Our major emphasis is on the study of attention, perception, and language. The research is conducted by studying patients with selective deficits following brain damage and using functional neuroimaging in normal subjects.
Northwestern University researchers in the Cognition and Language Lab are currently conducting research on the effects of analogy and similarity on learning.
All mobile organisms must represent the space around them if they are to successfully move and act in the world. In our lab, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral testing to uncover the mechanisms that support spatial representation in humans. We are particularly interested in representations that are critical for navigation, such as representations of places (particular locations in the world) and scenes (i.e. the set of visual inputs observed when in a particular place).
It is commonly asked whether language is learned or innate. In my research, I recast the question so that it is amenable to investigation. I ask which aspects of language development are more (or less) sensitive to linguistic and environmental input. Specifically, I have been engaged in a research program to identify the properties of language whose development can withstand wide variations in learning conditions - the "resilient" properties of language.
Another facet of my work explores the spontaneous gestures that hearing adults and children produce as they speak.
Broadly speaking, work in our lab investigates the cognitive and neural substrates governing the learning and performance of complex cognitive skills (e.g., math problem solving) and complex sensorimotor skills (e.g., golf putting). We are interested in understanding the attention and memory processes that support task execution, as well as how high-pressure or high-stakes situations impact performance. Together, our work demonstrates how task type and skill level differences in the attentional demands of performance can be used to understand the nature of successful skill execution and why, at times, it fails to occur.
How do children develop? At the Northwestern University Infant Cognition Laboratory, we study how children learn to perceive and reason about the world around them. Our studies have shown that babies know much more than people once thought. We study topics like how infants remember objects, how children learn new words, how babies and children understand numbers, and more.
Join us in discovering how children from 5 months to 6 years learn about the world they live in. Our labs conduct cutting-edge research on spatial develoment, memory, language development, reading and the role of play in learning.
Dr. Levine's research examines how variations in home and school input affect the cognitive development of children, including language, spatial and mathematical skills. She also examines plasticity of language and cognitive skills following early brain injury.
The Project on Children's Thinking studies the development of children's thought and language. We study how children come to know about the world, with a focus on how their growing insight into linguistic and conceptual structures influences their patterns of learning and reasoning.
One major focus of our research is how children come to learn about spatial relations and how this understanding affects their reasoning. We also study how language can help children think relationally at a younger age than they might otherwise.
The Qualitative Reasoning Group conducts research on: Qualitative representations and reasoning, Sketch understanding, Analogical reasoning and learning, Learning by reading, and How our progress in AI and cognitive science can be used to create new kinds of systems for education, performance support, and interactive entertainment.
Our research includes both efforts to create new kinds of cognitive systems, and to model human cognition.
Bruce Ankenman, Northwestern University
Sian Beilock, University of Chicago
Anjan Chatterjee, University of Pennsylvania
Jason Chein, Temple University
Russell Epstein, University of Pennsylvania
Kenneth Forbus, Northwestern University
Dedre Gentner (Co-PI), Northwestern University
Susan Goldin-Meadow (Co-PI), University of Chicago
Louis Gomez, Northwestern University
Larry Hedges (Co-PI), Northwestern University
Sue Hespos, Northwestern University
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University
Janellen Huttenlocher, University of Chicago
Susan Levine (Co-PI), University of Chicago
Cathy Manduca, Carleton College
Nora Newcombe (PI), Temple University
Howard Nusbaum, University of Chicago
Terry Regier, University of Chicago
Brad Sageman, Northwestern University
Bruce SherinNorthwestern University
Thomas Shipley, Temple University
Basil Tikoff, University of Wisconsin-Madison
David H. Uttal, Northwestern University