The Magic of Good Methods

As I have encountered it, science has always had an aura of magic about it.  Ironically enough, this sentiment is not unusual for a researcher.  In fact, scientists such as Einstein and many others are famous for their almost spiritual descriptions of their discoveries.  I would wager that it is quite normal to be left dumbfounded by the extreme complexity of many phenomena in our universe.  However, the grand complexities and beauties revealed by science are not the magical qualities I speak of.  To be sure, contemplating those aspects of existence is thrilling and definitely leaves me in awe.  What really mystifies me about science, though, is the process.  How do we determine what is fact and what is not?

Developing the proper methods to study a phenomenon is perhaps one of the hardest skills for young scientists to learn.  Methods courses are often spoken of in terror by young undergraduates, and even experienced scientists must work tirelessly on experimental approaches, only to have them torn apart by reviewers.  Though a news article may proclaim that a new material was discovered “simply” through mixing chemicals or that a new black hole was discovered “simply” by using a telescope, the process is much more complex than that.  Indeed, many scientists cringe at the way 10-second newsbytes describe their methodologies.

In this way, psychology, particularly cognitive psychology, presents some unique challenges.  Whereas researchers in the physical sciences (typically) at least have the benefit of being able to point to a tangible, real result of their methods, cognitive scientists do not.  Unfortunately, the stuff of thought is tucked away in our skulls, making it quite difficult to directly examine.  Even new brain scanning techniques (e.g. fMRI) are hard to interpret, but that’s another blog post entirely.  Given these issues, cognitive science has been plagued by questions such as “How do you measure activities of the mind?” and “How do you observe thoughts?”.

In fact, these questions became so problematic in the early 20^th century that many psychologists threw out the study of the mind all together.  Without going into too much of a history lesson, many of the original psychologists such as Wilhelm Wundt attempted to determine the nature of the mind through introspection (examining one’s own thoughts).  However, later researchers such as James B. Watson and, later, B. F. Skinner found this approach laughably unscientific.  Instead, these individuals argued that we should study only observable behavior and leave the realm of the mind the philosophers.

It wasn’t until the mid-1960s, with researchers such as Ulric Neisser, that the study of cognition began to take hold again in what many have described as the “Cognitive Revolution”*.  There are many different reasons why the cognitive studies began to become popular again, but one is that scientists began to develop tangible, behavior-based techniques for studying the mind.

Fast-forwarding 50+ years, how do I research the nature of cognitive development?  Thus far, I have used several techniques.  In my first study, I had children play with different toy tools under different conditions.  Particularly, I was interested in whether children would recognize when certain toys were non-functional.  Through using toys with certain, distinct features (such as size), I was able to see was if children would be able to notice when these features made toys ineffective for certain tasks.  Thus, by simply watching children’s behaviors, I could get a glimpse into what they were thinking.  Now, I have children playing a card game where I ask them to tell me which cards match an example.  By examining how children change their answers under different conditions, I can gain insight into what criteria children use to form categories of objects.  Again, this is a behavioral task that provides insight into how children may be thinking about certain objects.

It is exceedingly important to underscore that these tasks and studies provide only glimpses and guesses at what children are thinking.  Individual experiments and tasks rarely if ever completely prove any hypothesis or theory.  Instead, science is about incrementally accumulating evidence to support a hypothesis or theory, such that, over time, we can develop a more accurate picture of reality.

In the interest of brevity, I have only provided a brief description of the techniques I use in the lab.  Hopefully, I can provide a deeper explanation in a later post.  Next week, expect a post describing what the daily life of a graduate student looks like!

What Do I Study?

As a product of academia, I fit a number of stereotypes.  For instance, I will talk the ear off of anyone naïve enough to ask about my field of study.  It is not surprising then that I am starting this blog with a discussion of what I do.  This post will most likely be the first of three where I will discuss what I am interested in, how I go about studying my interests, and what my daily routine looks like. 

Today, we start with what I study and why.

