Cognitive Psychology

Paul C. Quinn

		Professor Associate Chair Director of Graduate Studies Sc.B., Ph.D., Brown University Research Interests Recent Publications Representative Publications pquinn@udel.edu Office: 111 Wolf Hall (302) 831-1701 (302) 831-3645 -fax Lab: 418 Wolf Hall (302) 831-6379 Preferred contact method - email

Research Interests

PERCEPTION, COGNITION, AND DEVELOPMENT

Research Summary:

My research is currently funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and centers on the origins and development of human visual cognition, in particular, how young infants represent information about objects and space. I seek explanations for infant performance that involve general mechanisms including a complex learning system and sufficiently sensitive perceptual systems. In this way, I attempt to avoid radical nativist solutions that rely on innate knowledge, although I recognize that there must be species-specific biological constraints of a general nature that make the development of visual cognition possible in what is a very short time. My empirical work is taking place on three different fronts: perceptual organization, object categorization, and spatial categorization. Current investigations examine the mechanisms by which infants organize elements to form perceptual wholes, group objects into category representations, and parse physical space into categories defined by the spatial relations of objects.

Professionally, I serve as Co-Editor for Developmental Science (2009-present). In addition, I am a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (1998-present), Infant Behavior & Development (1995-present), and Psychological Science (2002-present). I have also served as Associate Editor for Child Development (2001-2007) and Developmental Science (1998-2009), and as a regular member of the Cognition and Perception Study Section with the Center for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health (2002-2006).

Recent Publications

Mareschal, D., Quinn, P. C., & Lea, S. E. G. (in press). Where do concepts come from? In D. Mareschal, P. C. Quinn, & S. E. G. Lea, (Eds.), The making of human concepts. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Mareschal, D., Quinn, P. C., & Lea, S. E. G. (in press). The making of human concepts: A final look. In D. Mareschal, P. C. Quinn, & S. E. G. Lea, (Eds.), The making of human concepts. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Quinn, P. C., Doran, M. M., Reiss, J. E., & Hoffman, J. E. (in press). Neural markers of subordinate-level categorization in 6- to 7-month-old infants. Developmental Science.

Ge, L., Zhang, H., Wang, Z., Quinn, P. C., Pascalis, O., Kelly, D., Slater, A., Tian, J., & Lee, K. (in press). Two faces of the other-race effect: Recognition and categorization of Caucasian and Chinese faces. Perception.

Anzures, G., Quinn, P. C., Pascalis, O., Slater, A. M., & Lee, K. (in press). Categorization, categorical perception, and asymmetry in infants’ representation of face race. Developmental Science.

Quinn, P. C. (in press). Born to categorize. In U. Goswami (Ed.), Blackwell handbook of childhood cognitive development, 2nd Edition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

Quinn, P. C., & Bhatt, R. S. (in press). Transfer and scaffolding of perceptual grouping occurs across organizing principles in 3- to 7-month-old infants. Psychological Science.

Slater, A. M., Riddell, P., Quinn, P. C., Pascalis, O., Lee, K., & Kelly, D. J. (in press). Visual perception. In G. Bremner & T. Wachs (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of infant development, 2nd Edition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

Quinn, P. C., & Tanaka, J. W. (in press). Infants’ processing of featural and configural information in the upper and lower halves of the face. Infancy.

Quinn, P. C., Lee, K., Pascalis, O., & Slater, A. M. (in press). Perceptual Development: Face Perception. In E. B. Goldstein (Ed.), Encyclopedia of perception. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Quinn, P. C. (in press). The acquisition of expertise as a model for the growth of cognitive structure. In S. P. Johnson (Ed.), Neoconstructivism: The new science of cognitive development. Oxford University Press: New York.

Kelly, D. J., Liu, S., Lee, K., Quinn, P. C., Pascalis, O., Slater, A. M., & Ge, L. (2009). Development of the other-race effect in infancy: Evidence towards universality? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104, 105-114.

Quinn, P. C., & Bhatt, R. S. (2009). Perceptual organization in infancy: Bottom-up and top-down influences. Optometry & Vision Science (Special Issue on Infant and Child Vision Research: Present Status and Future Directions), 86, 589-594.

Quinn, P. C., Doran, M. M., Reiss, J. E., & Hoffman, J. E. (2009). Time course of visual attention in infant categorization of cats versus dogs: Evidence for a head bias as revealed through eye tracking. Child Development, 80, 151-161.

Hayden, A., Bhatt, R. S., & Quinn, P. C. (2009). Relations between uniform connectedness, luminance, and shape similarity as perceptual organizational cues in infancy. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 71, 52-63.

