This seminar, organized in coordination with the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, will focus on the development of knowledge in the first five years. Drawing on behavioral research on infants and young children, as well as research in cognitive neuroscience, research using controlled rearing methods with animal models, and research developing and testing computational models, we consider both the starting points for human cognitive development and the ways in which early knowledge grows. Topics will be chosen in accord with student interests and likely will include early developing knowledge of objects and their mechanical interactions, of animate beings and their behavior and intentions, of social beings and their communication and relationships, as well as the development of abstract concepts (e.g., causal concepts, mathematical concepts) that apply to all these entities. In addition, we will look at how infants and children learn to represent their own abilities and utilities and how these emerging self-representations support and constrain their learning about the world.