Have you ever wondered how a young baby thinks about the social and physical worlds surrounding them?
How babies see the world has been a fascinating topic of investigation in the field of cognitive science for the past 40 years, if not more. For example, we can ask questions, and bring data to bear on these questions via experimental work on babies' understanding of the world around them, for example, is it really true that babies think "out of sight, out of mind"? We can also ask questions about their understanding of shared goals, desires, and intentions of others. Yes - there is plenty of evidence that even neonates can track different numbers of objects, and predict how many there are, thus showing some understanding information with numerical content! This is very interesting, because the way we, and other animals, understand number is rather abstract. Traditional views of infancy have rejected the idea that infants think abstractly!
This PhD project aims to explore preverbal babies’ understandings of the physical and the social worlds. Recent evidence has emerged that suggests that babies as young as neonates can represent objects, number, people, and can think about these things, as stated before. We are hoping to build on this and other research so that we may better understand how children’s understanding and reasoning develop. This way, we may be able to think about interventions that may facilitate these early understandings into the building and manipulating of concepts in school aged children. Furthermore, we hope that, by exploring how early concepts emerge, we will be in a better position to troubleshoot when some children encounter difficulties as they grow older.
The BabyLab at Kingston University London welcomes babies in a project that addresses the origins of human knowledge. A team of researchers and students investigate the young babies’ understanding of the physical world surrounding them, and infants’ understanding of people. These are empirical questions that can be investigated with the use of visual and haptic measures. New methodologies such as visual attention measures, including a state-of-the-art Tobii Fusion/Pro eye-tracker, and reaching/grasping measures, tell us a lot about the young baby’s perception and conception of the world.
This PhD research topic explores fundamental ideas about the origins of knowledge. Some ideas have been explored and are contained in Dr Uller's research agenda. The literature to date is not extensive, on the contrary, there is quite a large gap that can be exploited. The studies in this project make use of parametric and non-parametric statistics. Dr Uller and her team welcome research proposals in this area.
Keynotes on PhD
This is a self-funded PhD project; applicants will be expected to pay their own fees or have a suitable source of third-party funding.
Duration: 3 years [full time] or 6 years [part-time].
Timeline: We are accepting applications for Autumn 2022 or Spring 2023 enrolment.
Prospective students should email the Lead Supervisor Dr Claudia Uller: [Email Address Removed] with documents below.
How to Apply:
All applications must include the following information. Applications not containing these documents will not be considered.
- Personal statement outlining the motivation for a PhD and for this particular project;
- A research proposal;
- A CV including the names of two referees (ideally one being from someone who knows the candidate’s abilities for 1+ years).
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