Join us for the Department of Psychology Colloquium with Dr. Vladimir Sloutsky!
Title: How Cognitive Immaturity May Support Cognitive Development
Abstract: Childhood is a period of broad and protracted immaturity resulting in massive limitations and imposing large costs on a caretaker. These limitations include poor control, seemingly chaotic behavior, and very little planning, all resulting in no self-reliance and requiring extensive care. However, there are also multiple benefits of immaturity. In the first part of the talk, I present evidence demonstrating these benefits and argue that these benefits are driven by broad exploration and information sampling. Typically, this broad exploration and information sampling have been attributed to early curiosity, or non-instrumental value of information. In the second part of the talk, I propose an alternative view, suggesting that broad exploration and information sampling is a consequence of immature Working Memory-Attention system rather than of curiosity. I present experimental and computational evidence supporting this view. Given the importance of broad exploration and information sampling for cognitive development, this research demonstrates how (paradoxically) the very limitations of the early cognition may support or even drive cognitive development.