Coincidence? I think not!
As I was reading an article yesterday, I noticed that the author cited David R Olson a few times. I was intruigued because last semester I wrote a paper for class about Olson's ideas. In short, he suggests that burgeoning literacy has an impact on cognitive reasoning, specifically scientific reasoning, or what Piaget would consider formal operations.
Back to my point, I looked up these citations and noticed a collaborator of his who researches Theory of Mind (ToM). ToM has to do with a child's coming to understand that others' have minds apart from her own. In other words, others' don't have the same knowledg that she does. If she sees an adult put cheerios in a rubberband box, she will guess that others' will think there are rubberbands in that box becasue they didn't see what she saw.
Back to my point again, I discovered that Olson theorizes that children's experience with language affects their ability to form Theory of Mind. A graduate student and I had decided to work together on a separate project that we just haven't gotten off the ground. As it turns out, this graduate student is an expert on Theory of Mind. Ah! With her expertise in ToM and my interest in language, we would make an excellent pair to begin studying this. Coincidence? I think not!
posted by kiki @ 10:07 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
ToM, interesting, ... an extention of object permanence? Must explain why I had so much trouble working with others in grad school. Two people trying to write one paper, I always felt like I couldn't communicate with half of my brain.
Heh! Yeah, I'm a little nervous about collaborating with other students to write papers this semester. I've always been the sole author in the past. Here's to hoping I can get along well with others!
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