Elizabeth Spelke
American developmental psychologist of infant cognition
American developmental psychologist at Harvard. She proposed that infants rely on core knowledge systems for objects, number, space, action and social categories, and studied infant object perception with looking-time methods.
Why this person matters
Spelke's work on infants gave nativist accounts of early cognition a body of experimental evidence and sparked debate about what looking-time studies show. She trained with Eleanor Gibson at Cornell and worked with Susan Carey, Katherine Kinzler and others.
Main contributions
Core knowledge systems
She proposed that humans are born with core systems for representing objects, people, spatial relationships and number. Scientific American calls the theory bold but still controversial. The 2007 paper Core knowledge, with Katherine Kinzler in Developmental Science, summarises the proposal.
Infant object perception
Using preferential looking, in which babies gaze longer at novel or surprising stimuli, her lab found that babies a few months old appear to know when an object is hidden behind a barrier, an awareness psychologists had placed around age one. Four-month-olds expect a moving object to keep moving.
Context and limits
Some researchers argue that looking-time results may reflect lower-level perceptual preferences or short-term statistical learning rather than rich concepts. Scientific American describes core knowledge theory as bold but still controversial. The sources read do not discuss replication of the infant studies.
In your introductory course
Lifespan development.Appears in the development chapter in sections on infant cognition, object permanence and the nature versus nurture debate.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 9.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1997
Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- 2001
Became a professor at Harvard University.
- 2007
Published Core knowledge with Katherine Kinzler in Developmental Science.
- 2009
Awarded the Jean Nicod Prize.
Sources
- Harvard Gazette, Toddling toward the birth of knowledge (2001)University. Institutional biography inspected.
- Scientific American, Big Answers from Little PeoplePublisher. Reference article inspected.
- Simons Foundation, Elizabeth Spelke biographySociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Elizabeth S. SpelkeSociety or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- Wikipedia, Elizabeth SpelkeReference work. Reference article inspected.