Several members of the CORE Lab recently travelled to Louisville, Kentucky, to present posters at the Cognitive Development Society’s biennial conference. Dr. Coley presented a poster with Dr. Imac Zambrana of the University of Oslo about preschoolers’ free play with realistic environmental dioramas for relations among plants and animals, while Emily Dahlgaard Thor’s poster was about her collaboration with Tufts Medical School on high school infectious disease education. Jessica Leffers presented a poster on some preliminary data from a study with children on the links between racial essentialism and facial recognition memory and Dr. Michal Fux presented a poster of her research on intuitive biology thinking and levels of scientific expertise. Some other featured presentations were a group of presentations about authoritarian parenting and Dr. Nadya Vasilyeva’s (a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and a CORE alum!) talk about the way structural explanations may actually increase essentialist thinking. Some other highlights of the trip were the Mega Cavern, the Louisville Slugger Museum, and lots of great food!

Emily Dahlgaard Thor presenting her poster

Jessica Leffers presenting her poster

Dr. Michal Fux presenting her poster