The Computation, Cognition, and Development Lab is at the center of cognitive science, developmental psychology, and artificial intelligence. We investigate the common-sense knowledge people have about the world, where it comes from, and how it develops throughout childhood.

To do this, we use a combination of behavioral, developmental, and computational methods to pursue these topics.

Our guiding metaphor is that of program induction, and the mind as learning, generating, and running different probabilistic programs. Seen through this lens, our question becomes: what is the initial start-up library of useful programs that children (and other intelligent agents) might use to reliably learn and reason about the world around them?