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Sarah Gerson

Cardiff University, Psychology, Faculty Member

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Broadly, I am interested in studying social cognitive development. In particular, I study the origins of infants' understandings of other agents and their actions. In my masters research, I examined the unique effects of active versus observational experience on three-month-old infants' initial understanding of others' intentions. I am continuing to examine the development and generalization of intention understand using several methodologies, including imitation, habituation, eyetracking, and EEG.
Supervisors: Amanda Woodward (PhD), Harold Bekkering (postdoc), and Sabine Hunnius (postdoc)

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Papers by Sarah Gerson

Sharing and comparing: How comparing shared goals broadens goal understanding in development

Learning from their own actions: The unique effect of producing actions on infants’ action understanding

Review article: Mirroring and the development of action understanding

Hypervigilance to rejecting stimuli in high rejection sensitive individuals: Behavioral and neurocognitive evidence

Active drumming experience increases infants’ sensitivity to audiovisual synchrony during observed drumming action

Short-term motor training, but not observational training, alters neurocognitive mechanisms of action processing in infancy

Shifting goals: Effects of active and observational experience on infants' understanding of higher order goals

The Goal Trumps the Means: Highlighting Goals is More Beneficial than Highlighting Means in Means‐End Training

Participants Seventy 8-month-old infants (mean age= 7.83 months) were selected from two previousl... more Participants Seventy 8-month-old infants (mean age= 7.83 months) were selected from two previously conducted studies. All infants from these studies who received one of two particular orders of pretraining and posttraining trials were included in the current analysis: those who viewed cloth repeats during training (n= 38; M age= 7.8 months; 15 boys) and those who viewed goal repeats (n= 32; M age= 7.87 months; 15 boys).

Labels facilitate infants' comparison of action goals

The joint role of trained, untrained, and observed actions at the origins of goal recognition

A claw is like my hand: Comparison supports goal analysis in infants

The goal trumps the means: Alignment of goals is more beneficial than alignment of means in means-end training

The Emergence of Intention Attribution In Infancy

Psychology of Learning …, Jan 1, 2009

Building Intentional Action Knowledge With One's Hands

Neoconstructivism: The New Science …, Jan 1, 2009

The Birth of Social Intelligence

Zero to Three, Jan 1, 2008

Comparing Me to You: Comparison Between Novel and Familiar Goal-Directed Actions Facilitates Goal Extraction and Imitation

Recognizing the goals of others' actions is critical for much of human development and social lif... more Recognizing the goals of others' actions is critical for much of human development and social life. Origins of this knowledge exist in the first year and are a function of both acting as an intentional agent and observing movement cues in actions. In this dissertation, I explore a new mechanism I believe plays an important role in infants' understanding of novel actions---comparison.

Infants' Understanding of Emotional Expressions: Using Information for Oneself and to Predict Actions of Others

bsos.umd.edu

Physics is Harder Than Psychology (or is It?): Developmental Differences In Calibration of Domain-Specific Texts

Proceedings of the …, Jan 1, 2007

Book Chapters by Sarah Gerson

Drivers of Social Cognitive Development in Human and Non-Human Primate Infants

by Elizabeth Simpson and Sarah Gerson

In this chapter, we highlight the benefits of a comparative developmental approach, not only for ... more In this chapter, we highlight the benefits of a comparative developmental approach, not only for revealing which social cognitive capacities are unique or shared across species, but also for uncovering environmental influences and physiological underpinnings of social understanding in infancy. We discuss human and nonhuman primate infants’ (a) recognition of, and selective attention toward, social agents, (b) affiliation toward conspecifics and similar others, and (c) basic action understanding, as three examples of important social cognitive skills. These skills appear foundational, emerging early in development, and are shared across species, suggesting they may be (some of) the precursors upon which later, higher-order social cognitive abilities are built. Throughout, we emphasize how comparative studies can reveal nuances not readily observable in humans alone, including their developmental stability or plastic, early environmental contributions that may support or hinder such skills, and their underlying neural and physiological mechanisms.

Sharing and comparing: How comparing shared goals broadens goal understanding in development

Learning from their own actions: The unique effect of producing actions on infants’ action understanding

Review article: Mirroring and the development of action understanding

Hypervigilance to rejecting stimuli in high rejection sensitive individuals: Behavioral and neurocognitive evidence

Active drumming experience increases infants’ sensitivity to audiovisual synchrony during observed drumming action

Short-term motor training, but not observational training, alters neurocognitive mechanisms of action processing in infancy

Shifting goals: Effects of active and observational experience on infants' understanding of higher order goals

The Goal Trumps the Means: Highlighting Goals is More Beneficial than Highlighting Means in Means‐End Training

Participants Seventy 8-month-old infants (mean age= 7.83 months) were selected from two previousl... more Participants Seventy 8-month-old infants (mean age= 7.83 months) were selected from two previously conducted studies. All infants from these studies who received one of two particular orders of pretraining and posttraining trials were included in the current analysis: those who viewed cloth repeats during training (n= 38; M age= 7.8 months; 15 boys) and those who viewed goal repeats (n= 32; M age= 7.87 months; 15 boys).

Labels facilitate infants' comparison of action goals

The joint role of trained, untrained, and observed actions at the origins of goal recognition

A claw is like my hand: Comparison supports goal analysis in infants

The goal trumps the means: Alignment of goals is more beneficial than alignment of means in means-end training

The Emergence of Intention Attribution In Infancy

Psychology of Learning …, Jan 1, 2009

Building Intentional Action Knowledge With One's Hands

Neoconstructivism: The New Science …, Jan 1, 2009

The Birth of Social Intelligence

Zero to Three, Jan 1, 2008

Comparing Me to You: Comparison Between Novel and Familiar Goal-Directed Actions Facilitates Goal Extraction and Imitation

Recognizing the goals of others' actions is critical for much of human development and social lif... more Recognizing the goals of others' actions is critical for much of human development and social life. Origins of this knowledge exist in the first year and are a function of both acting as an intentional agent and observing movement cues in actions. In this dissertation, I explore a new mechanism I believe plays an important role in infants' understanding of novel actions---comparison.

Infants' Understanding of Emotional Expressions: Using Information for Oneself and to Predict Actions of Others

bsos.umd.edu

Physics is Harder Than Psychology (or is It?): Developmental Differences In Calibration of Domain-Specific Texts

Proceedings of the …, Jan 1, 2007

Drivers of Social Cognitive Development in Human and Non-Human Primate Infants

by Elizabeth Simpson and Sarah Gerson

In this chapter, we highlight the benefits of a comparative developmental approach, not only for ... more In this chapter, we highlight the benefits of a comparative developmental approach, not only for revealing which social cognitive capacities are unique or shared across species, but also for uncovering environmental influences and physiological underpinnings of social understanding in infancy. We discuss human and nonhuman primate infants’ (a) recognition of, and selective attention toward, social agents, (b) affiliation toward conspecifics and similar others, and (c) basic action understanding, as three examples of important social cognitive skills. These skills appear foundational, emerging early in development, and are shared across species, suggesting they may be (some of) the precursors upon which later, higher-order social cognitive abilities are built. Throughout, we emphasize how comparative studies can reveal nuances not readily observable in humans alone, including their developmental stability or plastic, early environmental contributions that may support or hinder such skills, and their underlying neural and physiological mechanisms.