Di Liu

I am a third-year Ph.D. candidate at the Lab for Child Development, Psychological & Brain Sciences department, Johns Hopkins University, advised by Dr. Lisa Feigenson. 

My research asks how humans make new discoveries. Discoveries do not begin from coincidence alone. They are often inspired by observations that we cannot yet explain: apples falling from trees rather than floating upward, bees and ants navigating home precisely from far away, massive stones arranged on an ancient plain for a mysterious purpose... These observations nurture discoveries because they mark the gaps in our understanding. But not every surprising observation leads to discovery. To successfully utilize and learn from our surprise, one must transform it into a question that can be solved. My work asks what cognitive machinery makes this possible across three linked levels: 

• Identifying the puzzle: how we represent and keep track of what exactly was surprising or novel to us;

• Seeking the right evidence: how we decide what information would resolve the puzzle;

• Knowing when it is explained: how we evaluate when we have learned enough to explain what happened.

I aim to characterize how these cognitive processes unfold across development! And I'm also excited to work with a wonderful group of collaborators on related questions about how humans learn, reason, and discover, including Drs. Justin Halberda, Kishore Kuchibotla, Robert Hawkins, Marina Dubova, Kara Kedrick, soon-to-be Drs. Nick Bisbee, and Zyan Wang.

If these questions excite you too, I am happy to chat more! And if you happen to be a parent of a child between 8 months and 7 years old, you can learn more about participating in my studies on our lab website linked above!