Short description of project
Categorization is an essential component of human cognition, and it plays an important role in our daily life: it enables recognition and differentiation of objects, people, and events, organizes our existing knowledge, and promotes generalization of knowledge to new situations. Although it is hardly controversial that the ability to form categories appears early in development, it is less clear as to what develops, how it develops and why. How do we learn novel categories? What is the role of attention and reinforcement in category learning? How do children differ from adults in category learning? And why there is developmental difference? The proposed project aims to address these questions in four studies using a combination of behavioral and eye tracking methodologies. Specifically, Studies 1 and 4 aim to examine how selective attention in category learning is affected by reinforcement immediately as well as after a time delay, and what changes between children and adults. Studies 2-3 aim to clarify the mechanism underlying the effect of reinforcement by examining the differential role of performance monitoring in children and adults, thus answering the why question. Findings from this project will greatly contribute to our understanding of attention, learning, and cognitive development.
Information of Offered Internship
Level of Internship Hours per Month
Level 1 - 40 hours
Commencement Month
June
Duration
6 Months
Internship requirements: i.e. work, practice and training
The student will serve as a research assistant (RA) and be highly involved in the Attention Brain and Cognitive Development Lab (The ABCD Lab) directed by the PI. As an RA, your responsibilities typically include helping with recruiting adult and child participants (on the phone and email and on site), collecting data, and helping with stimuli creation and data analysis.
Satisfactory English skills, good interpersonal and communication skills, and good time management skills are required. Experience with psychology research softwares (e.g., E-prime, OpenSesame, SPSS, MATLAB with Psychtoolbox) or a general interest in learning them is desirable. RAs will have an opportunity to learn research in Cognitive Science and get involved in weekly research discussions. RAs can also get experience with eye-tracking, programming, and statistical software.
Satisfactory English skills, good interpersonal and communication skills, and good time management skills are required. Experience with psychology research softwares (e.g., E-prime, OpenSesame, SPSS, MATLAB with Psychtoolbox) or a general interest in learning them is desirable. RAs will have an opportunity to learn research in Cognitive Science and get involved in weekly research discussions. RAs can also get experience with eye-tracking, programming, and statistical software.