Quinn, P. C. (2008). On the semantics of infant categorization and why infants perceive horses as humans. [Commentary] Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 724-726.

Quinn, P. C., & Liben, L. S. (2008). A sex difference in mental rotation in young infants. Psychological Science, 19, 1067-1070.

Quinn, P. C. (2008). In defense of core competencies, quantitative change, and continuity. Child Development, 79, 1633-1638.

Ge, L., Anzures, G., Wang, Z., Kelly, D. J., Pascalis, O., Quinn, P. C., Slater, A. M., Yang, Z., & Lee, K. (2008). An inner-face advantage in children’s recognition of familiar peers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 101, 124-136.

Quinn, P. C., Bhatt, R. S., & Hayden, A. (2008). What goes with what? Development of perceptual grouping in infancy. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 49 (pp. 105-146). San Diego: Elsevier.

Hayden, A., Bhatt, R. S., & Quinn, P. C. (2008). Perceptual organization based on illusory regions in infancy. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 443-447.

Quinn, P. C., Uttley, L., Lee, K., Gibson, A., Smith, M., Slater, A. M., & Pascalis, O. (2008). Infant preference for female faces occurs for same- but not other-race faces. Journal of Neuropsychology (Special Issue on Face Processing), 2, 15-26.

Quinn, P. C., Bhatt, R. S., & Hayden, A. (2008). Young infants readily use proximity to organize visual pattern information. Acta Psychologica, 127, 289-298.

Quinn, P. C., Kelly, D. J., Lee, K., Pascalis, O., & Slater, A. M. (2008). Preference for attractive faces in human infants extends beyond conspecifics. Developmental Science, 11, 76-83.

Izard, C. E., Quinn, P. C., & Most, S. B. (2007). Many ways to awareness: A developmental perspective on cognitive access. [Commentary] Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 30, 506-507.

Quinn, P. C., Lee, K., Pascalis, O., & Slater, A. M. (2007). In support of an expert-novice difference in the representation of humans versus non-human animals by infants: Generalization from persons to cats occurs only with upright whole images. Cognition, Brain, & Behavior (Special Issue on the Development of Categorization), 11, 679-694.

Kelly, D. J., Quinn, P. C., Slater, A. M., Lee, K., Ge, L., & Pascalis, O. (2007). The other-race effect develops during infancy: Evidence of perceptual narrowing. Psychological Science, 18, 1084-1089.

Quinn, P. C., & Tanaka, J. W. (2007). Early development of perceptual expertise: Within-basic-level categorization experience facilitates the formation of subordinate-level category representations in 6- to 7-month-old infants. Memory & Cognition, 35, 1422-1431.

Gerganov, A., Grinberg, M., Quinn, P. C., & Goldstone, R. L. (2007). Simulating conceptually-guided perceptual learning. In D. S. McNamara & J. G. Trafton (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 287-292). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

Bhatt, R. S., Hayden, A., & Quinn, P. C. (2007). Perceptual organization based on common region in infancy. Infancy, 12, 147-168.

Quinn, P. C. (2007). On the infant’s prelinguistic conception of spatial relations: Three developmental trends and their implications for spatial language learning. In J. M. Plumert & J. P. Spencer (Eds.), The emerging spatial mind (pp. 117-141). Oxford University Press: New York.

Kelly, D. J., Liu, S., Ge, L., Quinn, P. C., Slater, A. M., Lee, K., Liu, Q., & Pascalis, O. (2007). Cross-race preferences for same-race faces extend beyond the African versus Caucasian contrast in 3-month-old infants. Infancy, 11, 87-95.

Quinn, P. C., & Intraub, H. (2007). Perceiving "outside the box" occurs early in development: Evidence for boundary extension in 3- to 7-month-old infants. Child Development, 78, 324-334.

Quinn, P. C. (2007). Categorization. In A. Slater & M. Lewis (Eds.), Introduction to infant development, 2nd Edition (pp. 119-136). Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.

Quinn, P. C., & Bhatt, R. S. (2006). Are some Gestalt principles deployed more readily than others during early development? The case of lightness versus form similarity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 1221-1230.

Quinn, P. C., Schyns, P. G., & Goldstone, R. L. (2006). The interplay between perceptual organization and categorization in the representation of complex visual patterns by young infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 95, 117-127.

Quinn, P. C., Westerlund, A., & Nelson, C. A. (2006). Neural markers of categorization in 6-month-old infants. Psychological Science, 17, 59-66.

Hayden, A., Bhatt, R. S., & Quinn, P. C. (2006). Infants' sensitivity to uniform connectedness as a cue for perceptual organization. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 257-261.

Quinn, P. C. (2006). On the emergence of perceptual organization and categorization in young infants: Roles for perceptual process and knowledge access. In L. Balter & C. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), Child psychology: A handbook of contemporary issues, 2nd Edition (pp. 109-131). Philadelphia: Psychology Press (Taylor & Francis).

Quinn, P. C., & Bhatt, R. S. (2005). Good continuation affects discrimination of visual pattern information in young infants. Perception & Psychophysics, 67, 1171-1176.

Kelly, D. J., Quinn, P. C., Slater, A. M., Lee, K., Gibson, A., Smith, M., Ge, L., & Pascalis, O. (2005). FAST-TRACK REPORT: Three-month-olds, but not newborns, prefer own-race faces. Developmental Science, 8, F31-F36.

Quinn, P. C., & Bhatt, R. S. (2005). Learning perceptual organization in infancy. Psychological Science, 16, 515-519.

Quinn, P. C. (2005). Are torsos the basis for infants’ categorization of cats versus dogs? A reply to Vidic and Haaf (2004). The Psychological Record, 55, 663-667.

Quinn, P. C. (2005). Developmental constraints on the representation of spatial relation information: Evidence from preverbal infants. In L. Carlson & E. van der Zee (Eds.), Functional features in language and space: Insights from perception, categorization, and development (pp. 293-309). New York: Oxford University Press.

Quinn, P. C. (2005). Young infants’ categorization of humans versus nonhuman animals: Roles for knowledge access and perceptual process. In L. Gershkoff-Stowe & D. Rakison, (Eds.), Building object categories in developmental time: 32nd Carnegie Mellon symposium on cognition (Vol. 32, pp. 107-130). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Quinn, P. C. (2004). Is the asymmetry in young infants' categorization of humans versus nonhuman animals based on head, body, or global Gestalt Information? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 92-97.

Quinn, P. C., & Oates, J. M. (2004). Early category representations and concepts. In J. M. Oates & A. Grayson (Ed.), Cognitive and language development in children
(pp. 21-60). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

Quinn, P. C. (2004). Development of subordinate-level categorization in 3- to
7-month-old infants. Child Development, 75, 886-899.

French, R. M., Mareschal, D., Mermillod, M., & Quinn, P. C. (2004). The role of bottom-up processing in perceptual categorization by 3- to 4-month-old infants: Simulations and data. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 382-397.

Quinn, P. C. (2004). Spatial representation by young infants: Categorization of spatial relations or sensitivity to a crossing primitive? Memory & Cognition, 32, 852-861.

Mermillod, M., French, R. M., Quinn, P. C., & Mareschal, D. (2004). The importance of long-term memory in infant perceptual categorization. In R. Alterman & D. Kirsh (Eds.), Proceedings of the 25th annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 804-809). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Quinn, P. C. (2004). Visual perception of orientation is categorical near vertical and continuous near horizontal. Perception, 33, 897-906.

Quinn, P. C. (2004). Multiple sources of information and their integration, not dissociation, as an organizing framework for understanding infant concept formation. Developmental Science, 7, 511-513.

Representative Publications

Quinn, P. C., & Schyns, P. G. (2003). What goes up may come down: Perceptual process and knowledge access in the organization of complex visual patterns by young infants. Cognitive Science, 27, 923-935.

Quinn, P. C., Yahr, J., Kuhn, A., Slater, A. M., & Pascalis, O. (2002). Representation of the gender of human faces by infants: A preference for female. Perception, 31, 1109-1121.

Quinn, P. C. (2002). Category representation in infants. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 66-70.

Quinn, P. C., Bhatt, R. S., Brush, D., Grimes, A., & Sharpnack, H. (2002). Development of form similarity as a Gestalt grouping principle in infancy. Psychological Science, 13, 320-328.

Mareschal, D., & Quinn, P. C. (2001). Categorization in infancy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5, 443-450.

Quinn, P. C., & Eimas, P. D. (2000). The emergence of category representations during infancy: Are separate perceptual and conceptual processes required? Journal of Cognition and Development, 1, 55-61.

Quinn, P. C., & Johnson, M. H. (1997). The emergence of perceptual category representations in young infants: A connectionist analysis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 66, 236-263.

Quinn, P. C. (1994). The categorization of above and below spatial relations by young infants. Child Development, 65, 58-69.

Quinn, P. C., Burke, S., & Rush, A. (1993). Part-whole perception in early infancy: Evidence for perceptual grouping produced by lightness similarity. Infant Behavior & Development, 16, 19-42.

Quinn, P. C., Eimas, P. D., & Rosenkrantz, S. L. (1993). Evidence for representations of perceptually similar natural categories by 3- and 4-month-old infants. Perception, 22, 463-475.

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