Lisa Feigenson
Biographic Data
| ID | 5763231 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lisa Feigenson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lisa |
| FAMILY NAME | Feigenson |
| SIGNATURE | FEIGENSON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Johns Hopkins University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9015-7065 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Violations of social expectations enhance infants' learning
When infants see objects behave in surprising ways, they not only notice these violations, but also experience enhanced learning about the objects. Although infants also notice when social agents behave in surprising ways, it is unclear whether violations of social expectations similarly enhance learning. Here we asked whether surprising events in the social domain amplify learning. In three experiments, 16- to 19-month-old infants saw a person b…
Infants Recognize the Negative Impact of Phone Distraction on Performance
Seeing adults use cellphones is a common daily experience for infants, yet little is known about how infants think about others’ cellphone use. Do infants recognize that phone usage can affect the user’s behavior? Here we asked whether infants expect a person’s task performance to be impaired by phone use. Twenty‐month‐old infants watched adults building block towers. One adult did this while also using a phone, either looking at the screen and s…
Children's representation of coincidence
What aspects of counting help infants attend to numerosity
Recent work shows that 18‐month old infants understand that counting is numerically relevant—infants who see objects counted are more likely to represent the approximate number of objects in the array than infants who see the objects labeled but not counted. Which aspects of counting signal infants to attend to numerosity in this way? Here we asked whether infants rely on familiarity with the count words in their native language, or on procedures…
Violations of expectation trigger infants to search for explanations
Online measures of looking and learning in infancy
Infants in laboratory settings look longer at events that violate their expectations, learn better about objects that behave unexpectedly, and match utterances to the objects that likely elicited them. The paradigms revealing these behaviors have become cornerstones of research on preverbal cognition. However, little is known about whether these canonical behaviors are observed outside laboratory settings. Here, we describe a series of online pro…
Emergence of the Link Between the Approximate Number System and Symbolic Math Ability
Experimentally manipulating Approximate Number System (ANS) precision has been found to influence children’s subsequent symbolic math performance. Here in three experiments (N = 160; 81 girls; 3–5 year old) we replicated this effect and examined its duration and developmental trajectory. We found that modulation of 5-year-olds’ ANS precision continued to affect their symbolic math performance after a 30-min delay. Furthermore, our cross-sectional…
Dynamic changes in numerical acuity in 4‐month‐old infants
Preverbal infants represent the approximate numerosity of visual and auditory arrays: By 6 months old, they reliably discriminate eight dots or tones from 16 (a 1:2 ratio), but not eight from 12 (a 2:3 ratio). The precision of this approximate number sense improves gradually over childhood and into adulthood. However, less is known about numerical abilities in younger infants, and in particular, whether there is developmental change in the number…
Infants Extract Frequency Distributions from Variable Approximate Numerical Information
Previous research shows that infants represent approximate number: After habituation to a constant numerosity (e.g., eight dots), 6‐month‐old infants dishabituate to a novel numerosity (e.g., 16 dots). However, numerical information in the real world is far more variable and rarely offers repeated presentations of a single quantity. Instead, we often encounter quantities in the form of distributions around a central tendency. It remains unknown w…
Observing the unexpected enhances infants’ learning and exploration
Learning when and what to learn Infants use “unexpectedness” as a cue for learning. Stahl and Feigenson studied how babies reacted when objects behaved in surprising ways (see the Perspective by Schulz). Babies who saw apparently solid and weighty objects moving through a wall or past the edge of a table without falling looked intently at them. When given the opportunity to explore these peculiar objects, they did so by banging them on the floor—…
Developmental change in the acuity of approximate number and area representations
From very early in life, humans can approximate the number and surface area of objects in a scene. The ability to discriminate between 2 approximate quantities, whether number or area, critically depends on the ratio between the quantities, with the most difficult ratio that a participant can reliably discriminate known as the Weber fraction. While developmental improvements in the Weber fraction have been demonstrated for number, the development…
Limits on Infants' Ability to Dynamically Update Object Representations
Like adults, infants use working memory to represent occluded objects and can update these memory representations to reflect changes to a scene that unfold over time. Here we tested the limits of infants' ability to update object representations in working memory. Eleven‐month‐old infants participated in a modified foraging task in which they saw 2 quantities of crackers sequentially hidden in buckets and then were allowed to choose between them.…
Individual differences in non-verbal number acuity correlate with maths achievement
"Developmental change in the acuity of the "number sense
Behavioral, neuropsychological, and brain imaging research points to a dedicated system for processing number that is shared across development and across species. This foundational Approximate Number System (ANS) operates over multiple modalities, forming representations of the number of objects, sounds, or events in a scene. This system is imprecise and hence differs from exact counting. Evidence suggests that the resolution of the ANS, as spec…
Core systems of number
"Developmental change in the acuity of the "number sense
Behavioral, neuropsychological, and brain imaging research points to a dedicated system for processing number that is shared across development and across species. This foundational Approximate Number System (ANS) operates over multiple modalities, forming representations of the number of objects, sounds, or events in a scene. This system is imprecise and hence differs from exact counting. Evidence suggests that the resolution of the ANS, as spec…
