Denis Mareschal, B.A. (Cantab), M.A. (McGill), Ph.D. (Oxon)
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Position: Professor of Psychology Office: Room 519, Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College Phone: +44 020 7631 6582, CBCD: +020 7079 0751 Fax: +44 020 7631 6312 Email: d.mareschal@bbk.ac.uk To visit my CBCD webpage, please click here. |
Cognitive Development: Cognitive modelling
Research
I am interested in all aspects of perceptual and cognitive development in infancy and childhood.
The real challenge for developmental psychology is to explain HOW one level of competence is transformed into the next level of competence. A mechanistic account of development is required to answer this question. Computer modelling provides a tool for exploring how different candidate mechanisms can account for the developmental profiles observed in infants and children. Connectionist networks are particularly well suited for modelling development because they develop their own internal representations in response to environmental pressures. Moreover, they provide a bridge between the neuroscience descriptions of development and the traditional (behavioural) descriptions of cognitive development.
My research involves a blend of (connectionist) computational modelling and empirical studies with infants and children. Research projects with children have included: the development of seriation abilities, the development of metaphor comprehension, and the developing basis for inductive reasoning. Research projects with infants have included: the search for occluded and visible objects, the perception of object unity, categorisation of visually presented stimuli, and the determinants of visual pursuit.
The common theme that underlies these projects is the exploration of how the computational properties of a learning systems (e. g., a connectionist autoencoder network or a 3-month-old infant) interact with the distribution of meaningful features in the environment to cause the observed patterns of development in children and infants.
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Students
Sarah Snoxall (ESRC): The role of prior knowledge in children's categorisation.
Rosalind Hill : Metaphor production and comprehension as a measure of cognitive and linguistic development. (With Dr. H. van der Lely)
Caspar Addyman: Rule-based category learning in infants.
Haiko Bailliuex: Infant object perception.
Nadja Althaus: Effects of word learning on infant categorisation.
Jo Wiltshire: Relational priming and analogical reasoning in children.
Tessa Dekker: fMRI studies of object representations in the developing brain
Publications
Books:
Mareschal, D., Quinn, P. C. & Lea, S. E. G. (2009) The making of human concepts. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Mareschal, D., Johnson, M.H., Sirois, S., Spratling, M., Thomas, M. & Westermann, G. (2007). Neuroconstructivism, Vol. I: How the brain constructs cognition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Mareschal, D., Sirois, S., & Westermann, G. (2007). Neuroconstructivism, Vol. II: Perspectives and Prospects. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Journal Articles:
Ruh, N., Cooper, R. & Mareschal, D. (in press) Action selection in complex routinized sequential behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
Grossmann, T., Gliga, T., Johnson, M.H. & Mareschal, D. (in press) The neural basis of perceptual category learning in human infants. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Purser, H., Thomas, M. S. C., & Snoxall, S. & Mareschal, D. (in press) The development of similarity: Testing the prediction of a computational model of metaphor comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes
Gliga, T. , Mareschal, D. & Johnson, M. H. (2008) Ten-month-olds' selective use of visual dimensions in category learning. Infant Behavior and Development, 31, 287-293.
Mareschal, D. & Tan, S. H. (2008) The role of context in the categorization of hybrid toy stimuli by eighteen-month-olds. Infancy, 13,620-639.
Gliga, T. &Mareschal, D. (2007) What can neuroimaging tell us about the early development of visual categories. Cognivie, Creier, Comportament [Cognition, Brain, Behavior], 10, 757-772.
Leech, R., Mareschal, D. & Cooper, R. (2008) Analogy as relational priming: A developmental and computational perspective on the origins of a complex cognitive skill. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 357-414. (Target article)
Sirois, S., Spratling, M.W., Thomas, M.S.C. and Westermann, G., Mareschal, D., and Johnson, M.H. (2008) Precis of Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 321-356.
Bremner, A.J., Mareschal, D., Fox, S. & Spence, C. (2008). Spatial localization of touch in the first year of life: Early influence of a visual code and the development of remapping across changes in limb position. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 149-162 .
Leech, R., Mareschal, D. & Cooper, R. (2007). Relations as transformations: Implications for analogical reasoning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 897-908.
Bremner, A.J., Bryant, P.E., Mareschal, D. & Volein, A. (2007). Complex object representation in early infancy. Visual Cognition, 15, 896-926.
Kotsoni, E., Csibra, G., Mareschal, D. & Johnson, M.H. (2007). Electrophysiological evidence of re-entrant processing in common onset visual masking. Neuropsychologia 45, 2285-2293.
