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Dr. Rakison's general area of research is
cognitive development in infancy and early childhood. He focuses
on the early development of categorization and the development
of the animate-inanimate distinction, both of which are among
the most fundamental cognitive skills. Categorization is especially
important to infants, young children, and adults as it is the
primary means of coding experience, which in turn reduces demands
on inherently limited memory storage and perceptual and reasoning
processes. The development of the concept of animacy represents
the most basic division between different ontological kinds,
and it is thought to be a crucial building block for children's
emerging representations about the world around them. In his
work, He is attempting to provide an account for the development
of conceptual knowledge in infancy and childhood, with a focus
on the relationship between early categorization and knowledge
about natural kinds and artifacts. Thus far, he has shown that
infants rely on perceptual features and the functions of those
features to categorize objects, and that learning the associations
among these properties in turn may lead to the development of
deeper, conceptual knowledge about ontological kinds.
Infant Cognition Lab Research Areas:
Selected Publications:
Selected Conference Presentations:
- Rakison, D.H. & Cohen, L.B. (1998, April).
You’ve got to roll with It, baby:
The effect of functional parts on infants’ categorization. Poster presented at International Conference on Infant Studies,
Atlanta.
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