 | Patricia Ganea Associate Professor phone: (416) 934-4502 email: patricia.ganea@utoronto.ca website: http://www.languageandlearninglab.com/ Department: Applied Psychology and Human Development | |
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Research Overview Dr. Ganea's primary research area is early cognitive development. She investigates the processes involved in young children's learning about the world through symbolic means, such as language, pictures, videos, and replica objects. She is especially interested in children's use of language to think and communicate about what is perceptually not present. Developing the ability to communicate about absent objects and events is a major cognitive achievement, one that enables children to learn about the world indirectly. Her research is focusing on the social, linguistic and representational factors that influence children's learning about the world. She is also interested in how children develop an understanding of the pragmatics of language and of social cognition. In applied practice, Dr. Ganea is interested in the application of developmental research to early childhood education. Reseach Projects/Activities: Understanding of displaced speech Pragmatics and social cognition Updating of mental representations via language Learning and transfer from picture books Science learning in young children Children's counterfactual reasoning Representative Publications Nyhout, A., Henke, L., Ganea, P.A. (2017). Children’s counterfactual reasoning about causally over determined events. Child Development, DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12913 Larsen, N.E., Lee, K. & Ganea, P.A. (2017). Do storybooks with anthropomorphized animal characters promote prosocial behaviours in young children? Developmental Science, https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12590 Strouse, G. A., & Ganea, P. A. (2017). Parent-toddler behavior and language differ when reading electronic and print picture books. Frontiers in Psychology, 8:677. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00677 Strouse, G. A., & Ganea, P. A. (2017). A print book preference: Caregivers report higher child enjoyment and more adult-child interactions when reading print than electronic books. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 12, 8-15. Strouse, G. A., & Ganea, P. A. (2017). Toddlers’ word learning and transfer from electronic and print books. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 156, 129-142 Osina, M., Saylor, M., & Ganea, P. A. (2016). Out of reach, out of mind? Infants’ comprehension of references to hidden inaccessible objects. Child Development. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12656 Saylor, M. M., Osina, M., Tassin, T., Rose, R., & Ganea, P. A. (2016). Creature feature: preschoolers use verbal descriptions to identify referents.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2016.07.005 Strouse, G. A., & Ganea, P. A. (2016) Are prompts provided by electronic books as effective for teaching preschoolers a biological concept as those provided by adults? Early Education and Development, 8, 1190-1204. Special Issue: Young Children’s Developing Understanding of the Biological World. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2016.1210457 Ganea, P. A., Fitch, A., Harris, P. L., & Kaldy, Z. (2016). Sixteen-month-olds can use language to update their expectations about the visual world. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 151, 65-76. Galazka, M. A., Gredebäck, G., & Ganea, P. A. (2016). Mapping language to the mind: Toddlers’ online processing of language as a reflection of speaker’s knowledge and ignorance. Cognitive Development, 40, 1-8. Keates, J., Graham, S., & Ganea, P. A. (2014). Infants transfer nonobvious properties from pictures to real-world objects. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 125, 35-47. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.02.003 Ganea P.A., Canfield, C.F., Simons-Ghafari, K., & Chou, T. (2014). Do cavies talk?: The effect of anthropomorphic books on children’s knowledge about animals. Front. Psychol. 5:283. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00283 Canfield, C.F. & Ganea, P. A. (2014). ‘You could call it magic’: What parents and siblings tell preschoolers about unobservable entities. Journal of Cognition and Development, 5(2), 269-286. DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2013.777841 Galazka, M.A., & Ganea, P. A. (2014). The role of representational strength in verbal updating: Evidence from 19- and 24-month-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 121, 156-168 Kelemen, D., Emmons, N.A., Seston Schillaci, R., & Ganea, P.A. (2014). Young children can be taught basic natural selection using a picture-storybook intervention. Psychological Science. doi:10.1177/0956797613516009 Khu, M., Graham, S.A., & Ganea, P.A., (2014). Learning from picture books: Infants’ use of naming information. Frontiers in Psychology, 5:144.doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00144 Canfield, C. F., Saudino, K. J., & Ganea, P. A. (2014). The role of temperament in children’s reliance on others as sources of information. Infant and Child Development. DOI: 10.1002/icd.1892 Walker, C., Gopnik, A., & Ganea, P. A. (2014). Learning to learn from stories: children’s developing sensitivity to the causal structure of fictional worlds. Child Development, 00(0), 1-9. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12287 Ganea, P. A. & Saylor, M. M. (2013). Representational constraints on language development: Thinking and learning about absent things. Child Development Perspectives. doi: 10.1111/cdep.12045 Osina, M. A., Saylor, M. M. and Ganea, P. A. (2013), Object locations, identity and absent reference understanding at 12 Months. Infancy, 19(1), 65-81. doi:10.1111/infa.12031 Ganea, P. A. & Saylor M. M. (2013). Talking about the near and dear: Infants’ comprehension of displaced speech. Developmental Psychology, 49, 1299-1307 Osina, M.A., Saylor, M.M., & Ganea, P. A. (2013). When familiar is not better: 12-month-old infants respond to talk about absent objects. Developmental Psychology, 49, 138-145 Research Grants and Contracts2017-2021 Principal Investigator, SSHRC Insight Grant, Correcting children's science misconceptions. $222,480.00 2016-2020 Principal Investigator, NSERC Discovery Grant, The influence of fantastical discourse context on young children's on-line sentence comprehension. $155,000.00 Honours and Awards Editor Choice Award, Journal of Cognition and Development, October 2015 Dean's Excellence Award, September 2015 Early Researcher Award, "From Child to Scientist": Using symbolic media to promote science education in young children. Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI), March 2014 - February 2019, ($150,000.00) Connaught New Researcher Award, University of Toronto, May 1, 2013- May 1, 2015 ($9,800.00) Professional Activities Elected Board of Directors Member: Journal of Cognition and Development (2012 - 2015) Associate Editor: British Journal of Developmental Psychology (2008 - 2013) Developmental Science (2015 - present) Editorial Board Member: Journal of Cognition and Development (2012 - present) British Journal of Developmental Psychology (2014 - present) |
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