DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

Research Interests

My research focuses on the earliest evidence of our cognitive capacities in infancy and describes what changes over development. Through this process we gain information critical to understanding cognition in general. Some current lines of research include: 1) investigating the origin and development of analogical processing; 2) the intersection of language and thought in infancy; 3) physical reasoning about number, space, objects, and substances.

Selected Publications (See lab page for all publications)

*indicates graduate student author

** indicates undergraduate student author

Shivaram, A.^*, Chavez, Y.^**, Anderson, E^*, Fritz, A.^**, Jackson, R.^**, Edwards, L.^**, Powers, S., Libertus, M., & Hespos, S. (2021). Brief interventions can influence the quantity and quality of caregiver-child conversations in an everyday context. Frontiers: Developmental Psychology, 12,645788. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645788

Gentner, D., Shao*, R., Simms, N., & Hespos, S. (2021). Learning Same and Different Relations: Cross-Species Comparisons. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 37, 84 - 89.

Hespos, S., Gentner, D., Anderson*, E., & Shivaram*, A. (2021). The origins of same/different discrimination in human infants. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 37, 69 – 74.

Arterberry, M.E., Hespos, S.J., Walsh, C.A.,** & Daniels, C.I.** (2020). Integration of thought and action continued: Scale errors and categorization in toddlers. Infancy, 25,851 – 870. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12364

Chen, K.,* Forbus, K., Gentner, D., Hespos, S.J., & Anderson*, E.M. (2020). Simulating infant visual learning by comparison: an initial model. Proceedings of the 42^nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

Hespos, S. J., Anderson*, E., & Gentner, D. (2020). Structure-mapping processes enable infants’ learning across domains, including language. In J. Childers (Ed.) Language and Concept Acquisition from Infancy Through Childhood: Learning from Multiple Exemplars (pp.79 – 104). Springer International Publishing: Cham, Switzerland.

Hespos, S. J., & Anderson*, E. (2020). Infant Physical Reasoning. In J. Lockman & C. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Infant Development (pp. 365 – 382). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

Ferry*, A., Hespos, S. J., & Waxman, S. (2013). Non-human primate vocalizations support categorization in very young human infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(38), 15231 – 15235.

Hespos, S. J., & Spelke, E. S. (2004). Conceptual precursors to spatial language. Nature, 430, 453 - 456.

Hespos, S. J., & Baillargeon, R. (2001b). Reasoning about containment events in very young infants. Cognition, 78, 207 – 245.

Rochat, P., & Hespos, S. J. (1997). Differential rooting response by neonates: Evidence for an early sense of self. Early Development and Parenting, 6(3 & 4), 105–112.

Simon, T., Hespos, S. J., & Rochat, P. (1995). Do infants understand simple arithmetic?  A replication of Wynn (1992). Cognitive Development, 10(2), 253–269.