Faculty & Visiting Scientists

Dr. Atance is a developmental psychologist at the University of Ottawa, and is working with Dr. Meltzoff. Her primary area of interest is the development of future thinking in preschool-aged children. Scientists have discovered a lot about childrens memory for the past, but almost nothing is known about childrens understanding of the future. Dr. Atance is currently running a series of studies that explores childrens ability to think about and anticipate future states of the self, as well as the types of situations that may cause these states to arise. Of particular interest is the point in development when children are able to think about a future state that differs from their current one (e.g., anticipating being cold although one is currently hot). Childrens ability to contemplate such temporal aspects of their selves has implications for cognitive development theories, as well as for how parents and teachers can best talk with preschoolers about planning for the future (such as a trip to the park or what will happen after the child is picked up from preschool)

Dr. Atance is also interested in the development of theory of mind skills, and more specifically how such skills may be related to other aspects of young childrens cognitive development. .

Selected Papers

Daniel Bernstein, Ph.D.

Daniel M. Bernstein received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Simon Fraser University in Canada. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor, combining cognitive and perceptual science with developmental science in a line of collaborative studies with Geoffrey Loftus (Cognitive science), Andrew Meltzoff and Cristina Atance (Developmental science). One set of studies investigates the relationship between theory of mind and hindsight bias — when privileged knowing biases one's understanding of one's own or another's naive knowledge. Another line of studies investigates the development of perceptual interference — when exposure to degraded forms of a stimulus interfere with one's ability to identify the stimulus. In these studies, 3- to 5-year-old children and college students complete the identical task, thus permitting a direct comparison of performance between preschool children and adults.
Contact Dr. Bernstein.

• Bernstein, D. M., Loftus, G. R., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2005). Object identification in preschool children and adults. Developmental Science, 8, 151-161, 15, 264-267.

• Bernstein, D. M., Atance, C., Loftus, G., & Meltzoff, A. (2004). We saw it all along: Visual hindsight bias in children and adults. Psychological Science, 15, 264-267.

Post-Doctoral Fellows

Dr. Amsterlaw is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Andrew Meltzoff. Before coming to the Institute, she earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology at the University of Michigan with Henry Wellman. Dr. Amsterlaw's research interests focus on how school-age children make sense of complex cognitive processes like reasoning, learning, and decision-making. Her research considers the development of children’s beliefs about the goals, strategies, and “gold standards” that define these everyday cognitive processes, and how these beliefs serve to organize children’s thinking in real-life situations. In her current work, she is examining children’s knowledge about the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ thinking.
Contact Dr. Amsterlaw.

Selected Papers

• Amsterlaw, J. (2006). Children’s beliefs about everyday reasoning. Child Development, 77, 443 – 464Developmental Science, 8, 151-161, 15, 264-267.

Dr. Cvencek is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Andrew Meltzoff. Before coming to the Institute, he earned a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at the University of Washington, working with Tony Greenwald. Dr. Cvencek’s research interests focus on the development of academic gender stereotypes towards math and reading in elementary school children.  Dr. Cvencek investigates the role of social learning in the development of stereotypes, for example math–gender stereotypes. He also considers how this learning of stereotypes in children may be facilitated by a tendency of the human mind to keep one's cognitions consistent with one another.
Contact Dr. Cvencek.

Dr. Liu is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Andrew Meltzoff. Before coming to the Institute, he earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology at the University of Michigan, working with Drs. Henry Wellman, Susan Gelman, and Bill Gehring. Dr. Liu's current research focuses on how young children come to understand, and reason about, the social world, which is important for communication and learning both inside of school and in informal settings. His research examines the cognitive and brain basis of children's emerging understanding of concepts such as beliefs, desires, intentions, and traits. His brain measures focus on event-related potential (ERP) methods to determine neural differences involved with reasoning about these different mental states. Dr. Liu's research should help form interdisciplinary bridges between cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and other allied disciplines.
Contact Dr. Liu.

Dr. Henrike Moll is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Andrew Meltzoff. Before coming to the institute, she earned a Ph.D. in Leipzig, Germany, working with Dr. Michael Tomasello at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. She was awarded the prestigious Dilthey Fellowship by the Volkswagen Foundation to support scholars who are facing up to the complex challenges presented by a multi-cultural world. In her research, Henrike explores the development of diverse social-cognitive abilities, among them the ability to take and understand perspectives. In particular she is interested in the development of young children’s ability to understand the point-of-view of other people, and the important role that joint attention plays in this process.
Contact Dr. Moll.

Dr. Williamson is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Andrew Meltzoff. Before coming to the Institute, she earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology at Stanford University, working with Ellen Markman. Dr. Williamson's research focuses on young children's social learning, including what children learn from others and how they do so. Her research investigates how children learn behaviors, goals, and customs through observing others in their culture. Dr. Williamson considers imitation to be a flexible and adaptive learning mechanism that children use differently depending on the situation — sometimes copying what they see the expert do and sometimes employing their own cognitive solutions to solve a problem. Her work has implications for multicultural learning, and for the education of preschoolers.
Contact Dr. Williamson.

Graduate Students

Emily Blumenthal

Emily Blumenthal received her B.A. degree from Brown University in 2005. She is a graduate student working with Dr. Andrew Meltzoff. She studies the development of causal reasoning in infants and preschoolers. Specifically, she is investigating the cues that children use to learn the causal structure of events, and the role that imitation might play in their learning process. She is also interested in children's understanding of probability.
Contact Ms. Blumenthal .

Research Staff

Dr. Brooks is a developmental psychologist whose interests include infant social cognition, gaze-following, and how these concepts relate to theory of mind. She is investigating whether infants conceive of others as sentient beings with perceptions, emotions, and goals. She examines how infants interpret social cues, such as eye contact and gaze, which are in turn crucial for learning about others' emotions and language.
Contact Dr. Brooks.