenny Wang Two opinionated developmental cognitive scientists wax theoretical about how infants and children acquire knowledge! no Deon Benton & Jenny Wang theitsinnatepodcast@gmail.com Episode 24: People and objects are different, and infants innately know this. Or do they? https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/24 6bc53802-e125-4d4e-8b4d-14f53ccdbb85 Sun, 19 Jan 2025 08:00:00 -0500 Deon Benton & Jenny Wang full Deon Benton & Jenny Wang 1:41:01 no Deon and Jenny open this episode, which is a return their classic one-on-one format, by discussing the academic job market, imposter syndrome, and careful science. Following this brief discussion, Jenny and Deon discuss Deon's recent paper titled, "An associative-learning account of how infants learn about causal action in animates and inanimates: A critical reexamination of four classic studies." Deon talks about the motivation for writing this proposal as well as what his account is of how infants might begin to learn about how animates and inanimates differ from one another in terms of their causal abilities. It will come as no surprise that Deon thinks that this knowledge is acquired, and that Jenny is a bit skeptical (although, as you'lll hear, there are signs that she may see the merit in Deon's argument). At a broad level, this episode has it all — we cover philosophy, computational modeling, mechanisms, and developmental science! Links Benton, D. T. (2024). An associative-learning account of how infants learn about causal action in animates and inanimates: A critical reexamination of four classic studies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Link (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-27513-001) associative learning, empiricism, nativism, mechanism, computational modeling Deon and Jenny open this episode, which is a return their classic one-on-one format, by discussing the academic job market, imposter syndrome, and careful science. Following this brief discussion, Jenny and Deon discuss Deon's recent paper titled, "An associative-learning account of how infants learn about causal action in animates and inanimates: A critical reexamination of four classic studies." Deon talks about the motivation for writing this proposal as well as what his account is of how infants might begin to learn about how animates and inanimates differ from one another in terms of their causal abilities. It will come as no surprise that Deon thinks that this knowledge is acquired, and that Jenny is a bit skeptical (although, as you'lll hear, there are signs that she may see the merit in Deon's argument). At a broad level, this episode has it all — we cover philosophy, computational modeling, mechanisms, and developmental science!

Links

Benton, D. T. (2024). An associative-learning account of how infants learn about causal action in animates and inanimates: A critical reexamination of four classic studies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Link

]]> Deon and Jenny open this episode, which is a return their classic one-on-one format, by discussing the academic job market, imposter syndrome, and careful science. Following this brief discussion, Jenny and Deon discuss Deon's recent paper titled, "An associative-learning account of how infants learn about causal action in animates and inanimates: A critical reexamination of four classic studies." Deon talks about the motivation for writing this proposal as well as what his account is of how infants might begin to learn about how animates and inanimates differ from one another in terms of their causal abilities. It will come as no surprise that Deon thinks that this knowledge is acquired, and that Jenny is a bit skeptical (although, as you'lll hear, there are signs that she may see the merit in Deon's argument). At a broad level, this episode has it all — we cover philosophy, computational modeling, mechanisms, and developmental science!

Links

Benton, D. T. (2024). An associative-learning account of how infants learn about causal action in animates and inanimates: A critical reexamination of four classic studies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Link

]]> Episode 13: What is a developmental mechanism? What is developmental change? https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/13 5d9881fb-7a07-4b97-9ca6-2fdb16cf4c40 Fri, 31 Mar 2023 20:00:00 -0400 Deon Benton & Jenny Wang full Deon Benton & Jenny Wang 1:51:57 no 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. We 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". Links Benton, D. T. (2022). The Elusive “Developmental Mechanism”: What they are and how to study and test them. Developmental Review, 65, 101034. Link to paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273229722000247?casa_token=CzSKTmnatkkAAAAA:kWR_iE_P2tVpdysS6CMy-U-kYMRmq3I18hkYAuvc5wk_g7HCFeRLX0hTfgYXl7lJzJ8XZ1Yf) mechanism, developmental mechanism, developmental change, development 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.

We 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".

Links

Benton, D. T. (2022). The Elusive “Developmental Mechanism”: What they are and how to study and test them. Developmental Review, 65, 101034. Link to paper

]]> 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.

We 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".

Links

Benton, D. T. (2022). The Elusive “Developmental Mechanism”: What they are and how to study and test them. Developmental Review, 65, 101034. Link to paper

]]> Episode 3: An Innate Fear of the Term Innate? (with David Rakison) https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/3 2e9cd71a-7def-43bd-ba1c-41ececce9900 Mon, 13 Feb 2023 23:00:00 -0500 Deon Benton & Jenny Wang full Deon Benton & Jenny Wang 1:32:09 no 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. mechanism, cognitive development 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.

]]> 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.

]]> Episode 10: That's just a bunch of nonsense you jive turkey https://itsinnate.fireside.fm/10 f3c0a02a-1b06-4873-bb67-af692ccad904 Mon, 13 Feb 2023 23:00:00 -0500 Deon Benton & Jenny Wang full Deon Benton & Jenny Wang 1:15:12 no 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! Links Aslin, 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 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9280.00063?casa_token=4oDOkWSZ4GUAAAAA:BvHwWlVau1Ek0GTSl6XUefCF-LDiHVyEm5J_gxme-XBFbprSgjDJRLTj060dVCQQvs7NZGYZc3QS) Pelucchi, 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 (https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01290.x?casa_token=LrtB4I3jai8AAAAA:yzB1WApSw_6Zobof6VwraHtGqZzMU5Sih4loO4S-PtO23tN2bY9wOiJqZNUeBHRHsky7uwC6X1Ta5g) Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274(5294), 1926-1928. Link to paper (https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.274.5294.1926) Slone, 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 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027718301367?casa_token=3gs0n72Fvo4AAAAA:HdKKI3uELF8zVCuLDQ3GKhnTUNsStyiL6A8LkKMYje1yRTTOeVxiUP5PwD80QfVUnntuxDny) statistical learning, mechanism, cognitive development 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!

Links

Aslin, 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

Pelucchi, 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
Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274(5294), 1926-1928. Link to paper
Slone, 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

]]> 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!

Links

Aslin, 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

Pelucchi, 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
Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274(5294), 1926-1928. Link to paper
Slone, 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

]]>