学院讲坛：Infants?as?curious?learners

一、讲座题目：Infants?as?curious?learners

二、讲座时间：2025年5月16日15:30

三、讲座地点：屏峰校区畅远楼418会议室

四、主讲嘉宾：

格特·威斯特慢教授（Prof.?Gert?Westermann），英国著名婴幼儿认知与语言发展专家，现任兰卡斯特大学心理学系教授及心理学系主任，英联邦语言与认知发展中心(ESRC?Centre?for?Language?and?Cognitive?Development)主任，国际婴幼儿研究大会（ICIS）的执行委员会成员，以及联合国教科文组织早期儿童照护与教育技术咨询小组的成员，兰卡斯特婴幼儿发展实验室负责人。他在婴幼儿认知与语言发展的互动关系方面做出了重要贡献，尤其关注婴儿如何通过内在的好奇心探索和学习世界，括婴儿对外部环境的感知、认知和语言能力发展的机制。他的学术成果包括五本书籍及超过100篇同行评审的学术文章，并在国际学术期刊中发表。曾获得英国学术协会/利弗赫尔姆信托高级研究员奖，并在德国哥廷根大学担任利希滕贝格研究员。并长期担任《英国发展心理学杂志（British?Journal?of?Developmental?Psychology）》（2008-2023）副主编，现为《互动研究（Interaction?Studies）》和《婴幼儿期刊（Infancy）》及《认知发展（Cognitive?Development）》期刊的副主编或编委成员。他也是兰卡斯特国际婴幼儿与早期儿童发展会议（LCICD）的组织委员会主席，同时还是英联邦语言与认知发展中心（ESRC?Centre?for?Language?and?Cognitive?Development）的共同主任。此研究中心由兰卡斯特大学、曼彻斯特大学和利物浦大学联合运营。威斯特慢教授还是国际婴幼儿研究大会（ICIS）的执行委员会成员，以及联合国教科文组织早期儿童照护与教育技术咨询小组的成员。
Gert?Westermann?received?his?PhD?in?Cognitive?Science?from?the?University?of?Edinburgh.?He?worked?in?research?positions?at?the?Sony?Computer?Science?Lab?in?Paris?and?the?Centre?for?Brain?and?Cognitive?Development?at?Birkbeck?College,?London,?before?joining?Oxford?Brookes?University?in?2003?as?Lecturer?and?then?Reader?and?Professor.?He?joined?Lancaster?University?in?2011?as?Professor?of?Psychology?and?is?currently?the?Head?of?the?Psychology?Department.?

His?work?is?focused?on?infant?cognitive?and?language?development?and?the?interaction?between?these?processes.?More?recently?he?has?begun?to?investigate?how?infants’?intrinsic?curiosity?shapes?how?they?explore?and?learn?about?the?world.?He?has?co-authored?and?edited?five?books?and?over?100?peer-reviewed?articles.?He?has?been?a?British?Academy/Leverhulme?Trust?Senior?Research?Fellow?and?a?Lichtenberg?Fellow?at?the?University?of?G?ttingen,?Germany?and?is?Fellow?of?the?Association?for?Psychological?Science.?

He?was?Associate?Editor?of?the?British?Journal?of?Developmental?Psychology?(2008-2023),?is?Associate?Editor?for?Interaction?Studies?and?is?on?the?Editorial?Board?of?Infancy?and?Cognitive?Development.?He?chairs?the?organising?committee?of?the?annual?Lancaster?International?Conference?on?Infant?and?Early?Child?Development?(LCICD).?
Gert?is?co-Director?of?the?ESRC?Centre?for?Language?and?Cognitive?Development?that?is?run?jointly?between?the?Universities?of?Lancaster,?Manchester?and?Liverpool.?He?is?a?member?of?the?Executive?Committee?of?the?International?Congress?of?Infant?Studies?(ICIS)?and?of?the?UNESCO?Technical?Advisory?Group?on?Early?Childhood?Care?and?Education.

五、讲座内容：

我们对婴儿认知发展的了解大多来自于一些实验室研究，在这些研究里，婴儿被动地接受电脑屏幕上显示的信息，而信息的顺序和持续时间都由实验者决定。虽然这些研究为我们提供了许多有关婴儿学习及其认知能力的见解，但这些方法忽略了现实生活中学习的基本方面：在实验室外，婴儿通过探索周围环境并按照自己选择的顺序和时间接触信息，积极参与学习。在我的实验室里，我们使用行为学、眼动追踪、脑电图和计算建模方法研究婴儿的信息搜寻。在这次报告中，我将概述我们在这一领域的工作，以说明婴儿主动寻找信息是有系统和有目标的，我还将提出，婴儿主动寻找信息可以理解为婴儿内部知识状态与环境信息结构之间相互作用的结果。最后，我将讨论好奇心如何与获取世界知识过程中的探索-利用权衡有关的理论。

Much?of?what?we?know?about?infants'?cognitive?development?comes?from?studies?in?which?infants?are?passive?recipients?of?information?presented?to?them?on?a?computer?screen?in?an?order?and?duration?determined?by?the?experimenter.?While?this?body?of?work?has?provided?us?with?many?insights?about?infants'?learning?and?their?cognitive?abilities,?these?methods?ignore?a?fundamental?aspect?of?real-life?learning:?outside?the?lab,?infants?are?actively?involved?in?their?learning?through?exploring?their?environment?and?engaging?with?information?in?the?order?and?duration?they?choose.?In?our?lab?we?investigate?infants'?information?seeking?using?behavioural,?eye?tracking,?EEG?and?computational?modelling?methods.?Here?I?will?provide?an?overview?of?our?work?in?this?field?to?show?that?infants'?active?information?seeking?is?systematic?and?goal?directed,?and?I?will?propose?that?it?can?be?understood?as?an?outcome?of?interactions?between?the?infant's?internal?knowledge?state?and?the?information?structure?of?the?environment.?I?will?then?discuss?a?theory?of?how?curiosity?relates?to?the?exploration-exploitation?trade-off?in?acquiring?knowledge?about?the?world.