Syllabus

This course will examine a number of basic aspects of the way we perceive and think about the world, with an emphasis on how cognition develops from its foundations in infancy and the preschool years. We will be focused firmly on experimental studies. The topics covered include perception of depth, perception of faces, the object concept, physical causality, number, pretending, agency, and the child’s “theory of mind”. Emphasis will be upon the innate requirements for learning and upon the cognitive processes that support learning. We will also learn about some of the major brain systems involved and their development. The first part of the course concentrates on infants, and the second half on preschool children; but throughout we will also examine adult cognition and findings from the study of adult brain damage and neuro-developmental disorders, such as autism.

 Main readings:

Readings packet (available from Pequod) containing reprints and handouts, including:

Baillargeon, R. (1994). How do infants learn about the physical world? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 3, 133–140.

Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A.M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a "theory of mind"? Cognition, 21, 37–46.

Diamond, A. (1988). Differences between adult and infant cognition: Is the crucial variable presence or absence of language?  In L. Weiskrantz (Ed.), Thought without language, (pp. 335–370). Oxford: Oxford Science Publications.

Frith, U. (1989). Autism: Explaining the enigma. Oxford: Blackwell. (Selected sections)

Gleitman, H. (1991). Psychology. Third Edition. New York: Norton. (Selected sections)

Johnson, M.H. (1988). Memories of mother. New Scientist, February 18, 60–62.

Johnson, M.H. (1992). Imprinting and the development of face recognition: From chick to man. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 1, 52–55.

Johnson-Laird, P. (1988). The computer and the mind. London: Fontana. (Selected sections)

Leslie, A.M. (1987). Pretense and representation: The origins of "theory of mind". Psychological Review, 94, 412–426.

Leslie, A.M. (1992). Autism and the "Theory of Mind" module. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 1, 18–21.

Leslie, A.M., & Keeble, S. (1987). Do six-month-old infants perceive causality? Cognition, 25, 265–288.

Leslie, A.M., & Polizzi, P. (1998). Inhibitory processing in the false belief task: Two conjectures. Developmental Science, 1, 247–254.

Leslie, A.M., & Thaiss, L. (1992). Domain specificity in conceptual development: Neuropsychological evidence from autism. Cognition, 43, 225–251.

Leslie, A.M., Xu, F., Tremoulet, P.D., &  Scholl, B.J. (1998). Indexing and the object concept: Developing ‘what’ and ‘where’ systems. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2, 10–18.

Marr, D. (1982). Vision. San Francisco: W.H.Freeman & Co. (Selected sections)

Onishi, K., & Baillargeon, R. (2005). Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs? Science, 308, 255–258.

Scholl, B.J., & Leslie, A.M. (1999). Modularity, development and ‘theory of mind’. Mind & Language, 14, 131–153.

Slater, A., Mattock, A., & Brown, E. (1990). Size constancy at birth: Newborn infants' responses to retinal and real size. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 49, 314–322.

Surian, L., & Leslie, A.M. (1999). Competence and performance in false belief understanding: A comparison of autistic and three-year-old children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17, 141–155.

Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. Cognition, 13, 103–128.