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| (Me and the little sis at Lincoln Park Zoo!) |
Hello there! My name is Aubry, and I am a PhD candidate at
Northwestern University. I also lecture at Northwestern, and am currently
teaching an interesting course entitled “Typical and Atypical Development in
Infants and Toddlers,” where we discuss the latest findings on the biological
and experiential factors that influence the lives of young children. Broadly
speaking, I’m interested in the ways children experience the world. My research
draws upon methodologies in psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience. I am
also deeply passionate about the creation of quality children’s media. I guess
one can say that I’m totally a kid at heart.
If you’d like to reach out, I’d love to hear from you. You
can contact me at aubry [dot] alvarez [at] gmail [dot] com, and on Twitter
@aubryalvarez
Seriously fun: On children, and what they teach us
Consider that the human childhood lasts longer than the
childhood of any other animal. We spend about seven to ten years of our life
adapting to our environments before we enter puberty. On an evolutionary timescale,
the necessity is clear: our large, complex brains require time to develop. Indeed,
some of the world’s most influential psychologists have posed compelling
arguments for this protracted period of development. Yet, all too often, adults
discuss children’s lives with an eagerness for them to mature, rather than focusing
on the ‘work’ that children are responsible for during this time. And, as psychologist
Dr. Alison Gopnik points out, philosophers have long neglected the role that children
may play in our understanding of who we are as a species.
A cute and funny comic, but does it represent the truth? (Photo
courtesy of WebDonuts.com)
I’ve always thought that concept to be so funny. How can
children’s innate behaviors not
embody some fundamental aspect of our human nature? It seems likely to me that
the answers to our most pressing philosophical questions – ‘Who are we?’ ‘Why
are we here?’ – lie within the minds of little ones. After all, if our genes
and our ideas are passed on to us from our parents, and if we pass our genes
and ideas on to our children, do not children represent the culmination of our
species’ intelligence? I think that children, and their innate abilities, hold
the keys to understanding our past and
our future. (If you’re interested in reading more about this topic, try reading
Why Youth Is Not
Wasted on the Young: Immaturity in Human Development by David F. Bjorklund or The Philosophical Baby by
Alison Gopnik).
And what makes childhood all the more mysterious? The fact
that we do not remember experiencing it! (Well, at least we do not remember the
early years.) Our ‘infant amnesia,’ then, may lead us to believe that nothing
actually happened before the age of three or so. Did we simply not think before
the age of three? Did we not have feelings? Were we not capable of making
memories? Of course we thought! Of course we felt! Of course we made memories!
(Otherwise, how would we have mastered language or the ability to walk? How
would we have recognized members of our family?) If you ask me, the earliest
years of human life may hold more mystery and wonder than all of the cosmos.
To picture what the daily life of an infant is like, imagine
looking out a window and seeing an image like this one. In the large mass of
colors, textures, and contours, how do you decide where one object ends and
another begins? Is it at the point where two different colors meet? If so, what
about varying shades of colors – are these things the same or different? Now,
imagine someone trying to describe this to you in a (spoken) language you do
not yet understand. In their stream of speech, how do you know which sounds
link together to represent words? (After all, pauses in speech only take you so
far, and last on the order of milliseconds!) Let’s say you do manage to catch what you think may be a word; how do you locate
that word’s referent? Could it be a label for all of the green things? Or
perhaps it’s a label for the dark green things only, as opposed to the light
green things? Could it refer to the number of tree-like objects there are? Or
perhaps it refers to the name of the motion of the trees in the wind? You may
rely on gestures and gazes to guess what they are referring to, but these
indications are sometimes ambiguous. The only true ways to understand are to
quickly calculate statistically probabilities, follow flexible guidelines in
making your assumptions, and simply experience the environment over time.
Eventually, you will learn the language and make sense of the information
around you. If it sounds daunting, that’s because it is. And infants and
children do it every day.
(Photo courtesy of National Geographic, © Thierry Bornier)
Over the years, I’ve become obsessed with childhood and what
it means in the scheme of our existence. I hold children’s opinions in the
highest regard, as I feel they are more knowledgeable, and conscious, than
adults in many ways. Think about it: infants begin to devour information as
soon as they are born (though these learning experiences arguably begin in the
womb). How do they interpret the things they are seeing, hearing, and feeling
for the first time? What are they thinking when they’re alone? What are they
thinking when we’re around? When do they ‘cross over’ and become like us?
As a researcher, I have pursued these and other questions
with the help of magnetic resonance imaging, eye tracking technology, and
behavioral analysis. My research focuses on the types of information that
infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are most curious to learn, and why. And
because children’s lives are shaped by a combination of biology and experience,
I am particularly interested in specifying preschoolers’ psychological
responses to digital technology (undeniably a growing part of children’s lives today),
and how they can use technology to support their learning. So in another line
of experiments, I pursue questions related to the functioning of preschoolers’
attention and memory in the face of touchscreen technology.
As a curious human being, I spend as much time with kids as I
can. Their approaches to life remind me of where I came from, and how I got
here. When I see children responding to something – whether they grow happy,
afraid, tempted, or curious as a result – I know that those behaviors stem from
a deeply rooted genetic history that has been in the making for millennia. And
when anyone asks where my passion for kid-culture originates, I tell them the
same thing: teaching and entertaining children is like a dance. Child and
teacher move back and forth, exchanging feedback, until it becomes obvious that
the process itself is what is beautiful to observe. I am just as enthused about
their reactions as I am about creating experiences for them. They way children
respond must inform what we create. And we must create experiences for children
knowing that their responses may surprise us.
