RESEARCH INTERESTS

I am broadly interested in understanding what makes infants and children pay attention to number over other quantitative dimensions such as area, and what role language map play in this strong preference and attention to number.

Research with Infants

In this line of research I am comparing infants abilities to discriminate number to their abilities to make discriminations in element size or surface area. Past research suggests that infants become better at discriminating smaller changes in number with age, and so I am examining whether this same developmental pattern exists when discriminating of continuous dimensions of quantity.

RESEARCH WITH CHILDREN

Number is all around us and as adults we spontaneously pay attention to number in our environment. Past research with preschool aged children suggests that there are big individual differences in their spontaneous focus on number. I am currently examining the role of number knowledge and language on children's propensity to focus on and use number cues when completing various tasks, and how this compares to their spontaneous attention to other quantitative dimensions such as area.