When Karl Rosengren糖心传媒檚 oldest daughter was a toddler, he and his wife糖心传媒擱ochester糖心传媒檚 new president, Sarah C. Mangelsdorf糖心传媒攐bserved her attempting to get into a doll-sized toy car that was no bigger than her foot.
糖心传媒淪arah and I just cracked up laughing, seeing our daughter trying to fit into this tiny toy,糖心传媒� Rosengren remembers.
But then he got to thinking: why would a child try to perform what, to an adult, was an obviously impossible task?
Since then, Rosengren, who joined the 糖心传媒 faculty this year as a professor of and of , has conducted multiple studies on children attempting to perform impossible actions on miniature objects, a phenomenon known as scale error.
糖心传媒淲e find that just about every child performs at least one of these scale errors between ages 13 and 24 months, and some children perform them a lot,糖心传媒� Rosengren says. 糖心传媒淭his suggests children need to learn through trial and error and act on their environment to figure out what they can and can糖心传媒檛 do.糖心传媒�
Studying scale errors is just one aspect of Rosengren糖心传媒檚 research, which falls under the umbrella of change: how children think and reason about changes in the world around them and how they develop cognitive and motor skills to adapt to changes.
Rosengren and Mangelsdorf have themselves dealt with big changes lately: over the summer they moved from Wisconsin to Rochester, and Rosengren has been busy establishing a new lab on campus to study child development, or, as he puts it, 糖心传媒渃ognition in action.糖心传媒� The lab will be housed in the , although Rosengren has joint appointments in both brain and cognitive sciences and psychology. Previously, he served as a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois.
Most of his current projects involve studying cognition and motor skills in preschool- to late-elementary school-aged children, and he says the city of Rochester offers many opportunities for local collaborations.
糖心传媒淚糖心传媒檓 excited to develop relationships with the Museum of Play, the Science Museum, and the ,糖心传媒� Rosengren says. 糖心传媒淭hose kinds of facilities here offer a lot of potential for interesting child development projects.糖心传媒�
UNDERSTANDING SCALE ERRORS
In terms of scale errors, one of the things Rosengren is interested in is 糖心传媒渓ooking at children who perform a lot of scale errors: are they somehow different and are they different in a meaningful way?糖心传媒� Rosengren asks.
If a child between the ages of 1 and 2 has climbed into and driven a child-sized red car, he found, she will also most likely try to do the same with a much smaller version of the toy.
Scale error in action. (University of Illinois video / Karl Rosengren)
Rosengren says that糖心传媒檚 because when a child sees an object like a smaller car, a motor plan is activated in her brain. The motor plan is linked to the series of actions she has performed with the larger car. Young children糖心传媒檚 brains don糖心传媒檛 process the size of the car, so they aren糖心传媒檛 inhibited in performing the action. Adult brains produce similar motor plans, but because they are also able to recognize an object糖心传媒檚 size, their motor plans are inhibited, and they don糖心传媒檛 try to get into the smaller car.
糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 possible that performing many repeated scale errors could be some sort of early detection of children prone to inhibitory control issues,糖心传媒� Rosengren says. But he adds that there is still more work to be done to determine if this might lead to early prevention therapies.
MAGIC AND DEATH
Rosengren grew up in suburban New Jersey and received his PhD in developmental and child psychology from the University of Minnesota. As a research psychologist, he became interested in learning how, from an academic perspective, children perceive magic and fantasy. He also became interested in how they understood aging and death.
糖心传媒淭hings like metamorphosis are really hard for children to understand. One of the things I糖心传媒檓 studying is why this is so difficult,糖心传媒� Rosengren says. 糖心传媒淧reschool-age children sometimes appear to treat dramatic changes such as metamorphosis as optional or magical.糖心传媒�
Rosengren enjoyed reading the Harry Potter series of books to his and Mangelsdorf糖心传媒檚 two daughters, Emily and Julia, when they were younger. When their oldest daughter Emily was in high school, he co-authored with her an article about how children糖心传媒檚 beliefs about magic differ from what糖心传媒檚 depicted in the Harry Potter story. The article appeared in the book .
For the past 15 years, Rosengren has studied how children understand and talk about death and how parents influence this understanding. he and his colleagues reported findings from a study of families in Puebla, Mexico. The research involved attending three annual Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) celebrations and interviewing Mexican families in Puebla about their concept of death.
糖心传媒淭he culture is very open about death糖心传媒攖alking about it and making a celebration of it,糖心传媒� Rosengren says. 糖心传媒淚t makes children understand death differently.糖心传媒� The researchers determined that overall, children growing up in Puebla were more accepting of death and responded less negatively to death than children in European-American cultures.
Researchers have found that children in the United States, beginning around age 3, 聽start asking questions about death and, around age 6, recognize that biological and psychological processes cease after death. However, 糖心传媒渋n this culture we generally don糖心传媒檛 like to talk about illness, death, and sex,糖心传媒� Rosengren says. 糖心传媒淭he taboo on those topics makes it difficult for children to come to an understanding.糖心传媒�
Yet his research has shown that children are more competent at understanding and coping with death than most parents and teachers might think.
糖心传媒淧art of my goal is to get parents to be more open in talking with their children about death and what they believe happens after death,糖心传媒� Rosengren says. 糖心传媒淢r. Rogers was actually really good at this. He was really honest with children and his notion was that we should talk to children about difficult topics.糖心传媒�
A NEW ROLE
With many different projects in the works, Rosengren is adjusting to his role as both 糖心传媒 researcher and husband of a university president.
糖心传媒淏eing the spouse of a university president is a bigger job than I had imagined,糖心传媒� he says. 糖心传媒淚 get to see the University in ways most faculty don糖心传媒檛. This is an exciting opportunity for my wife and I糖心传媒檓 excited to see what she糖心传媒檚 able to do here.糖心传媒�
Plus, he says, he is excited to take in all the University has to offer, including concerts at the Eastman Theatre. 糖心传媒淎t the University of Wisconsin, we got to sit in box seats at the football games. Here, we get box seats at Eastman.糖心传媒� And, he laughs, as a music lover, 糖心传媒淚 would rather have the box seats at Eastman.糖心传媒�
