Students are required to submit three critical response papers, each based on an assigned course reading of their choosing. Critical response papers may be submitted at any point during the course of the term.
Course schedule.
| LEC # |
TOPICS |
KEY DATES |
| 1 |
Introduction |
|
| 2 |
Theoretical Perspectives in Developmental Psychology I: Piaget |
|
| 3 |
Theoretical Perspectives II: Post-Piaget |
|
| 4 |
Magic Tricks and Methods |
|
| 5 |
What's it Like to be a Baby? Perceptual Foundations |
|
| 6 |
Object Concepts |
|
| 7 |
Number and Object Individuation |
|
| 8 |
Object Labels and Object Knowledge |
|
| 9 |
Concepts, Categories and Induction |
Research proposal due |
| 10 |
Identity, Essences and Transformation |
|
| 11 |
Recognizing Agents |
|
| 12 |
Understanding Goals and Intentions
Hooppell Guest Lecture: Spatial Reasoning |
|
| 13 |
Appearance and Reality |
|
| 14 |
Imagination and Pretend Play |
|
| 15 |
Representational Theory of Mind |
Literature review draft due |
| 16 |
Theory of Mind and Word Learning
Baby Talk |
|
| 17 |
Baraff-Bonowitz Guess Lecture: Language, Culture, and Thought |
|
| 18 |
Autism |
|
| 19 |
Recognizing Causal Transformations
Intervening - Tools Use, Means-end Reasoning
Causation, Categorization, and Counterfactuals |
|
| 20 |
Statistical Learning in Infancy |
|
| 21 |
Means-ends Reasoning
Tool Use |
|
| 22 |
Causal Reasoning 1: Explanation, Prediction, Intervention and Counterfactuals |
|
| 23 |
Causal Reasoning 2: Assumptions, Theories, and Evidence |
|
| 24 |
Conceptual Change |
|
| 25 |
Children and Social Policy |
Final paper due |