一、講座題目：Infants?as?curious?learners

二、講座時間：2025年5月16日15:30

三、講座地點：屏峰校區(qū)暢遠樓418會議室

四、主講嘉賓：

格特·威斯特慢教授（Prof.?Gert?Westermann），英國著名嬰幼兒認知與語言發(fā)展專家，現(xiàn)任蘭卡斯特大學心理學系教授及心理學系主任，英聯(lián)邦語言與認知發(fā)展中心(ESRC?Centre?for?Language?and?Cognitive?Development)主任，國際嬰幼兒研究大會（ICIS）的執(zhí)行委員會成員，以及聯(lián)合國教科文組織早期兒童照護與教育技術(shù)咨詢小組的成員，蘭卡斯特嬰幼兒發(fā)展實驗室負責人。他在嬰幼兒認知與語言發(fā)展的互動關(guān)系方面做出了重要貢獻，尤其關(guān)注嬰兒如何通過內(nèi)在的好奇心探索和學習世界，括嬰兒對外部環(huán)境的感知、認知和語言能力發(fā)展的機制。他的學術(shù)成果包括五本書籍及超過100篇同行評審的學術(shù)文章，并在國際學術(shù)期刊中發(fā)表。曾獲得英國學術(shù)協(xié)會/利弗赫爾姆信托高級研究員獎，并在德國哥廷根大學擔任利希滕貝格研究員。并長期擔任《英國發(fā)展心理學雜志（British?Journal?of?Developmental?Psychology）》（2008-2023）副主編，現(xiàn)為《互動研究（Interaction?Studies）》和《嬰幼兒期刊（Infancy）》及《認知發(fā)展（Cognitive?Development）》期刊的副主編或編委成員。他也是蘭卡斯特國際嬰幼兒與早期兒童發(fā)展會議（LCICD）的組織委員會主席，同時還是英聯(lián)邦語言與認知發(fā)展中心（ESRC?Centre?for?Language?and?Cognitive?Development）的共同主任。此研究中心由蘭卡斯特大學、曼徹斯特大學和利物浦大學聯(lián)合運營。威斯特慢教授還是國際嬰幼兒研究大會（ICIS）的執(zhí)行委員會成員，以及聯(lián)合國教科文組織早期兒童照護與教育技術(shù)咨詢小組的成員。
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、講座內(nèi)容：

我們對嬰兒認知發(fā)展的了解大多來自于一些實驗室研究，在這些研究里，嬰兒被動地接受電腦屏幕上顯示的信息，而信息的順序和持續(xù)時間都由實驗者決定。雖然這些研究為我們提供了許多有關(guān)嬰兒學習及其認知能力的見解，但這些方法忽略了現(xiàn)實生活中學習的基本方面：在實驗室外，嬰兒通過探索周圍環(huán)境并按照自己選擇的順序和時間接觸信息，積極參與學習。在我的實驗室里，我們使用行為學、眼動追蹤、腦電圖和計算建模方法研究嬰兒的信息搜尋。在這次報告中，我將概述我們在這一領(lǐng)域的工作，以說明嬰兒主動尋找信息是有系統(tǒng)和有目標的，我還將提出，嬰兒主動尋找信息可以理解為嬰兒內(nèi)部知識狀態(tài)與環(huán)境信息結(jié)構(gòu)之間相互作用的結(jié)果。最后，我將討論好奇心如何與獲取世界知識過程中的探索-利用權(quán)衡有關(guān)的理論。

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.