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Dr Erika Nurmsoo

Research Associate

telephone: +44 (0)117 95 46616 email : E.Nurmsoo@bris.ac.uk

BCDC, Priory Road

Personal Webpage


Biographical details

After receiving my M.A. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Arizona with LouAnn Gerken and Merrill Garrett, I completed a Ph.D. in Psychology at Yale University under the supervision of Paul Bloom (2006). I went on to be a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Elizabeth J. Robinson at the University of Warwick (2006-2008). I am now a Research Associate in the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre, working with Bruce Hood.


Research interests

My primary interest is in children’s understanding of symbolic meaning. An understanding of what others perceive, believe, and know, bears on our understanding of the meaning of the symbols they use. Children’s developing social cognition can provide us with a glimpse into their understanding of symbols, and their understanding of symbols can similarly provide a means to explore their related social and other cognitive skills.

In this line of enquiry, I have investigated children’s comprehension of how a symbol’s meaning is determined by – and sometimes limited by – the creator of the symbol, and how children use information about others, including gaze information, to determine a symbol’s referent.

I am currently working with Bruce Hood (Bristol) and Shiri Einav (Oxford) on an MRC-funded project exploring children’s understanding of the referential nature of eye gaze.


Collaborators


Melissa Allen (Lancaster)
Stephen Butterfill (Warwick)
Elizabeth J. Robinson (Warwick)


Some Recent Publications



Robinson, E. J., Butterfill, S. A., & Nurmsoo, E. (2008, in prep). Extracting Knowledge from other minds: Are children sensitive to informants’ information access when asking questions?

Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (2008, under revision). Children’s developing understanding of reliable and unreliable informants. European Review of Philosophy.

Robinson, E. J., & Nurmsoo, E. (in press). When do children learn from unreliable speakers? Cognitive Development.

Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (in press). Children's Trust in Previously Inaccurate Informants Who Were Well- or Poorly- Informed: When Past Errors Can Be Excused. Child Development

Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (in press). Identifying unreliable informants: Do children excuse past inaccuracy? Developmental Science.

Gerken, L. A., Wilson, R., Gómez, R. L., & Nurmsoo, E. (in press). The relation between morpho-syntactic analogies and syntactic categories. In J. Blevins & J. Blevins (eds.). Analogy in grammar: Form and acquisition.

Nurmsoo, E., & Bloom, P. (2008). Preschoolers’ perspective-taking in word learning: Do they blindly follow eye gaze? Psychological Science, 19, 211-215.

Robinson, E. J., Haig, S. N., & Nurmsoo, E. (2008). Children’s working understanding of knowledge sources: Confidence in knowledge gained from testimony. Cognitive Development, 23, 105-118.

Nurmsoo, E. (2006). Preschoolers attend to a speaker’s knowledge when learning adjectives. Proceedings of the 30th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Boston, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Bloom, P. & Nurmsoo, E. (2002). Word learning. In L. Nadel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, London: Macmillan.

Some Recent Conference Presentations

Nurmsoo, E., Robinson, E. J., & Butterfill, S.  (June 2008).  Extracting knowledge from other minds.  Paper presented at the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Utrecht, June 25-27.

Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (January 2008). Children’s inferences about the reliability of informants: When do they excuse past errors? Paper presented at the Experimental Psychology Society London Meeting, Jan 3-4.

Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (August 2007). Learning from others: Understanding speaker inaccuracy. Paper presented at the British Psychological Society 2007 Developmental Section Conference.

Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (July 2007). Learning from others: Children’s understanding of speaker inaccuracy. Paper presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Geneva.

Nurmsoo, E., & Scholl, B. J. (July 2007). Word learning and unlearning: Preschoolers revise the meanings of newly learned words. Poster presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Geneva.

Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (July 2007) Learning from others: Identifying unreliable individuals vs. unreliable assertions. Poster presented at the Experimental Psychology Society Edinburgh Meeting.

Nurmsoo, E., & Robinson, E. J. (March 2007). Learning from others: Identifying unreliable individuals vs. unreliable assertions. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development Meeting, Boston, MA.

Nurmsoo, E., & Bloom, P. (November 2005). Do preschoolers attend to a speaker’s knowledge when learning words? Poster presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, Massachusetts.

Nurmsoo, E. (June 2005). Preschoolers reason about the artist’s mental representations when naming a drawing. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society, Vancouver, Canada.

Nurmsoo, E., & Bloom, P. (April 2005). Preschoolers’ use of a speaker’s perceptual knowledge when learning words. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia.

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