In scientific, jargon-y terms, I am intrigued by how children learn to perceive and act on the functional affordances provided by the objects in their environment.

In English, I want to know how children learn about what the objects they encounter enable them to do.  How does a child learn that you can bounce a ball?  Or use a hammer to hit another object?  Or that cups are for holding liquids?

Though these questions may seem simplistic, they get at the heart of what it means to be human.  Part of what distinguishes the species Homo sapiens from the rest of the animal kingdom is our prolific use and creation of tools.  To be sure!  We are not the only tool using and creating species on the block, but we are probably the best.

Despite this fact, if I were to ask you, “Did you use a tool today?” Many of you would probably immediately answer “No.” However, you would be lying.  Sure, many of my readers probably didn’t pick up a hammer or pair of pliers today, but you are using a tool right now to read this post.  Yea, that’s right.  Computers are tools.  You know what?  So are phones.  So are cars. So are cookware and utensils, pens and pencils, and even TV and videogame controllers.  In our everyday existence, we are exposed to any number of extremely complex tools, and yet we hardly ever have to think about it.  We are so proficient at tool-use that it blends into our lives just as naturally as breathing.

How, though?  How do we go from bumbling toddlers, not even able to feed ourselves, to creatures capable of operating even the most complex machinery?

Given that psychologists have been intensely studying children for well over 60 years, you would think that we would have some sort of answer to these questions.  However, researchers are still split over this issue.  Most of the arguments center around the age-old debate of “nature vs. nurture.”  (Yes, we are still arguing about that.)  To be sure, almost all psychologists nowadays recognize that development is a mixture of nature and nurture rather than one or the other.  The debate now is which one is predominant.

For instance, psychologists such as myself argue that children learn about the functional affordances of objects (what objects allow a person to do) through experience, learning about how to detect these special features over time.  However, there are a large number of prominent psychologists who would disagree with me.  Instead, they put forth that evolution has so shaped humanity that we are born with the ability to perceive certain affordances.  The argument between these two sides is complex and, quite frankly, annoying, so I will not get into it now.  Suffice to say, that the field is in some ways bitterly divided.

Thus, given the prevalence of tools in our lives and the ambiguity surrounding how we learn to interact with tools, I find this field of study intensely interesting.  Developing the skills necessary to navigate our tool filled lives is almost a requirement to survive in human society.  However, infants do not exit womb wielding hammers and pliers.  Ergo, they must go through some developmental period during which they learn about what abilities their environment affords them*.  Thus, my goal is to study this development in order to best understand this key facet of our existence.  Because of all of the nuances surrounding tool use, there are a plethora of important questions that remain unanswered and just as many ways to go about answering said questions.  Therefore, in my next post, I will describe how I tackle these issues.

*Note: This is my own biased opinion. Though many developmental psychologists would agree with this description, not all would be comfortable with the language I use.

Getting Started

Hello!

My name is Sam Hunley, and I am a doctoral student at Emory University, studying in the Cognition and Development program. Though those of us in this program study a variety of topics, I spend most of my time investigating how children learn about the world around them. Specifically, I am interested in how children perceive the functional affordances, or capabilities, of the objects they encounter. Though this sounds fancy, essentially what I end up doing is seeing how children play with and interact with various types of toys.

Given that this is a blog - and blogs typically contain writing - what will I be writing about? As it stands, I want this blog to be a space where I can talk about and (hopefully) others can learn about issues in science. Sometimes this means I will be talking about the most recent scientific news. Other times, I will be talking about specific findings that I find intriguing. Basically, you can't be sure of what you will find here, but I hope that whatever it is, it is interesting.

Though I study cognitive development in children, I want this blog to examine a wider range of topics. Certainly, I will most likely spend a majority of my time talking about issues involving cognition and/or development. It is what I study, erego I am prone to talk about it. However, I will hope to discuss any aspect of science that I find interesting (feel free to provide suggestions!).

With that, let us begin. Hopefully, I will have a true post sometime early next week.

Sam