Moira Dillon: The building blocks of human spatial intelligence

Moira Dillon: The building blocks of human spatial intelligence

Date Posted:  June 6, 2016
Date Recorded:  May 21, 2015
CBMM Speaker(s):  Moira (Molly) Dillon
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Description: 

Recognizing 3D objects and 2D visual forms is essential to our survival. For decades, researchers studying the mind and brain have investigated the early shape sensitivities that support object and form recognition. Moreover, they have investigated how our sensitivities to shape information might support our uniquely human intelligences, such as the interpretation of geometric maps and the appreciation of abstract geometric objects, like the points, lines, and figures of Euclidean geometry. In this video, Moira Dillon, a graduate student in Dr. Elizabeth Spelke’s Laboratory for Developmental Studies at Harvard University, will introduce you to their quest to uncover the origins of spatial knowledge by investigating infants' shape detection. What are infants’ early sensitivities to geometric information? How might those sensitivities shape spatial learning and build to form the complex spatial intelligences at the foundation of advanced science and mathematics?

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