معرفی
Caren Walker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), leading the Early Learning and Cognition (ELC) Lab. Her research focuses on how children learn abstract causal principles, particularly through activities like analogy, explanation, and engagement with imaginary scenarios. She explores developmental trajectories in scientific reasoning and the role of cultural context in shaping cognitive processes.
Dr. Walker’s work combines interdisciplinary approaches from psychology, philosophy, and computational modeling. She investigates children’s understanding of uncertainty, causal inference, and the decline of relational reasoning with age. Her lab conducts experiments in diverse settings, including partnerships with museums, to study learning mechanisms in real-world contexts.
Notable achievements include the 2024 APA Boyd McCandless Award and the 2021 NSF CAREER Award. The ELC Lab actively engages undergraduate researchers and collaborates on projects addressing cognitive diversity across cultures. Recent lab milestones include studies on US-China differences in causal reasoning and the impact of stereotypes on causal judgments.
