Lisa Feigenson, Ph.D.
feigenson@jhu.edu
http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~feigenson/

What is the format of the mental representations that store information, and what computations can we perform over these representations? Our research explores answers to these questions for the case of the concept “individual”. This work both draws from and unites research in numerical cognition, object-based attention, and short-term memory. Our research centers on infants and young children. By examining key points in development we can gain insight into the role played by a set of representations as new knowledge is acquired, and as new knowledge structures are created.

Curriculum Vitae:



Justin Halberda, Ph.D.
halberda@jhu.edu
http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~halberda/

Professor Halberda's research focuses on two main topics. The first is an interest in language acquisition and the possibility that logical deductive inference may play a role in the learning of new words. The second is an interest in the organization of attention and the connection of mind to world. Students in the lab work with infants, children and adults using classic anticipatory-looking paradigms and eye-tracking as well as computational modeling.

Curriculum Vitae:
 






Andrea Stevenson
Research Assistant
asteve20@jhu.edu

Hi! My name is Andrea Stevenson. I graduated from the University of Western Ontario, Canada with an Honors Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor of Education. For three years, I taught at the elementary level. Currently, I am working as a research assistant in the Lab for Child Development in order to enhance my knowledge of how children learn and understand.




Jennifer Zosh, M.A.
5th year graduate student
jzosh2@jhu.edu
http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~zosh/

This is my fourth year as a Ph.D. student at the Laboratory for Child Development here at Johns Hopkins. During the past year I have been focusing on short-term memory limits in infancy and asking if language and previous experience can help infants overcome those limits. In a sentence, I am asking if it is easier for infants to remember objects if they hear the label for an object and/or if they have had previous experience with that object. I am continuing to explore these issues in the coming months and also plan to explore infants’ ability to approximate multiple groups of large numbers of objects simultaneously.



Mariko Yamaguchi, M.A.
4th year graduate student
mariko.yamaguchi@jhu.edu
http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~yamaguchi/

I'm currently working on two lines of research in the lab.  The first examines children's abilities to learn about people's faces and voices, and whether they can use the information they just acquired to spontaneously make inferences to gain new information.  The second set of studies looks at the limits of infants' working memory.  How do infants keep track of objects in their working memory, and what is the role of sets in maintaining these representations?



Chad Spiegel
2nd year graduate student
cspiege2@jhu.edu

This is my first year as a graduate student here at Johns Hopkins after graduating from Indiana University with an honors B.A. in psychology and philosophy.  Previously, I have studied the cognitive processes that drive learning by exploring contextual memory differences for parts of speech and examining conceptual models for relational learning.  I plan on working with young children and adults to study the development of the cognitive mechanisms that help us to gather information about the world around us.  Specifically, I'm interested in the nature and origins of the constraints that guide word learning and logical reasoning.

 

Rachel Austin
Undergraduate Student - Junior
riaustin@comcast.net

I am a sophmore psychology major, and this is my first year in the Lab for Child Development. I am very happy about being a part of the lab, and am especially excited about the research I will be doing. I am looking forward to learning more about how children develop, and putting my knowledge to use in the future as I finish my psychology degree and go on to teach elementary school.



 

Amelia Hritz
Undergraduate Student - Senior

I'm a junior Psychology and Math double major. In the lab I'm studying how 2-3 year olds learn new words. This is my first time doing psychology research and I'm really excited to work with kids and learn about how they develop.



Alexandra Cork
Undergraduate Student - Senior
acork1@jhu.edu

I am a junior psychology major and this is my first year with the lab. In the lab I am studying how children represent numbers. I would like to earn a Ph.D and be a child psychologist. My goal is to have my own practice.


LCD Alumni

Ph.D. Students

Len Taing
Graduate Student 2004-2006

Staff

Allison Wessel
Lab Coordinator
2006-2007

Catherine Juravich
Lab Coordinator
2005-2006

Jen Jimenez
Lab Coordinator
2004-2005

Thesis Students

Meredith Brinster
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Thesis: Inference is better than Instruction: The relative strengths of indirect and direct word learning in preschoolers
Spring 2005-Spring 2007
Johns Hopkins University Class of 2007		 Arin Tuerk
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Thesis: Heterogenous object arrays increase working memory capacity in 7-month old infants
Fall 2006-Spring 2008
Johns Hopkins Class of 2007

Undergraduate Students

Ellen McClure
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Fall 2007-Summer 2008 		Sharon Marcus
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Fall 2007-Spring 2008
Johns Hopkins University Class of 2008

Desiree Ayala
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Spring 2007-Spring 2008
Johns Hopkins University Class of 2008

Class of 2009

Lauren Pecarich

Class of 2008

Class of 2007

Joanna Kochaniak, Fall 2005-Summer 2007
Mark Butler, Summer 2006-Spring 2007
Julia Tracey, Spring 2005-Spring 2007
Stefanie Kamen, Fall 2005-Fall 2006
Melissa Artnak, Fall 2005-Fall 2006
Turner Cobden, Fall 2004-Fall 2006
Jen Kissiah, Fall 2006
Anita Sivaraman, Fall 2006

Class of 2006

Nicole Seltman, Fall 2005 - Spring 2006
Elana Snow, Spring 2006
Katie Young, Fall 2005 - Spring 2006
Miriam Allen, Fall 2005, Tulane University
Meaghan Leddy, Fall 2004 - Spring 2005

Women in Engineering Program

Zebib Abraham, Women In Science & Engineering Student, Garrison Forest School, Spring 2006

Summer Internship Program

Summer Internship Program 2008

Back (from left): Ellen McClure, Jenn Zosh, Lisa Feigenson, Justin Halberda, Kate Ekman, Mariko Yamaguchi

Front (from left): Andrea Stevenson, Miyuki Nishimura, Lenae Stansky, Kelli Hill, Sara Fitt