Lana B Karasik
Biographic Data
| ID | 227770 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lana B Karasik |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lana B |
| FAMILY NAME | Karasik |
| SIGNATURE | KARASIK L B |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Graduate Center, CUNY |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0764-4557 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Cultural Diversity in Infant Motor Development: A Comparison of Early Locomotor Experience
Most of the research on infant motor development is based on studies with infants and caregivers living in urban and western societies, which is problematic from a scientific and ethical perspective. Both ethnographic descriptions as well as a handful of empirical investigations across diverse cultural contexts indicate there may be significant variability in early motor experience across cultures. To better understand whether differences in earl…
Object play in Tajikistan: Infants engage with objects despite bounds on play
Object play is a ubiquitous context for learning. Existing knowledge on infant object interaction has relied on Euro‐American samples and observations confined to laboratory playrooms or families' homes, where object play is typically observed indoors and in rooms brimming with toys. Here we examined infants' everyday object play in Tajikistan, where spaces are uniquely laid out and homes are not child‐centered and toy‐abundant. The restrictive g…
Real-time teaching and learning: Caregivers teaching infants to descend stairs
Learning to descend stairs requires motor and cognitive capacities on the part of infants and opportunities for practice and assurance of safety offered by caregivers. The American Academy of Pediatrics prescribes the age strategy to teach toddlers to safely descend stairs but without much consideration for individual differences in infants' skills or caregivers' techniques. The purpose of this study was to observe the natural ways in which careg…
Gahvora cradling in Tajikistan: Cultural practices and associations with motor development
In Tajikistan, infants are bound supine in a “gahvora” cradle that severely restricts movement. Does cradling affect motor development and body growth? In three studies (2013–2018), we investigated associations between time in the gahvora (within days and across age) and motor skills and flattened head dimensions in 8–24-month-old Tajik infants (N = 269, 133 girls, 136 boys)) and 4.3–5.1-year-old children (N = 91, 53 girls, 38 boys). Infants had …
Diversity and representation in infant research: Barriers and bridges toward a globalized science of infant development
Psychological researchers have become increasingly concerned with generalized accounts of human behavior based on narrow participant representation. This concern is particularly germane to infant research as findings from infant studies are often invoked to theorize broadly about the origins of human behavior. In this article, we examined participant diversity and representation in research published on infant development in four journals over th…
Milestones or Millstones: How Standard Assessments Mask Cultural Variation and Misinform Policies Aimed at Early Childhood Development
Traditionally, the study of motor development—rooted in Western populations and culture—has focused on establishing norms in the timing and sequence of motor skills, inspiring the widely used emphasis on motor milestones in standard assessments (e.g., crawling by 8 months). Motor milestones are only a perceived version of what is an important skill; they are cultural conventions, not universals. Some cultures allow infants floor time; others carr…
Talk the talk and walk the walk: Diversity and culture impact all of development – A commentary on Kidd and Garcia (2022)
Research on early language abilities, much like psychology more broadly, has focused almost exclusively on infants from English and Indo-European languages, thereby limiting understanding of the role of varying linguistic experience that supports language abilities. We underscore Kidd and Garcia’s call to expand, diversify, and globalize language research. Using examples from motor development in which universality has long been assumed, we argue…
Diversity and Representation in Infant Research: Barriers and bridges towards a globalized science of infant development
Diversity and Representation in Infant Research: Barriers and bridges towards a globalized science of infant development Leher Singh, Alejandrina Cristia, Lana B. Karasik, Sarah J. Rajendra, and Lisa M. Oakes Author NoteLeher Singh, Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Alejandrina Cristia, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, …
Mobility: Crawling and Walking
Places and Postures: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Sitting in 5-Month-Olds
Motor development-traditionally described in terms of age-related stages-is typically studied in the laboratory with participants of Western European descent. Cross-cultural studies typically focus on group differences in age-related stages relative to Western norms. We adopted a less traditional approach: We observed 5-month-olds and their mothers from six cultural groups around the world during 1 hr at home while they engaged in natural daily a…
Carry on: Spontaneous object carrying in 13-month-old crawling and walking infants
Carrying objects requires coordination of manual action and locomotion. This study investigated spontaneous carrying in 24 walkers who were 13 months old and 26 crawlers who were 13 months old during 1-hr, naturalistic observations in the infants' homes. Carrying was more common in walkers, but crawlers also carried objects. Typically, walkers carried objects in their hands, whereas crawlers multitasked by using their hands simultaneously for hol…
