Curriculum Vitae |
Address Office: Department of Psychology, Boston University, 64 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215 Phone: (617) 353-2758 Email: dkelemen@bu.edu URL: http://www.bu.edu/childcognition |
Education Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology, Minor: Cognitive Science, University of Arizona, 1996. M.A., Cognitive Psychology, University of Arizona, 1992. |
Professional Experience Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Research Director for Professor Ann Brown, Instructor, Graduate Reading Course, Graduate School of Education, Research Assistant with Dr. Paul Bloom, Language and Cognition Lab, Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Psychology, Research Assistant with Professor Linda Swisher, Child Language Laboratory, Postgraduate Research Assistant to the Driver Behavior Unit, Department of Psychology, |
Research Interests Cognitive Development with particular emphasis on conceptual development: the nature of children’s and adults’ concepts of the artificial and natural world, conceptual constraints on intuitive and scientific theory-formation, object categorization, imitation and the development of conventionalized behavior, cross-cultural and individual differences in cognition. Also language development: conceptual constraints on the acquisition of word meaning. |
Teaching Interests Cognitive Development; Conceptual Development; Mind and Language; Culture, Conformity, and Convention; Social Cognition; Cognitive Science of Religion; Cross-Cultural and Evolutionary Perspectives on Cognition and Development; Introduction to Psychology; Developmental Psychology; Cognitive Science; Cognitive Psychology. |
Funding Proposals and Awards Kelemen, D. (Principal Investigator). The development of children’s teleo-functional bias: Supplementary award. National Science Foundation. Funded August 2009. Kelemen, D. (Principal Investigator). Purpose in mind: Exploring the natural foundations of religion in children and professional scientists. Cognition, Religion and Theology Project Grant, University of Oxford/Sir John Templeton Foundation. Funded September 2008 - August 2010. Kelemen, D. (Principal Investigator). The development of children’s teleo-functional bias: Supplementary award. National Science Foundation. Funded September 2007 - January 2009. Kelemen, D. (Principal Investigator). The development of children’s teleo-functional bias. National Science Foundation. Funded January 2006 - January 2009. Kelemen, D. (Research group participant). Religious and psychological well-being. Templeton Foundation Grant, Danielson Institute, Boston University, September 2007 - December. Kelemen, D. (Principal Investigator). Tool use, artifact concepts and the human function compunction. Boston University SPRiNG Competition Award. Funded January 2005 - December 2005. Kelemen, D. (Principal Investigator). Children’s teleological view of artifacts. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Funded August 1999 - July 2003. Kelemen, D. (Principal Investigator). Children’s teleological beliefs about artifact function. Penn State Research and Graduate Studies Award, Funded January 1999 - June 1999. |
Publications Seston, R., Kelemen, D. & DiYanni, C. (2009). Trusted sources or majority consensus? Children's decisions about where to learn conventional knowledge. Manuscript in preparation. Donovan, E. & Kelemen, D. (2009) Just Rewards: Children and adults equate accidental inequity with intentional unfairness. Manuscript in submission. Kelemen, D. & Seston, R. (2009). The designing mind: Children's reasoning about intended function and artifact structure. Manuscript in submission. Kelemen, D. & Rosset, E. (2009). The Human Function Compunction: Teleological explanation in adults. Cognition, 111, 138-143. [PDF] Casler, K. & Kelemen, D. (2008). Developmental continuity in the teleo-functional bias: Reasoning about nature among Romanian Roma adults (Gypsies). Journal of Cognition and Development, 9, 340-362. [PDF] DiYanni, C. & Kelemen, D. (2008). Using a bad tool with good intention: Young children's imitation of adults' questionable choices. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology: Special Issue on Imitation, 101, 241-261. [PDF] Dennis, T.A. & Kelemen, D. (2008). Children's views on emotion regulation: Functional links and implications for socio-emotional adjustment. International Journal of Behavioral Development. [PDF] Lombrozo, T., Kelemen, D. & Zaitchik, D. (2007). Inferring design: Evidence of a preference for teleological explanations from patients with Alzheimer's disease. Psychological Science, 18, 999-1006. [PDF] Kelemen, D. & Carey, S. (2007). The essence of artifacts: Developing the design stance. In S. Laurence & E. Margolis (Eds.) Creations of the Mind: Theories of artifacts and their representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [PDF] Kelemen, D. & Carey, S. (2007). Az artefaktumok (eszközök) esszenciája. A tervezeti hozzáállás kialakulása. Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle, 62, 131-59. Casler, K. & Kelemen, D. (2007). Reasoning about artifacts at 24 months: The developing teleo-functional stance. Cognition, 103, 120-130. [PDF] Casler, K. & Kelemen, D. (2005). Young children’s rapid learning about artifacts. Developmental Science, 8, 472-480. [PDF] DiYanni, C. & Kelemen, D. (2005). Time to get a new mountain? The role of function in children’s conceptions of natural kinds. Cognition, 97, 325-335. [PDF] Kelemen, D., Callanan, M., Casler, K. & Pérez-Granados, D.R. (2005). Why things happen: Teleological explanation in parent-child conversations. Developmental Psychology, 251-264. [PDF] Kelemen, D., & DiYanni, C. (2005). Intuitions about origins: Purpose and intelligent design in children's reasoning about nature. Journal of Cognition and Development, 6, 3-31. [PDF] Kelemen, D. (2004). Counterintuition, existential anxiety, and religion as a by-product of the designing mind. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 739-740. [PDF] Kelemen, D. (2004). Are children "intuitive theists"?: Reasoning about purpose and design in nature. Psychological Science, 15, 295-301. [PDF] Kelemen, D. (2003). British and American children’s preferences for teleological-functional explanations of the natural world. Cognition, 88, 201-221. [PDF] Kelemen, D., Widdowson, D., Posner, T., Brown, A.L. & Casler, K. (2003). Teleo-functional constraints on preschool children’s reasoning about living things. Developmental Science, 6, 329-345. [PDF] Kelemen, D. (1999). Functions, goals and intentions: Children’s teleological reasoning about objects. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 461-468. [PDF] Kelemen, D. (1999). Why are rocks pointy?: Children’s preference for teleological explanations of the natural world. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1440 - 1453. [PDF] Kelemen, D. (1999). The scope of teleological thinking in preschool children. Cognition, 70, 241 -272. [PDF] Kelemen, D. (1999). Beliefs about purpose: On the origins of teleological thought. In M. and S. Lea (Eds.). The Descent of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bloom, P. & Kelemen, D. (1995). Syntactic cues in the acquisition of collective nouns. Cognition, 56, 1-30. [PDF] Bloom, P., Kelemen, D., Fountain, A. & Courtney, E. (1995). The acquisition of collective. In D. MacLaughlin and S. McEwen (Eds.), The Proceedings of the 19th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Cascadilla Press. Bloom, P. & Kelemen, D. (1995). Syntactic and conceptual factors in the acquisition of nouns. In E. Clark (Ed.), The Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Child Language Research Forum. Stanford: CSLI. Kelemen, D. & Bloom, P. (1994). Domain-specific knowledge in simple categorization. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1, 390-395. Manstead, A.S.R., Parker, D., Stradling, S.G., Reason, J.T., Baxter, J.S. & Kelemen, D. (1992). Perceived consensus in estimates of the prevalence of driving errors and violations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22, 509-530. |
Presentations: Invited Talks for National and International Meetings and Conferences Kelemen, D. (2009, May). Convention and Design in human conceptions of artifacts. Invited presentation for the AHRC conference "Culture in mind: Material Culture," University of Sheffield, UK. Kelemen, D. (2008, July). Function in mind: Children's teleological construal of artifacts. Inveited presentation for the conference "Tool use and Causal Cognition", University of Warwick, UK. Kelemen, D. (2007, November). Featured participant: Knowledge restructuring and conceptual change. Evolution Challenges Conference, Phoenix, AZ. Kelemen, D. (2007, October). Soul purpose. Invited commentary for Paul Bloom's lecture "Bodies and Souls", Templeton Cognitive Science of Religion Lecture Series, Johns Hopkins, MD. Kelemen, D. (2006, July). Invited summer school faculty for the Budapest advanced research summer school “Cultural learning: A cross-cultural approach” hosted by the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Kelemen, D. (2006, June). Intuitive theism?: The teleo-functional bias and religious cognition. Invited paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Louis, MI. Kelemen, D. (2005, July). Invited summer school faculty for the Budapest advanced research summer school “Cultural learning, imitation, and artifact understanding: A comparative approach” hosted by the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. (Declined due to maternity leave) Kelemen, D. (2004, April). The development of beliefs about purpose and design Kelemen, D. (2003, November). The designing mind: Cognitive foundations to religious thought. Invited paper presented as part of the invited symposium “The Cognitive