Infant Learning and Development
I use infant motor skill acquisition as a model system to investigate learning and development. My research focuses on behavioral flexibility–how infants adapt to novel and challenging situations. Perceptual, motor, cognitive, and social skills must be sufficiently flexible to cope with the variable demands of everyday life. In the Infant Action Laboratory, we challenge infants with novel predicaments, such as reaching, crawling, and walking through apertures to observe how infants adapt to potentially risky conditions. The study of flexibility in infants is especially revealing because learning takes place within the larger context of developmental change. Over their first two years of life, babies' bodies, skills, and environments change rapidly and dramatically. How do infants learn to cope with a changeable body in a variable world? To better understand flexibility in infant skill acquisition, our investigations cross traditionally disparate domains of psychology—motor, perceptual, cognitive, and social development. To find out about these areas of our research, click on the tabs above.
