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展專家，現任蘭卡斯特大學心理學系教授及心理學系主任，英聯邦語言與認知發展中心(ESRC?Centre?for?Language?and?Cognitive?Development)主任，國際嬰幼兒研究大會（ICIS）的執行委員會成員，以及聯合國教科文組織早期兒童照護與教育技術咨詢小組的成員，蘭卡斯特嬰幼兒發展實驗室負責人。他在嬰幼兒認知與語言發展的互動關系方面做出了重要貢獻，尤其關注嬰兒如何通過內在的好奇心探索和學習世界，括嬰兒對外部環境的感知、認知和語言能力發展的機制。他的學術成果包括五本書籍及超過100篇同行評審的學術文章，并在國際學術期刊中發表。曾獲得英國學術協會/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《英國發展心理學雜志（British?Journal?of?Developmental?Psychology）》（2008-2023）副主編，現為《互動研究（Interaction?Studies）》和《嬰幼兒期刊（Infancy）》及《認知發展（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展會議（LCICD）的組織委員會主席，同時還是英聯邦語言與認知發展中心（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合運營。威斯特慢教授還是國際嬰幼兒研究大會（ICIS）的執行委員會成員，以及聯合國教科文組織早期兒童照護與教育技術咨詢小組的成員。
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、講座內容：

我們對嬰兒認知發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嬰兒學習及其認知能力的見解，但這些方法忽略了現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域的工作，以說明嬰兒主動尋找信息是有系統和有目標的，我還將提出，嬰兒主動尋找信息可以理解為嬰兒內部知識狀態與環境信息結構之間相互作用的結果。最后，我將討論好奇心如何與獲取世界知識過程中的探索-利用權衡有關的理論。

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.