Westermann, G., Mareschal, D., Johnson, M.H., Sirois, S., Spratling, M.W. & Thomas, M.S.C. (2007). Neuroconstructivism. Developmental Science 10, 75-83.
Bremner, A.J., Mareschal, D., Destrebecqz, A. & Cleermans, A. (2007). Cognitive control of sequential knowledge at 2 years of age: Evidence from an incidental sequence learning and generation task. Psychological Science 18, 261-266.
Mareschal, D. & Tan, S.H. (2007). Flexible and context-dependent categorisation by eighteen-month-olds. Child Development 78, 19-37.
Mareschal, D. & Thomas, M.S.C. (2007). Computational modeling in developmental psychology. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation (Special Issue on Autonomous Mental Development) 11, 137-150.
Westermann, G., Sirois, S., Shultz, T.R. & Mareschal, D. (2006). Modeling developmental cognitive neuroscience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10, 227-232.
Kotsoni, E., Csibra, G., Mareschal, D. & Johnson, M.H. (2006). Common-onset visual masking in infancy: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18, 1-8.
Bremner, A.J., Bryant, P.E. & Mareschal, D. (2006). Object-centred spatial reference in 4-month-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development 29, 1-10.
Mareschal, D., Powell, D.A., Westermann, G. & Volein, A. (2005). Evidence of rapid correlation-based perceptual categorisation in 4-month-olds. Infant and Child Development 14.
Sirois, S. & Mareschal, D. (2004). An interacting systems model of infant habituation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16, 1352-1362.
French, R. M., Mareschal, D., Mermillod, M. & Quinn, P.C. (2004). The role of bottom-up processing in perceptual categorization by 3- to 4-month old infants: Simulations and data. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 133, 382-397.
Westermann, G. & Mareschal, D. (2004). From parts to wholes: Mechanisms of development in infant visual object processing. Infancy 5(2), 131-151.
Kaufman, J., Mareschal, D. & Johnson, M. H. (2003). Graspability and object processing in infants. Infant Behaviour and Development, 26, 516-528.
Mareschal, D., Powell, D. & Volein, A. (2003) Basic-level category discrimination by 7- and 9-month-olds in an object examination task. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 86, 87-107.
Mareschal, D. & Johnson, M. H. (2003). The "What" and "Where" of infant object representations. Cognition 88, 259-76.
Sirois, S. & Mareschal, D. (2002) Models of infant habituation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6, 293-98.
Mareschal, D., Quinn, P. C. & French, R. M. (2002). Asymmetric interference in 3- to 4-month-olds' sequential category learning. Cognitive Science 26, 377-89.
Mareschal, D. & Johnson, S. P. (2002) Learning to perceive object unity: A connectionist account. Developmental Science 5, 151-172.
Johnson, M. H. & Mareschal, D. (2001) Cognitive and perceptual development during infancy. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 11, 213-218.
Schafer, G. & Mareschal, D. (2001). Modeling infant speech sound discrimination using simple associative networks. Infancy 2, 7-28.
Thomas, M. S. C. & Mareschal, D. (2001) Metaphor as categorisation: A connectionist implementation. Metaphor and Symbol 16, 5-27.
Mareschal, D. (2000). Infant object knowledge: Current trends and controversies. Trends in Cognitive Science 4, 408-416.
Mareschal, D., French, R. M., Quinn, P. (2000). A connectionist account of asymmetric category learning in infancy. Developmental Psychology 36, 635-645.
Mareschal, D. & French, R. M. (2000). Mechanisms of categorisation in infancy. Infancy 1, 59-76.
Quinn, P. C., Johnson, M. H., Mareschal, D., Rakinson, D. H., & Younger, B.A. (2000). Understanding early categorization: One process or two: A response to Mandler and Smith. Infancy 1, 111-122.
Mareschal, D. & Shultz, T. R. (1999). Children's seriation: a connectionist approach. Connection Science 11, 153-188.
Mareschal, D., Plunkett, K. & Harris, P. (1999). A computational and neuropsychological account of object-oriented behaviours in infancy. Developmental Science 2, 306-317.
Mareschal, D. (1998). Cognitive neuroscience and connectionist models of infancy. Early Development and Parenting 7, 147-151.
Mareschal, D., Harris, P. & Plunkett, K. (1997). The effect of linear and angular velocity on 2-, 4-, and 6-month-olds' visual pursuit behaviors. Infant Behavior and Development 20, 435-448.
Shultz, T. R., & Mareschal, D. (1997). Rethinking innateness, learning, and constructivism. Cognitive Development 12, 563-586.
Refereed Conference Proceedings:
Ruh, N., Cooper, R. & Mareschal, D. (2005). The time course of routine action. In B. Bara (Ed.), Proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. London: LEA.
