Current Project

Remembering Generalizations: Memory Mechanisms Underlying the Generic Recall Bias in Adults and Children

This project investigates the memory mechanisms underlying the Generic Recall Bias (GRB), the finding that adults and children systematically misremember quantified statements as generics more than vice versa. In particular, using a longitudinal design, we examine (i) whether this phenomenon arises during memory encoding, retention, or retrieval; (ii) whether the mechanisms driving the GRB differ between adults and children; and (iii) whether the GRB also appears in measures of recognition memory. More broadly, this project clarifies the memory mechanisms underlying human generalization and isolates the stages in memory when human cognition reverts to default representations.

How do people learn conceptual structure from language?

People have abstract conceptual beliefs about categories, such as how meaningful and rich a category is: the category of "professors" picks out a group of people with significant and deep similarities, while the category of "pedestrians" is relatively minimal. We are studying how such beliefs could be acquired from language, and how such beliefs guide subsequent generalization of features across the category, using computational modeling and experiments with adults and children.

What do people learn about a social group from a skewed sample of group members?

People often do not see a representative sample of members of a social group. For example, the Chinese people that an average American sees today (Chinese Americans) are more highly educated on average than Chinese people generally, because of selective immigration policies (among other factors). If such skew is not known or not accounted for, generalizing from such samples at face value may lead to inaccurate beliefs, such as a model minority stereotype. We are studying what adults and children learn about a social group from a skewed sample of group members, and when they adjust (or don't adjust) their generalizations to account for sampling skew.

How do children form beliefs from verbal testimony?

In this project, we are interested in how children form beliefs from things they hear others say. Children are often remarkable social learners — they know that more knowledgeable people (experts) should be trusted over less knowledgeable people (novices), and they use this knowledge of expertise when learning new facts. But other times, children also struggle to reject others’ claims when they should, even when they are actively misleading. In this work, we aim to test different theories of belief formation that explain why forming accurate beliefs from verbal testimony is often challenging for children.

Effects of Generic Language and Contextual Cues on Children's Normative Inferences

Generic statements (e.g., "Boys play soccer") can communicate not only what members of a category typically do, but also how they are expected to behave. Across three studies with children ages 3-7, we investigate how generic language and statement-action consistency (match vs. mismatch) influence children's normative inferences. For example, children hear a teacher say "Zarpies ride skates" while observing a Zarpie student riding a bicycle, and are then asked tell a new Zarpie perform one of the actions. We find that younger children are more likely to prescribe the teacher-stated action to new category members when statements mismatch observed behavior, with stronger norm extension following generic than specific statements. Older children, in contrast, show high norm extension following generic statements regardless of consistency, suggesting developmental changes in how children use linguistic form and contextual cues to infer normative expectations.

Broader Themes

Psychological Essentialism

Psychological essentialism is a cognitive bias that leads people to believe that certain category members share an underlying reality or true nature that cannot be directly observed. For example, people often believe that a lion will generally be ferocious even if it was raised by a flock of non-ferocious sheep, and even if it doesn’t look like a typical lion. We examine both the development of psychological essentialism (for example, how does cultural input like language transmit essentialist beliefs?) and the role of psychological essentialism in shaping children’s and adult’s expectations and attitudes about social categories.

Language and Motivation

This work investigates how certain types language might affect children’s motivation to engage in tasks that are associated with certain groups. For example, how does input about scientists combine with stereotypes to shape children’s motivation to do science? These studies also examine how adults may subtly, and perhaps unintentionally, transmit problematic beliefs to children. These questions are especially important because the persistent underrepresentation of females and minorities in science professions threatens the economic progress of these groups. We hope to identify adaptive and inclusive ways for parents and educators to talk to children and encourage involvement in science professions.

Categorical Variability

Adults think about categories in terms of averages and variation.  For example, they realize that cheetahs vary in their running speed, and that the typical cheetah will have average, rather than the fastest, speed.  Adults also view diverse evidence (containing more variation) as being more informative than non-diverse evidence. In contrast, young children have more difficulty reasoning about the variation within categories.  This line of research examines which factors children attend to and how they learn to reason more like adults, taking category variability into account.

Stereotyping and Prejudice

Stereotypes and prejudice are a pernicious side effect of sociality. We study the development of beliefs about social groups and how children learn to reason about group members. Several of our studies examine how gender and racial identity influence children’s and adult’s beliefs, attitudes, stereotypes, and behaviors. For example, when do generalizations about group members lead to the development of stereotypes and prejudice, and importantly, what kind of language effectively minimizes the development of these stereotypes?

Intergroup Cognition and Status

People often define themselves in terms of their group membership (for example, being a boy or a girl, being a dog person or a cat person). How do children’s intuitive theories about the world influence the way they think about social groups, and shape how they think members from the same or from different social groups will interact? For example, do children think it’s better to be nice to members of your own group than to be nice to members of another group? We investigate how adults might communicate beliefs about how children should treat ingroup and outgroup members, and how children come to apply these beliefs to the social groups they encounter in the real world. We are also interested in examining when children start to develop broader ideas about social status that apply across social groups, and how these beliefs about status shape children’s attitudes and behaviors towards others?