| Post: | Lecturer in Psychology |
| Location: | Pevensey 1 1C09 |
| Email: | jessica@sussex.ac.uk |
| Telephone numbers | |
| Internal: | 3084 |
| UK: | (01273) 873084 |
| International: | +44 1273 873084 |
Biography
Sussex University: Psychology Home Page
EDUCATION 2007 Ph.D., Psychology: Developmental Science
------University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
2001 B.A., Philosophy and Psychology, summa cum laude with Distinction, Phi Beta Kappa
------Boston University, Boston, MA
HONOURS AND AWARDS
American Psychological Association Dissertation Award in Developmental Psychology, 2008
Seashore Dissertation Year Fellowship, University of Iowa, 2006-2007
American Psychological Foundation Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Travel Stipend, 2006
National Science Foundation, Student Travel Award, Summer 2005
Society for Research in Child Development Student Travel Award, Spring 2005
University of Iowa Student Government Research Grant, Spring 2004
Scholarly Presentations Travel Award, U. of Iowa, 2006, 2005, 2004, Fall 2003, Spring 2003
University of Iowa Graduate Student Senate Travel Award, 2005, 2004, 2003
Honorable Mention, National Science Foundation, Graduate Research Fellowship, 2002
The Matchette Prize for Excellence in Philosophy, Boston University, 2001
Teaching Awards
Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Iowa Council on Teaching, 2004
Student Teaching Award, Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, 2004
Research
I'm interested in children's knowledge aquisition and how children learn both cross developmental time and on a moment-by-moment time scale. I believe that understanding cognitive development at these levels requires also understanding the interaction between children's previous experiences and the particulars of the task in which children's knowledge is assessed in a experiment. My research focuses on how smart behavior emerges from the interaction of such previous experience and the specifics of the task at hand. Under this framework, I have studied young children's knowledge in two domains: word learning and categorization. In my view, these two domains are intimately coupled. Nouns name categories of things (e.g., fish and penguins) and categories can help one know which objects can be called by the same name. I study infants and toddlers who are just beginning to learn how to name objects. I use both empirical studies and, more recently, neural network modeling techniques, to understand how children learn about categories and acquire language.
Teaching
Dynamic Approach to Understanding Child Development
Developmental Psychology: Masters Conversion Course
Developmental Psychology: 2nd Year
Research Skills in Psychology (Tutor)
Selected publications
2009
Connectionist Learning and Dynamic Processing: Symbiotic Developmental Mechanisms. (with Bob McMurray, Larissa K. Samuelson and Joseph Toscano) in Towards a New Grand Theory of Development? Connectionism and Dynamic Systems Theory Reconsidered New York: Oxford University Press pp. 218-249
Flexible Categorization in Toddlerhood: Same Objects, Same Session, Two Different Category Contrasts. (with Lisa M. Oakes, Larissa K. Samuelson and Ann Ellis) in Developmental Science Volume 12 pp. 96-105
The Dynamic Nature of Knowledge: Insights From a Dynamic Field Model of Children¿s Novel Noun Generalizations. (with Larissa K. Samuelson and Anne R. Schutte) in Cognition Volume 110 pp. 322-345
The Role of Competition in Word Learning via Referent Selection in Developmental Science
Two are better than one: Comparison influences infants’ visual recognition memory. (with Lisa M. Oakes and Kristine A. Kovack-Lesh) in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Volume 104 pp. 124-131
2008
Confronting complexity: Insights from the details of behavior over multiple timescales. (with Larissa K. Samuelson) in Developmental Science Volume 11 pp. 209-215
Fast Mapping But Poor Retention in 24-Month-Old Infants. (with Larissa K. Samuelson) in Infancy Volume 13 pp. 128-157
How Infants Learn Categories (with Lisa M. Oakes, Kristine A. Kovack-Lesh and Sammy Perone) in Learning and the Infant Mind New York: Oxford University Press pp. 144-171
Rigid Thinking About Deformables. Do Children Sometimes over generalize the Shape Bias? (with Larissa K. Samuelson, Anne R. Schutte and Brandi Dobbertin) in Journal of Child Language Volume 35 pp. 559-589
The Cat is Out of the Bag: Previous Experience and Online Comparison Jointly Influence Infant Categorization. (with Kristine A. Kovack-Lesh and Lisa M. Oakes) in Infancy Volume 13 pp. 285-307
2007
Dynamic noun generalization: Moment-to-moment interactions shape children’s naming biases. (with Larissa K. Samuelson) in Infancy Volume 11 pp. 97-110
2006
Knowledge, Performance, and Task: Décalage and Dynamics in Young Children’s Noun Generalizations (with Larissa K. Samuelson, Anne R. Schutte and Brandi Dobbertin) in Proceedings of the the Twenty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
Online processing is essential for learning: Understanding fast mapping and word learning in a dynamic connectionist architecture. (with Bob McMurray and Larissa K. Samuelson) in Proceedings of the the Twenty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
2005
What Does It Look Like and What Can It Do? Category Structure Influences How Infants Categorize. (with Lisa M. Oakes and Kelly M. Madole) in Child Development Volume 76 pp. 614-631