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Spelke’s laboratory focuses on uniquely human cognitive capacities, especially young children’s fast and flexible learning. She investigates these capacities by studying the origins and growth of human cognition in infants, children, and nonhuman animals. Her research examines how humans compare capacities across diverse cultures and engages in collaborations with neuroscientists, computational cognitive scientists, and economists to explore ways children learn. Current projects assess how infants and children recognize objects, extrapolate movements, and categorize them, as well as understand social cognition, mental states, knowledge of natural numbers, spatial reasoning, and learning about the living world. Spelke employs behavioral methods and laboratory-based tasks to investigate reasoning and concepts in infants, children, and adults. Her collaborations extend the study of cognitive capacities to broader populations and methods, seeking to illuminate how children's learning can inform research in artificial intelligence and improve educational development globally.
Administered by the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS).