She may be known as the "Dr. Doolittle of the human species" to some, but Elizabeth Spelke left her animals at home when she spoke at Penn on Friday. Spelke, a Psychology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, delivered a lecture entitled "Core Knowledge and Cognitive Development," to about 70 students and faculty members in Logan Hall. Chosen as part of the second annual Benjamin and Anne A. Pinkel Endowed Lecture series, Spelke explored the topic of human thought. In a speech that merged the disciplines of psychology and linguistics, she defended the "three venerable intuitions" on human thinking -- that it differs qualitatively from the thinking of other animals, that it grows and develops through learning and that it depends on language. "I will defend them all, drawing first on studies of spatial memory and navigation and then on studies of number and arithmetic in animals, children and human adults," Spelke said. She spoke on her various scientific experiments with rats, small children and adults to show the differences between their processes of thought. Spelke posed hypothetical questions to the audience about how "kids are able to take account of simple addition and subtraction," and how "humans are endowed with the concept of adding one while animals are not." It is this fascination with animals that led to her "Dr. Doolittle" nickname, which was coined on Friday by Penn Psychology Professor Lila Gleitman. Spelke also explored the concept of spatial representation and geometric variation, showing the importance and interdependence of language with thought processes. Because of the emphasis on language as a core processor of thought, the lecture drew as many students of linguistics as of psychology. After Spelke's lecture, several student audience members said they enjoyed the connection made between two topics that they had not known to be so interconnected. "It's interesting that language is what connects the two -- that animals and small children can only understand color and geometry but could not combine them like adults without language," said College sophomore Amy Chernasky, a Psychology major. "I thought it was really amazing to hear the actual research and conclusions directly instead of just reading it in a book," she added. Similarly, Engineering sophomore Christi Electris said she "was surprised that children were similar to rats in that they are only able to process one piece of information when trying to orient themselves due to their inability to process language." The Benjamin and Anne A. Pinkel Endowed Lecture series was made possible through Sheila Pinkel as a tribute to her parents. Pinkel received a Bachelor of Science and Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Penn in 1930.
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