Research interests
Dr. Goldwater's research investigates the nature, acquisition, and use of knowledge. This work focuses on how children and adults can look past the superficial to recognize when disparate situations, problems, or ideas share deep structural commonalities. He examines both basic processes of cognition and development, their underlying neural mechanisms, and develops applications to improve education and public health. To achieve these broad research goals, Dr. Goldwater investigates a number of interrelated topics, including:
-How knowledge changes with learning and development
-Improving students' ability to transfer what they have learned to novel contexts.
-How the prefrontal cortex supports complex cognition, and how brain-behaviour associations change throughout child development
-How to increase the use of scientific evidence in health decision-making
-The interplay of knowledge and executive function in fostering learning, reasoning, and decision-making.
-Differences between how experts and novices think.
-How concepts are represented, and how the meanings of words are understood.
-The reciprocity between how children direct their own learning, and how they learn from others.
-How children acquire their first language.