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Alison GopnikAmerican professor of psychology
Date of Birth: 16.06.1955
Country:  USA |
Content:
- Alison Gopnik: A Pioneering Psychologist and Philosopher
- Academic Career
- Bayesian Networks and Human Learning
- Berkeley Child Learning Center
- Awards and Honors
- Notable Publications
- "The Philosophical Baby"
- Other Contributions
- Personal Life
Alison Gopnik: A Pioneering Psychologist and Philosopher
Early Life and EducationAlison Gopnik is an American psychologist and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her BA in psychology and philosophy from McGill University in 1975 and her PhD in experimental psychology from Oxford University in 1980.
Academic Career
After working at the University of Toronto, Gopnik joined the Berkeley faculty in 1988. Her research focuses on cognitive and language development, particularly the influence of language on thought, the development of theory of mind, and causal learning. She has published numerous articles in journals including Science, Scientific American, and The New York Review of Books.
Bayesian Networks and Human Learning
Gopnik has extensively applied Bayesian networks to human learning and published and presented widely on the topic. She notes that these networks "look for causes, not just for simple associations. They give you a unified representational structure for dealing with both things that just happen and interventions—things that you observe other people doing to the world or that you do to the world."
Berkeley Child Learning Center
Gopnik's work at Berkeley's Child Learning Center aims to develop mathematical models of how children learn. These models may be used to improve artificial intelligence algorithms.
Awards and Honors
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2013)Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society (2014)
James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award for Applied Research from the Association for Psychological Science (2021)
Notable Publications
"Words, Thoughts, and Theories" (with Andrew N. Meltzoff)This book explores the "theory-theory," which posits that children use similar mechanisms to develop scientific theories and causal models of their surroundings.
"The Scientist in the Crib" (with Andrew N. Meltzoff and Patricia K. Kuhl)
This work argues that children's cognitive development is enabled by innate knowledge, evolved learning capacities, and advanced parental teaching abilities.
"Causal Learning: Psychology, Philosophy, and Computation" (edited by Laura Schulz)
This volume examines causal learning and the interdisciplinary work undertaken to enhance understanding of learning and reasoning.
"The Philosophical Baby"
In this book, Gopnik investigates how infants and toddlers cognitively develop using processes similar to those employed by scientists, including experimentation with their environment.
Other Contributions
Gopnik has published on David Hume's writings and the historical context of his works. She has also appeared on television and radio shows, discussing her research and the implications for child development.
Personal Life
Gopnik is Jewish and was raised in a family of intellectuals. She was married to journalist George Lewinsky and has three sons. In 2010, she married computer graphics pioneer Alvy Ray Smith, a co-founder of Pixar.
