Stella Christie, Ph.D

时间: 2016-08-05 10:00 - 12:00

地点: Room 1115, Wang Kezhen Building

Understanding relations is essential in navigating our complex world: knowing the meanings of mother and bigger, adhering to grammatical rules, reading maps—all hinge on relations. But how do we arrive at relational knowledge? I propose that we gain relational knowledge through a general learning mechanism: comparison. Using both comparative (great apes) and developmental evidence, I will discuss 1) the process of comparison: how language and similarity invite comparison; 2) the results of comparison: it can produce new relational concepts, critical for any theory of learning; 3) the implications of comparison for social cognitive learning: children’s use of comparison to learn from and imitate social others.

2016-08-05


2016-08-05