Ruh, N., Cooper, R. & Mareschal, D. (2005). Combining familiarity and goal orientedness. In J.J. Bryson, T.J. Prescott & A.K. Seth (Eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Modelling Natural Action Selection. 174-179. Edinburgh, UK: AISB Press.
Ruh, N., Cooper, R. & Mareschal, D. (2005). A reinforcement model of routine sequential action. In T. Honkela, V. Koenoenen, M. Poellae & O. Simula (Eds.), Proceedings of the International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Adaptive Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. 65-70. Helsinki, Finland: Helsinki University of Technology Press.
Mermillod, M., French, R. M., Quinn, P.C., & Mareschal, D. (2003). The importance of long-term memory in infant perceptual categorization. In R. Altman & D. Kirsh (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty -fifth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 804-809. London: LEA.
Leech, R., Mareschal, D. & Cooper, R. (2003). A connectionist account of analogical development. In R. Altman & D. Kirsch (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-fifth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 710-715. London: LEA.
French, R. M., Mermillod, M., Chauvin, A., Quinn, P.C., & Mareschal, D. (2002). The importance of starting blurry: Simulating improved basic-level category learning in infants due to weak visual acuity. In Proceedings of the twenty -fourth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. London: LEA
French, R. M., Mermillod, M., Quinn, P.C., Mareschal, D. (2001). Reversing category exclusivities in infant perceptual categorisation: Simulation and data. In J. D. Moore & K. Stenning (Eds), Proceedings of the twenty-third annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 307-312. London: LEA.
Thomas, M. S. C., Mareschal, D., & Hinds, A. C. (2001), A connectionist account of the emergence of the literal-metaphorical-anomalous distinction in young children. In Proceedings of the twenty-third annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 1042-1047. London: LEA.
Loose, J. & Mareschal, D. (1999), Inductive Reasoning Revisited: Children's reliance on category labels and appearance. In Hahn & S. C. Stone (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-first annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 320-325. London: LEA.
Mareschal, D. & Johnson, S. P (1999). Mechanisms of development in the perception of object unity. In Hahn, M. & Stoness, S.C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-first annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 343-348. London: LEA.
Mareschal, D. & French, R. M. (1999) A connectionist account of perceptual category-learning in infants. In Hahn, M. & Stoness, S.C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-first annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 337-342. London: LEA.
Thomas, M. S. C., & Mareschal, D. (1999). Metaphor as categorisation: A connectionist implementation. In Proceedings of the AISB'99 Symposium on Metaphor, Artificial Intelligence, and Cognition. 1-10.
French, R. M. & Mareschal, D. (1998), Could category-specific semantic deficits reflect differences in the distribution of features within a unified semantic memory? In Gernsbacher, M. A. & Derry, S. J. (Eds.), Proceedings of the twentieth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 374-379. London: LEA.
Loose, J. & Mareschal, D. (1998). Inductive reasoning tasks revisited: Object labels aren't always the basis of inference within taxonomic domains. In Gernsbacher, M. A. & Derry, S. J. (Eds.), Proceedings of the twentieth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 627-632. London: LEA.
Rudling, P. J. & Mareschal, D. (1998). A connectionist investigation of developmental effects in Stroop interference. In Gernsbacher, M. A. & Derry, S. J. (Eds.), Proceedings of the twentieth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 905-910. London: LEA.
Loose, J. J. & Mareschal, D. (1997).When a word is worth a thousand pictures: A connectionist account of the percept to label shift in children's inductive reasoning. In Proceedings of the nineteenth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 454-459. London: LEA.
Mareschal, D. & French, R.M. (1997). A connectionist account of interference effects in early infant memory and categorization. In Proceedings of the nineteenth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 484-489. London: LEA.
Thomas, M. S. C and Mareschal, D. (1997). Connectionism and psychological notions of similarity. In Proceedings of the nineteenth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 757-762. London: LEA.
Thomas, M. S. C. & Mareschal, D. (1996) A connectionist model of metaphor by pattern completion. In Cottrell, G.W. (E .), Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 696-701. London: LEA.
Book Chapters:
Mareschal, D. & Bremner, A. J. (2006). When do 4-month-olds remember the “what” and “where” of hidden objects? In Johnson, M. H. & Munakata, Y. (Eds.) Attention & Performance XXI: Processes of Change in Brain and Cognitive Development. 427-447. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Westermann, G. & Mareschal, D. (2005). Connectionist modelling. In Hopkins, B., Barr, R. G., Michel, G. F., & Rochat, P. (Eds.) Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Child Development. 305-308. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Leech, R., Mareschal, D. & Cooper, R. (2004) A temporal attractor framework for the development of analogical completion. In Howe, P. & Labouise, C. (Eds.) Connectionist models of cognition and perception II: Proceedings of the Eighth Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop (NCPW8). 201-210. London, UK: World Scientific.
