Agenda

08 Set 2017 11:00

Precursors of logical reasoning in preverbal infants

Aula A, Ca' Bembo - Dorsoduro 1075, Fondamenta Tofetti, 30123 Venezia

Relatore: prof. Luca Bonatti - Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

Abstract:
Infants possess remarkable capacities to process complex events and rationally modify hypotheses about them facing inconsistent evidence. These capacities suggest the existence of elementary logical representations for framing and pruning hypotheses, independent of natural language.  However, little is know about infants' abilities to reason, let alone reason logically. I will present evidence that when they witness a scene not previously experienced, infants reason about it by applying basic logical principles. I will argue that such inferences are used to build strategies to inspect the scenes and make inferences to enrich their knowledge. I will present data about the behavioral correlates of this inferential processes in infants and adults, focusing on the case of disjunctive reasoning.

Bio sketch:
I am Icrea Research Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, where I head the RICO (Reasoning and Infant COgnition) group. I have been professor at the University of Nantes, France, at the University of Paris VIII, France, research associate at the International School of Advanced Studies, Trieste, and visiting professor at the Universities of Budapest, of the Balearic Islands, and at New York University. My research focuses on how we can experimentally explore early cognitive abilities. My main topics of interest are artificial and natural language learning, natural categorization, and theories of deductive and probabilistic reasoning.

Lingua

L'evento si terrà in italiano

Organizzatore

Dipartimento di Studi linguistici e culturali comparati - Anna Cardinaletti

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