Dr. Lauren Slone
Assistant Professor of PsychologyBefore joining the Hope College faculty in 2020, Dr. Lauren K. Slone was a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University. Her research examines how children learn so much, so fast, in their first years of life. Specifically, she and her students use methods like tracking a childɫəs gaze as they interact with a parent or play with toys to understand what the world looks and sounds like from a childɫəs perspective and how children learn from these unique experiences. Her teaching responsibilities include Developmental Psychology and Research Methods.
Areas of Expertise
Lauren specializes in eye-tracking research with young children and their parents, including both remote eye-tracking (e.g., tracking where a child looks on a computer screen) and head-mounted eye-tracking (e.g., tracking where a baby looks as they play with toys and move around their environment). These methods yield high-density data that help us understand both the learning problems faced by young children (e.g., just how ambiguous is it from the infantsɫə perspective what the label ɫɜdogɫɝ refers to?), and how the statistical structure of their early visual and auditory environments help children learn about words, objects and people.
Education
- Postdoctoral Fellow, psychology, Indiana University, 2020
- Ph.D., psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 2015
- M.A., psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, 2011
- B.S., biological sciences and psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, 2009
Honors, Grants & Awards
- NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), 2017ɫɓ2018
- Provostɫəs Travel Award for Women in Science from Indiana University in 2016, 2017 and 2019
- Young Scientist Travel Award from Indiana Universityɫəs Cognitive Science Program and the National Science Foundation (NSF), 2016
- Millard Madsen Dissertation Award for Developmental Students from UCLA, 2015
- Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF), 2012ɫɓ2015
- Graduate Summer Research Fellowship, UCLA, 2011
- Jacob K. Javits Graduate Research Fellowship, 2010ɫɓ2012
- Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship, UCLA, 2010
- Senior Honors Thesis Grant, Carnegie Mellon University, 2009
- Small Undergraduate Research Grant, Carnegie Mellon University, 2008 and 2009
Selected Publications:
- ɫɜ,ɫɝ with L.B. Smith & C. Yu, Developmental Science, e12816, 2019
- ɫɜ,ɫɝ with D.H. Abney, J.I. Borjon, C. Chen, J.M. Franchak, D. Pearcy, C. Suarez-Rivera, T.L. Xu, Y. Zhang, L.B. Smith, and C. Yu, Journal of Visualized Experiments, 141, e58496, 2018
- ɫɜ,ɫɝ with S.P. Johnson, Cognition, 178, 92-102, 2018
- ɫɜ,ɫɝ with D.S. Moore and S.P. Johnson, PLoS ONE, 13(8), e0200468, 2018
- ɫɜɫɝ with L.B. Smith, Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 2124, 2017
- ɫɜ,ɫɝ with C.M. Sandhofer, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 159, 34-49, 2017
- ɫɜ,ɫɝ with S.P. Johnson, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 133, 47-56, 2015
- ɫɜ,ɫɝ with H. Vlach, and S.P. Johnson, Frontiers in Language Sciences, 3, 598, 2013
- ɫɜɫɝ with D.H. Rakison, Developmental Science, 15, 43-53, 2012
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Outside the College
When sheɫəs not teaching, writing or conducting research with students, Lauren can be found spending time with her husband, Jeff, and her 2-year-old daughter, Savannah. Lauren enjoys hiking, dancing, soaking up the summer sun and thrift shopping.
616.395.7262
slone@hope.eduA. Paul Schaap Science Center 1155 35 East 12th Street Holland, MI 49423