Westermann, G. &, Mareschal, D. (2004) Modelling asymmetric infant categorization with the representational acuity hypothesis. In Howe, P. & Labouise, C. (Eds.) Connectionist models of cognition and perception II: Proceedings of the Eighth Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop (NCPW8). 95-104. London, UK: World Scientific.
Mareschal. D., Johnson, M.H. & Grayson, A. (2004). Brain and Cognitive Development in Children. In Oates, J.M. & Grayson, A. (Eds), Cognitive and Language Development in Children. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Mareschal, D. (2003). Connectionist models of learning and development in infancy. In Quinlan, P. (Ed.), Connectionist Models of Development. 43-82. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
Mareschal, D. (2003). Computational Models of Cognitive Development. In Nadel, L. (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Cognitive Science. 533-39. London, UK: Macmillan.
Mareschal, D. (2003). The acquisition and use of implicit categories in early development. In Rankinson, D. & Oakes, L. (Eds.), Early Category and Concept Development: Making Sense of the Blooming, Buzzing Confusion. 360-383. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Sirois, S. & Mareschal, D. (2002). Infant habituation: a review of current computational models and a new proposal. In Bullinaria, J. (Ed. ), Proceedings of the Seventh Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop (NCPW7). 51-63. London, UK: World Scientific Press.
Mareschal, D. (2002). Connectionist methods in infancy research. In Fagen, J. & Hayne, H. (Eds.), Progress in Infancy Research, Vol. 2. 71-119. Erlbaum. (Formerly Advances in Infancy Research).
Mareschal, D. & Thomas, M. S. C. (2001). Self-organisation in normal and abnormal cognitive development. In Kalverboer, A. F. & Gramsbergen, A. (Eds.), Brain and Behaviour in Human Development: A source book. 743-766. Kluwer Academic Press.
Johnson, M. H., Mareschal, D. & Csibra, G. (2001). The functional development and integration of the dorsal and ventral visual pathways: A neurocomputational approach. In Nelson, C. A. & Luciana, M. (Eds.) The Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 339-351. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mareschal, D. (2000). Connectionist modelling and infant development. In Muir, D. and Slater, A.M. (Eds). Essential Readings in Psychology: Infant Development. 55-65. Oxford and Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Shultz, T.R., Schmidt, W.C., Buckingham, D. & Mareschal, D. (1995). Modeling cognitive development with a generative connectionist algorithm. In Simon, T. & Halford, G. (Eds.), Developing Cognitive Competence: New Approaches to Process Modeling. 347-362. Hillsdale, NJ: LEA.
Grant funding
ESRC Project Grant: £317,012
Title: "Learning to combine sense and experience for optimal perceptual judgements" (2008-2011)
EC Framework 6 NEST-PATHFINDER project grant: € 273,555
Title: "Humans - The analogy making species" [Component of network grant involving 9 institutions with a total value of € 1,894,245] (with M. S. C. Thomas, still under negotiations, expected project dates 2005-2008)
EC Framework 6 Marie Curie Centre of Excellence training grant: € 1,069,463
Title: "Doctoral training in developmental cognitive neuroscience within a European context" (with the participation of members of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development) (2005-2009)
British Academy Research Grants: £ 7287
Title: "The early development of cross-modal integration between visual and tactual space" (With A. J. Bremner & C. Spencer; 2005-2006)
EC Framework 6 NEST-PATHFINDER project grant : € 1,268,41
Title: "From Associations to Rules in the Development of Concepts" (with R. M French in Dijon, S. Lea in Exeter, E Pothos in Greece, and M. Raijmakers in the Netherlands) Contribution to Birkbeck: € 300, 000)(2005-2008). For the FAR website, please click here.
MRC Cooperative Grant: £ 5548
Title: "Typical and atypical human functional brain development over the first four years" (with Profs. M. H. Johnson, S Baron-Cohen, M Eimer, Annette Karmiloff Smith, John Wyatt & Dr. Clare Elwell) (2003-2005).
ESRC Project Grant: £262,573
Title: "A computational account of early infant categorisation" (2001-2004)
British Academy Research Grants: £4,991
Title: "A probability-based account of syllogistic reasoning in young children (2001-2002)
EU Fifth Framework Human Potential Programme € 207,000
Title: "The basic mechanisms of learning and forgetting in natural and artificial systems" (2000-2004). Four year Research Training Grant. [Total value of network grant is € 980,000]