Cinderella indeed – a commentary on Iverson's ‘Developing language in a developing body: The relationship between motor development and language development’
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
How Mothers Encourage and Discourage Infants' Motor Actions
The content of mothers' emotional, verbal, and gestural communication to their infants was examined under conditions of potential physical risk in a laboratory motor task. Mothers encouraged and discouraged their 12‐ and 18‐month‐old infants to crawl or walk down a sloping walkway. Mothers expressed positive affect on nearly every trial. They rarely expressed purely negative affect in their faces and voices, even when discouraging. Instead, they …
Locomotor experience and use of social information are posture specific
The authors examined the effects of locomotor experience on infants' perceptual judgments in a potentially risky situation--descending steep and shallow slopes--while manipulating social incentives to determine where perceptual judgments are most malleable. Twelve-month-old experienced crawlers and novice walkers were tested on an adjustable sloping walkway as their mothers encouraged and discouraged descent. A psychophysical procedure was used t…
When infants take mothers' advice: 18-Month-Olds Integrate Perceptual and Social Information to Guide Motor Action
The social cognition and perception-action literatures are largely separate, both conceptually and empirically. However, both areas of research emphasize infants' emerging abilities to use available information--social and perceptual information, respectively--for making decisions about action. Borrowing methods from both research traditions, this study examined whether 18-month-old infants incorporate both social and perceptual information in th…
When infants take mothers' advice: 18-Month-Olds Integrate Perceptual and Social Information to Guide Motor Action
The social cognition and perception-action literatures are largely separate, both conceptually and empirically. However, both areas of research emphasize infants' emerging abilities to use available information--social and perceptual information, respectively--for making decisions about action. Borrowing methods from both research traditions, this study examined whether 18-month-old infants incorporate both social and perceptual information in th…
Places and Postures: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Sitting in 5-Month-Olds
Motor development-traditionally described in terms of age-related stages-is typically studied in the laboratory with participants of Western European descent. Cross-cultural studies typically focus on group differences in age-related stages relative to Western norms. We adopted a less traditional approach: We observed 5-month-olds and their mothers from six cultural groups around the world during 1 hr at home while they engaged in natural daily a…
Locomotor experience and use of social information are posture specific
The authors examined the effects of locomotor experience on infants' perceptual judgments in a potentially risky situation--descending steep and shallow slopes--while manipulating social incentives to determine where perceptual judgments are most malleable. Twelve-month-old experienced crawlers and novice walkers were tested on an adjustable sloping walkway as their mothers encouraged and discouraged descent. A psychophysical procedure was used t…
Carry on: Spontaneous object carrying in 13-month-old crawling and walking infants
Carrying objects requires coordination of manual action and locomotion. This study investigated spontaneous carrying in 24 walkers who were 13 months old and 26 crawlers who were 13 months old during 1-hr, naturalistic observations in the infants' homes. Carrying was more common in walkers, but crawlers also carried objects. Typically, walkers carried objects in their hands, whereas crawlers multitasked by using their hands simultaneously for hol…
How Mothers Encourage and Discourage Infants' Motor Actions
The content of mothers' emotional, verbal, and gestural communication to their infants was examined under conditions of potential physical risk in a laboratory motor task. Mothers encouraged and discouraged their 12‐ and 18‐month‐old infants to crawl or walk down a sloping walkway. Mothers expressed positive affect on nearly every trial. They rarely expressed purely negative affect in their faces and voices, even when discouraging. Instead, they …
Locomotor experience and use of social information are posture specific
The authors examined the effects of locomotor experience on infants' perceptual judgments in a potentially risky situation--descending steep and shallow slopes--while manipulating social incentives to determine where perceptual judgments are most malleable. Twelve-month-old experienced crawlers and novice walkers were tested on an adjustable sloping walkway as their mothers encouraged and discouraged descent. A psychophysical procedure was used t…
When infants take mothers' advice: 18-Month-Olds Integrate Perceptual and Social Information to Guide Motor Action
The social cognition and perception-action literatures are largely separate, both conceptually and empirically. However, both areas of research emphasize infants' emerging abilities to use available information--social and perceptual information, respectively--for making decisions about action. Borrowing methods from both research traditions, this study examined whether 18-month-old infants incorporate both social and perceptual information in th…
Cinderella indeed – a commentary on Iverson's ‘Developing language in a developing body: The relationship between motor development and language development’
