Much of our everyday lives involves predicting, interpreting, and responding to words and actions of other individuals. My research investigates the development of the cognitive mechanisms that underlie these social abilities.
The majority of my work examines the development of psychological reasoning: the ability to reason about others' behaviors by inferring their mental states (e.g., their goals, feelings, and beliefs). I also conduct several related lines of work on children's developing language abilities and their understanding of social categories (e.g., race, ethnicity).
My work seeks to understand both when particular abilities emerge and how they are influenced by children's environments. I am especially interested in the potential impact of socioeconomic status on parent-child interactions and children's development.
