Research Interest/ Publications

Our lab has two main areas of interest. The first explores some of the mechanisms that underlie the development of early conceptual development. In this work we are mostly interested in understanding the processes that govern the development of categorization and inductive generalization in young children (birth – 8 years). Our second interest is focused on understanding how children learn in formal and informal settings. Below is a list of some of our recent publications that report some of our findings from these two areas of research.

Categorization and reasoning

Lawson, C.A. (in press). The impact of sequential presentation and simultaneous presentation of evidence on diversity-based reasoning in preschoolers and adults. Cognitive Development

Lawson, C.A., & Wolfe, N. (2019). The inductive benefit of being far out: The impact of spatial location of evidence exemplars on diversity-based reasoning. Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society

Lawson, C.A. (2018). Knowing when to trust a teacher: The contribution of category status and sample composition to young children’s judgments of informant trustworthiness.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 173, 380-387

Lawson, C.A. (2017). The influence of task dynamics on children’s and adults inductive generalization: How sequential and simultaneous presentation of evidence impact the strength and scope of property projection. Journal of Cognition & Development,18, 493- 513..

 

Learning in context

Stanley, S., & Lawson, C.A. (2019). The Effects of an Advertising-Based Intervention on  Critical Thinking and Media Literacy in Third and Fourth Graders. Journal of Media Education

 Lawson, C.A., Cook, M., Dorn, J., & Pariso, B. (2018). Full STEAM ahead: A program to facilitate teacher engagement before, during, and after a fieldtrip visit a maker space at a local children’s museum. Journal of Museum Education

Stanley, S., & Lawson, C.A. (2018). Developing discerning consumers: An intervention that increases skepticism toward advertisements in a sample of 4- to 5-year olds in the US. Journal of Children and Media, 12, 211-225.