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Carry on: Spontaneous object carrying in 13-month-old crawling and walking infants
Carrying objects requires coordination of manual action and locomotion. This study investigated spontaneous carrying in 24 walkers who were 13 months old and 26 crawlers who were 13 months old during 1-hr, naturalistic observations in the infants' homes. Carrying was more common in walkers, but crawlers also carried objects. Typically, walkers carried objects in their hands, whereas crawlers multitasked by using their hands simultaneously for hol…
Places and Postures: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Sitting in 5-Month-Olds
Motor development-traditionally described in terms of age-related stages-is typically studied in the laboratory with participants of Western European descent. Cross-cultural studies typically focus on group differences in age-related stages relative to Western norms. We adopted a less traditional approach: We observed 5-month-olds and their mothers from six cultural groups around the world during 1 hr at home while they engaged in natural daily a…
Mobility: Crawling and Walking
Diversity and Representation in Infant Research: Barriers and bridges towards a globalized science of infant development
Diversity and Representation in Infant Research: Barriers and bridges towards a globalized science of infant development Leher Singh, Alejandrina Cristia, Lana B. Karasik, Sarah J. Rajendra, and Lisa M. Oakes Author NoteLeher Singh, Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Alejandrina Cristia, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, …
Milestones or Millstones: How Standard Assessments Mask Cultural Variation and Misinform Policies Aimed at Early Childhood Development
Traditionally, the study of motor development—rooted in Western populations and culture—has focused on establishing norms in the timing and sequence of motor skills, inspiring the widely used emphasis on motor milestones in standard assessments (e.g., crawling by 8 months). Motor milestones are only a perceived version of what is an important skill; they are cultural conventions, not universals. Some cultures allow infants floor time; others carr…
Talk the talk and walk the walk: Diversity and culture impact all of development – A commentary on Kidd and Garcia (2022)
Research on early language abilities, much like psychology more broadly, has focused almost exclusively on infants from English and Indo-European languages, thereby limiting understanding of the role of varying linguistic experience that supports language abilities. We underscore Kidd and Garcia’s call to expand, diversify, and globalize language research. Using examples from motor development in which universality has long been assumed, we argue…
Gahvora cradling in Tajikistan: Cultural practices and associations with motor development
In Tajikistan, infants are bound supine in a “gahvora” cradle that severely restricts movement. Does cradling affect motor development and body growth? In three studies (2013–2018), we investigated associations between time in the gahvora (within days and across age) and motor skills and flattened head dimensions in 8–24-month-old Tajik infants (N = 269, 133 girls, 136 boys)) and 4.3–5.1-year-old children (N = 91, 53 girls, 38 boys). Infants had …
Diversity and representation in infant research: Barriers and bridges toward a globalized science of infant development
Psychological researchers have become increasingly concerned with generalized accounts of human behavior based on narrow participant representation. This concern is particularly germane to infant research as findings from infant studies are often invoked to theorize broadly about the origins of human behavior. In this article, we examined participant diversity and representation in research published on infant development in four journals over th…
Real-time teaching and learning: Caregivers teaching infants to descend stairs
Learning to descend stairs requires motor and cognitive capacities on the part of infants and opportunities for practice and assurance of safety offered by caregivers. The American Academy of Pediatrics prescribes the age strategy to teach toddlers to safely descend stairs but without much consideration for individual differences in infants' skills or caregivers' techniques. The purpose of this study was to observe the natural ways in which careg…
Cultural Diversity in Infant Motor Development: A Comparison of Early Locomotor Experience
Most of the research on infant motor development is based on studies with infants and caregivers living in urban and western societies, which is problematic from a scientific and ethical perspective. Both ethnographic descriptions as well as a handful of empirical investigations across diverse cultural contexts indicate there may be significant variability in early motor experience across cultures. To better understand whether differences in earl…
Object play in Tajikistan: Infants engage with objects despite bounds on play
Object play is a ubiquitous context for learning. Existing knowledge on infant object interaction has relied on Euro‐American samples and observations confined to laboratory playrooms or families' homes, where object play is typically observed indoors and in rooms brimming with toys. Here we examined infants' everyday object play in Tajikistan, where spaces are uniquely laid out and homes are not child‐centered and toy‐abundant. The restrictive g…
Psychology (14 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (12 works) · Developmental psychology (12 works) · Motor skill (6 works) · Communication (5 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (5 works) · Medicine (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Anthropology (4 works) · Computer Science (4 works)