Linda B. Smith is a Professor of Psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 and Cognitive Science

Cognitive science

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...

 at Indiana University

Indiana University Bloomington

Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...

. Smith earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

.

Smith is the author (or co-author) of more than 100 publications on cognitive

Cognitive development

Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology compared to an adult's point of...

 and linguistic development

Language development

Language development is a process starting early in human life, when a person begins to acquire language by learning it as it is spoken and by mimicry. Children's language development moves from simple to complex. Infants start without language. Yet by four months of age, babies can read lips and...

 in young children.
With Esther Thelen

Esther Thelen

Esther Thelen was an expert in the field of Developmental Psychology. Thelen's research was focused on human development, espeically infant development....

, she co-authored the books A Dynamic Systems Approach to Development (Smith & Thelen 1993) and A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action (Thelen & Smith 1994), which look at development from a dynamic systems perspective.

She is also well known for her research on the shape bias (Landau et al. 1988), children's tendency to generalize new concrete nouns on the basis of the shape of the object to which they refer.

In 1997, she received the Tracy Sonneborn

Tracy Sonneborn

Tracy Morton Sonneborn was an American biologist. His life's study was of the protozoan group Paramecium.-Non-Mendelian Inheritance:...

 Award, Indiana University's highest award to its faculty. In 2007, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

. Smith is also a member of the Governing Board of the Cognitive Science Society

Cognitive Science Society

The Cognitive Science Society is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields who hold the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind...

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External links

• Indiana University Cognitive Development Laboratory: Smith's laboratory