Katherine O'Doherty
Research Area: Developmental Science
I am interested in how young children learn through indirect experience with others. Children are offered some information directly (such as when a parent points to and names a toy a child is playing with) yet they receive a great deal of information in indirect ways (such as by overhearing a conversation). A potential source of indirect learning for young children is people on television. However, a number of studies have revealed that babies and toddlers often do not learn from a person on video, possibly because a TV character cannot respond to what the viewer says or does.
In one study, we found that toddlers learned from someone on video as long as that person was engaged in a reciprocal interaction with another individual (i.e., a "third party"). Responsive interaction between two adults appears to help children realize that generalizable information is being shared. In another ongoing study, I am examining how presentation format ("live" vs. video) affects young children’s social preferences (i.e., based on language, race, gender, etc.) and learning.
Representative Publications
O'Doherty, K., Troseth, G., Shimpi, P. M., Goldenberg, E., Akhtar, N., Saylor, M. (2011). Third party interaction and word learning from video. Child Development, 82, 902-915.
DeLoache, J.S., Chiong, C., Vanderborght, M., Sherman, K., Islam, N., Troseth, G.L., Strouse, G.A., O’Doherty, K. (2010). Do Babies Learn from Baby Media? Psychological Science, 21, 1570-1574.
Troseth, G.L., Strouse, G.A., Verdine, B.N., & O’Doherty, K. (2010). Do very young children learn from video? Revista Irice, Número Monográfico: Representaciones Externas (Special Issue: External Representations), 21, 13-26.
Uttal, D. H., & O'Doherty, K. (2008). Comprehending and learning from 'visualizations': A developmental perspective. In J.K. Gilbert, M. Reiner, & M. Nakhleh (Eds.) Models and Modeling in Science Education: Vol. 3. Visualization: Theory and practice in science education (pp. 53-72). The Netherlands: Springer.
Uttal, D.H., O'Doherty, K., Newland, R., Liu Hand, L., DeLoache, J. (2009). Dual representation and the linking of concrete and symbolic representations. Child Development Perspectives, 3, 156-159.