2016 AAAS Annual Meeting (February 11-15, 2016)

February 10 - 15, 2016

JOHN P. McGOVERN AWARD LECTURE IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES: Elizabeth Spelke: Origins of Knowledge

Professor of Psychology, Harvard University Dr. Elizabeth S. Spelke is a cognitive psychologist who studies the cognitive capacities of human infants and children. Her work has led to the knowledge that young infants, much like adults, understand that the world is composed of physical objects that are solid, substantial, and continuous in time and space, and that interact with one another by contact and force transmission. Her research demonstrates the capacity of infants to predict movement and understand characteristics of objects that could not be derived from their experience in the world. Spelke's work begins to answer perennial philosophical questions about the origins of human knowledge about space, objects, motion, unity, persistence, identity, and number, showing that research in cognitive psychology can address some of the most fundamental questions about human nature. She completed undergraduate studies at Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in psychology at Cornell University. She is a a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and the National Academy of Science, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a recipient of the Association for Psychological Science William James Fellow Award and the National Academy of Science's Atkinson Prize for Psychological and Cognitive Sciences.