Claudia Uller

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Claudia Uller BA, MPhil, PhD Lecturer Contact Details Room 4.719 Department of Psychology University of Essex Colchester CO4 3SQ U.K. Tel: +44 (0)1206 - 874152 Fax: +44 (0)1206 - 873801 username uller add @essex.ac.uk for email address Biography After obtaining a MPhil by Research in Psycholinguistics, in 1992 Claudia Uller started her PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1996 she moved to Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where she was Research Assistant Professor. Before coming to the University of Essex in 2003, she was Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Louisiana. Research Overview I'm interested in how the mind conceptualizes the world. In particular, I am interested in the development in young children and in the evolutionary origins of certain domains of knowledge such as naive physics/number and naive psychology. A few questions that motivate my research include: How does a preverbal infant conceptualize the world? Does a young infant represent numerical concepts? Is the young infant sensitive to the mental states of others? How does this knowledge of the world get 'translated' into language? What is the relationship between thought and language? Do nonlinguistic animals 'think' about number and about the mental states of others? Are the cognitive abilities found in animals the same as the ones found in children? Press reports and news releases	Recent Publications Uller, C. & Lewis, J. (revised and resubmitted). Counting in horses: Clever Hand revisited. Animal Cognition. Orbell, S., Lidierth, P., Henderson, C.J., Geeraert, N., Uller, C., Uskul, A.K., Kyriakaki, M. (in press). Social cognitive beliefs, alcohol and tobacco use: A prospective community study of change following a ban on smoking in public places. Health Psychology. Uller, C. (2008). Developmental and evolutionary considerations on numerical cognition: A review. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 6(4), 237-253. (download pdf) Uller, C. (2008). The Evolution of Cognition: The case of number. In D. Dedrick & L. Trick. (Eds). Computation, Cognition and Pylyshyn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Uller, C. (2004). Disposition to recognize goals in infant chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Animal Cognition 7, 154-161.(download pdf) Uller, C., Jaeger, R., Guidry, G., & Martin, C. (2003). Salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) go for more: Rudiments of number in a species of basal vertebrate. Animal Cognition 6, 105-112. (download pdf) Uller, C. (2002). What's the young infant representation of number like? Proceedings of the International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics, 2, 147-148. Uller, C. (2002). When 9-month-olds go 'yumm' and 'yuck':Understanding other people's desires. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics, 2, 145-146. Uller, C., Hauser, M. & Carey, S. (2001). The spontaneous representation of number in a New World primate species, Cotton-top tamarins. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115:3, 1-10.(download pdf) Uller, C., Carey, S., Huntley-Fenner, G. & Klatt, L. (1999). What representations might underlie infant numerical knowledge. Cognitive Development, 14:1, 1-36.(download pdf) Nichols, S. & Uller, C. (1999). Explicit factuality and comparative evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22 (5), 776-777. Uller, C., Xu, F., Carey, S. & Hauser, M. (1997). Is language needed for constructing sortal concepts? A study with nonhuman primates. Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development, 21, 665-677. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. (download pdf)