Developmental change in the acuity of approximate number and area representations
From very early in life, humans can approximate the number and surface area of objects in a scene. The ability to discriminate between 2 approximate quantities, whether number or area, critically depends on the ratio between the quantities, with the most difficult ratio that a participant can reliably discriminate known as the Weber fraction. While developmental improvements in the Weber fraction have been demonstrated for number, the development…
Core systems of number
Individual differences in non-verbal number acuity correlate with maths achievement
"Developmental change in the acuity of the "number sense
Behavioral, neuropsychological, and brain imaging research points to a dedicated system for processing number that is shared across development and across species. This foundational Approximate Number System (ANS) operates over multiple modalities, forming representations of the number of objects, sounds, or events in a scene. This system is imprecise and hence differs from exact counting. Evidence suggests that the resolution of the ANS, as spec…
Limits on Infants' Ability to Dynamically Update Object Representations
Like adults, infants use working memory to represent occluded objects and can update these memory representations to reflect changes to a scene that unfold over time. Here we tested the limits of infants' ability to update object representations in working memory. Eleven‐month‐old infants participated in a modified foraging task in which they saw 2 quantities of crackers sequentially hidden in buckets and then were allowed to choose between them.…
Developmental change in the acuity of approximate number and area representations
From very early in life, humans can approximate the number and surface area of objects in a scene. The ability to discriminate between 2 approximate quantities, whether number or area, critically depends on the ratio between the quantities, with the most difficult ratio that a participant can reliably discriminate known as the Weber fraction. While developmental improvements in the Weber fraction have been demonstrated for number, the development…
Observing the unexpected enhances infants’ learning and exploration
Learning when and what to learn Infants use “unexpectedness” as a cue for learning. Stahl and Feigenson studied how babies reacted when objects behaved in surprising ways (see the Perspective by Schulz). Babies who saw apparently solid and weighty objects moving through a wall or past the edge of a table without falling looked intently at them. When given the opportunity to explore these peculiar objects, they did so by banging them on the floor—…
Infants Extract Frequency Distributions from Variable Approximate Numerical Information
Previous research shows that infants represent approximate number: After habituation to a constant numerosity (e.g., eight dots), 6‐month‐old infants dishabituate to a novel numerosity (e.g., 16 dots). However, numerical information in the real world is far more variable and rarely offers repeated presentations of a single quantity. Instead, we often encounter quantities in the form of distributions around a central tendency. It remains unknown w…
Emergence of the Link Between the Approximate Number System and Symbolic Math Ability
Experimentally manipulating Approximate Number System (ANS) precision has been found to influence children’s subsequent symbolic math performance. Here in three experiments (N = 160; 81 girls; 3–5 year old) we replicated this effect and examined its duration and developmental trajectory. We found that modulation of 5-year-olds’ ANS precision continued to affect their symbolic math performance after a 30-min delay. Furthermore, our cross-sectional…
Dynamic changes in numerical acuity in 4‐month‐old infants
Preverbal infants represent the approximate numerosity of visual and auditory arrays: By 6 months old, they reliably discriminate eight dots or tones from 16 (a 1:2 ratio), but not eight from 12 (a 2:3 ratio). The precision of this approximate number sense improves gradually over childhood and into adulthood. However, less is known about numerical abilities in younger infants, and in particular, whether there is developmental change in the number…
Violations of expectation trigger infants to search for explanations
Online measures of looking and learning in infancy
Infants in laboratory settings look longer at events that violate their expectations, learn better about objects that behave unexpectedly, and match utterances to the objects that likely elicited them. The paradigms revealing these behaviors have become cornerstones of research on preverbal cognition. However, little is known about whether these canonical behaviors are observed outside laboratory settings. Here, we describe a series of online pro…
What aspects of counting help infants attend to numerosity
Recent work shows that 18‐month old infants understand that counting is numerically relevant—infants who see objects counted are more likely to represent the approximate number of objects in the array than infants who see the objects labeled but not counted. Which aspects of counting signal infants to attend to numerosity in this way? Here we asked whether infants rely on familiarity with the count words in their native language, or on procedures…
Children's representation of coincidence
Violations of social expectations enhance infants' learning
When infants see objects behave in surprising ways, they not only notice these violations, but also experience enhanced learning about the objects. Although infants also notice when social agents behave in surprising ways, it is unclear whether violations of social expectations similarly enhance learning. Here we asked whether surprising events in the social domain amplify learning. In three experiments, 16- to 19-month-old infants saw a person b…
Infants Recognize the Negative Impact of Phone Distraction on Performance
Seeing adults use cellphones is a common daily experience for infants, yet little is known about how infants think about others’ cellphone use. Do infants recognize that phone usage can affect the user’s behavior? Here we asked whether infants expect a person’s task performance to be impaired by phone use. Twenty‐month‐old infants watched adults building block towers. One adult did this while also using a phone, either looking at the screen and s…
Psychology (15 works) · Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills (10 works) · Cognitive psychology (10 works) · Developmental psychology (10 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (8 works) · Cognition (8 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Mathematics Education and Teaching Techniques (8 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (5 works) · Cognitive science (4 works)