Elizabeth Spelke
Elizabeth Spelke
Elizabeth Shilin Spelkeis an American cognitive psychologist at the Department of Psychology of Harvard University and director of the Laboratory for Developmental Studies...
community concepts core evidence human knowledge maps provides remote understanding universal
The spontaneous understanding of geometrical concepts and maps by this remote human community provides evidence that core geometrical knowledge is a universal constituent of the human mind.
difficult geometry guess
I think it's really fascinating that geometry is so difficult. My guess is it's difficult because it focuses on proofs.
ability addition children enhance harness hope numbers shows study understanding
What our study shows is that children have a fundamental understanding of addition and of numbers and we hope to harness that ability to enhance mathematic instruction.
although apply central diverse dots horn numbers sensory seven
What's central about numbers for us as adults is that we can apply a number like 7 to a diverse number of things. We can say that there are seven dots but also that a horn honks seven times. Although these are different in their sensory qualities, the numbers are the same.
children boston years
Rhesus monkeys as well as human adults and older children living in a remote Amazon village have been given comparison and addition tasks using arrays of dots, and they show the same abilities we find in 5- year- old Boston children.
extremely likely
The experiments of the infants and the monkeys, I think, make it extremely likely that these abilities are inborn.