Features

COGNITION IN ACTION: A noted researcher who studies the psychological development of children, Karl Rosengren has established a new lab in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, where he’ll continue his work, which he calls studying “cognition in action.” He also is getting to know the University as the spouse of Sarah Mangelsdorf, the University’s new president. (University photograph by J. Adam Fenster)

When Karl Rosengren’s older daughter, Emily, was a toddler, he and his wife, President Sarah Mangelsdorf, observed her attempting to get into a doll-sized toy car that was no bigger than her foot.

“Sarah and I just cracked up laughing, seeing our daughter trying to fit into this tiny toy,” Rosengren remembers.

But then he got to thinking: why would a child try to perform what, to an adult, was obviously an impossible task?

Rosengren, who joined the Rochester faculty this year as a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, has since found that if a child between the ages of one and two has climbed into and driven a child-sized car, she will also most likely try to do the same with a much smaller version of the toy.

“Children need to learn through trial and error and act on their environment to figure out what they can and can’t do,” he says. In other words, they find ways to think and reason about changes in the world around them, and they develop cognitive and motor skills to adapt to those changes.

Since his arrival last July, Rosengren has established a new lab, where he’ll continue to study child development, or, as he puts it, “cognition in action.”

His other interests include how children understand magic and fantasy, as well as aging and death.

“Things like metamorphosis are really hard for children to understand. One of the things I’m studying is why this is so difficult,” he says. “Preschool-age children sometimes appear to treat dramatic changes such as metamorphosis as optional or magical.”

With many projects in the works, Rosengren is also adjusting to his role as the husband of a university president.

“Being the spouse of a university president is a bigger job than I had imagined,” says Rosengren, who has previously been a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, Northwestern, and the University of Illinois. “I get to see the University in ways most faculty don’t. This is an exciting opportunity for my wife, and I’m excited to see what she’s able to do here.”

Plus, he says, he is enjoying taking in all the University has to offer, including concerts at Eastman Theatre. “At the University of Wisconsin, we got to sit in box seats at the football games. Here, we get box seats at Eastman.”

And, he laughs, as a music lover, “I would rather have the box seats at Eastman.”