Science of Religion” presented at the Meeting of the American Academy of, Atlanta, GA. Kelemen, D. & Donovan, E. (2003, August). Purpose in mind: Teleological attribution and religious cognition. Conference on the Psychological and Cognitive of Religiosity, Atlanta, GA. Kelemen, D. (2002, March). Devils and designers: The origins of religious cognition. Minds and Gods: Cognition and Religion Conference, Ann Arbor, MI. Kelemen, D. (2001, May). Intention and design in children’s and adults’ reasoning about nature. Invited presentation for the conference “Thinking with Animals: Anthropomorphism in Historical and Contemporary Perspective.” Max Plank Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany. Kelemen, D. (2001, May). Workshop participant: Issues in the early development of perception and action. Max Plank Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, Germany. Kelemen, D. (1999, July). Teleological reasoning about agents and objects. Invited presentation for the invited symposium “Understanding Intentionality.” Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Warwick, England. |
Presentations: Peer Reviewed Symposia and Presentations at Professional Meetings Kelemen, D., Seston, R. & Ganea, P. (2009, October). Reasons to be cheerful: Young children can learn natural selection from picture books. Paper presented at the Conference of the Cognitive Development Society, San Antonio, TX. Kelemen, D. & Seston, R. (2009, October). Designing Minds: Four-year-olds understand how intended function constrains artifact structure. Poster presented at the Conference of the Cognitive Development Society, San Antonio, TX. Seston, R. Kelemen, D. & DiYanni, C. (2009, April). Children's tendency to succumb to social influence. Does majority opinion or prior reliability win? Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO. Kelemen, D. (2008, March). Discussant: Acquiring conventionality. Symposium presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Vancouver, Canada. Kelemen, D. (2008, March). Natural Born Pedagogy?: The role of mind-reading in cultural knowledge transmission. Symposium presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Vancouver, Canada. Caldwell-Phillips, B., Kelemen, D., Seston, R. & Casler, K. (2008, March). Young children can categorize novel tools by eavesdropping on others' intentional acts. Paper presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Vancouver, Canada. Caldwell-Phillips, B., Kelemen, D., Casler, K. & Seston, R. (2007, October). The influence of personal exploration on artifact categorization. Paper presented at the Conference of the Cognitive Development Society, Santa Fe, NM. DiYanni, C. & Kelemen, D. (2007, May). Children's imitation is influenced by knowledge of object design and agent reliability. Poster presented at the Conference of the Association for Psychological Science. Washington, D.C. Kelemen, D. & Rosset, E. (2007, May). Adults' teleo-functional ascriptions of purpose to nature. Paper presented at the Conference of the Jean Piaget Society: Meeting on Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Kelemen, D., Casler, K. & Caldwell-Philips, B. (2007, March). Fixedness and flexibility in children’s reasoning about artifacts and natural objects. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA. Lombrozo, T., Kelemen, D. & Zaitchik, D. (2006, July). Teleological explanation in Alzheimer’s disease patients. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Kelemen, D., Casler, K. & Phillips, B.C. (2006, May). Two-year-old children’s attributions of function to novel tools. Poster presented at the Conference of the Association for Psychological Science. New York, NY. Kelemen, D. (2005, April). Tools for the task: What action and naming studies reveal about children’s developing artifact concepts. Symposium presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA. Casler, K. & Kelemen, D. (2005, April). One tool, one function: Toddlers assign functions rapidly, exclusively, and enduringly. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA. DiYanni, C. & Kelemen, D. (2005, April). Using a bad tool with good intention: How preschoolers weigh physical and intentional cues when learning about artifacts. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA. Kelemen, D. (2005, April). Thinking with purpose: Is function intrinsic to young children’s conceptions of nature? Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA. Kelemen, D. (2005, April). Theories of mind and matter. Discussantpaper presented in the symposium Development of religious thinking: A cross-cultural perspective presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA. DiYanni, C. & Kelemen, D. (2005, April). Time to get a new mountain: The role of function in children’s conceptions of natural kinds. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA. Casler, K. & Kelemen, D. (2004, May). Inferring design by reading the mind: Children’s use of social cues to infer artifact function. Poster presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Chicago, IL. DiYanni, C. & Kelemen, D. (2004, May). How do young children learn about tools? The of physical and intentional cues. Poster presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Chicago, IL. Kelemen, D. (2003, October). Are children “intuitive theists”?: Teleological reasoning about purpose in nature. Paper presented at the Conference of the Cognitive Development Society, Park City, UT. Casler, K. & Kelemen, D. (2003, October). Teleological explanation and conceptual change: Reasoning about nature among Romanian Roma. Poster presented at the Conference of the Cognitive Development Society, Park City, UT. Kelemen, D., Callanan, M., Casler, K., Rosset, E. & Pérez-Granados, D.R. (2003, April). Why things happen: Teleological explanation in parent-child conversations. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, FL. Donovan, E. & Kelemen, D. (2003, April). Young children’s reasoning about natural phenomena. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, FL. Kelemen, D. & Markson, L. (2001, April). Understanding artifacts: Children's conception of intention and function. Symposium presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minnesota, MN. Kelemen, D. (2001, April). Intention in children’s understanding of artifact function. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minnesota, MN. Madole, K. & Kelemen, D. (2001, April). Raccoons cannot become skunks, but can a man become a woman?: Essentialist beliefs about social categories. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minnesota, MN. Kelemen, D. & German, T. (2000, July). Reasoning about function: Perspectives from infant, preschool and non-human primate research. Symposium presented at the International Conference for Infant Studies, Brighton, United Kingdom. Kelemen, D., Grobman, K. & Sumatka, B.M. (2000, July). The development of reasoning about function. Paper presented at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Brighton, United Kingdom. McDermott, M. & Kelemen, D. (2000, May). Children’s and adults’ reasoning about tool and body part function. Poster presented at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research, Missoula, MT. Kelemen, D. & Johnson, S. (1999, April). Objects, agents, and goals: Perspectives on teleological and intentional reasoning. Symposium presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, NM. Kelemen, D. (1999, April). Function, goals and intention: Children’s teleological intuitions about the purpose of objects. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, NM. Dennis, T. & Kelemen, D. (1999, April). Can I feel happy when I am sad?: Children's understanding of the relationship between intention and emotion. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Widdowson, D., Posner, T., Kelemen, D. & Brown, A.L. (1999, April). Determining domain-specific trajectories: First, second and fourth-grade inner city students' understanding of biological classification systems. Poster presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada. Kelemen, D. (1998, June). Beliefs about purpose: The scope of teleological thinking in young children. Paper presented at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Minneapolis, MN. Kelemen, D. (1998, May). Why are rocks pointy?: Children’s preference for functional explanations. Poster presented in the APS Showcase Poster Session, American Psychological Society Convention, Washington, D.C. Posner, T., Kelemen, D., Widdowson, D. & Brown, A.L. (1998, March). The body as a biological system: A child's view. Poster presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA. Kelemen, D., Widdowson, D., Posner, T. & Brown, A. L. (1997, April). Teleological reasoning in the biological domain. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Washington, D.C. Kelemen, D., Posner, T., Widdowson, D. & Brown, A. L. (1997, March). Teleological reasoning: Structure-function relations in biology. Poster presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. Kelemen, D. (1997, April). The development of teleological reasoning. Symposium paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Washington, D.C. Kelemen, D. (1996, May). Teleological thought in preschool children. Poster presented at the West Coast Theory of Mind Conference, Berkeley, CA. Kelemen, D. (1995, March). The nature and development of the teleological stance. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Indianapolis, IN. Bloom, P., Kelemen, D., Fountain, A. & Courtney, E. (1994, November). The acquisition of collective nouns. Paper presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA. Bloom, P. & Kelemen, D. (1994, April). Syntactic and conceptual factors in the acquisition of collective nouns. Paper presented at the 26th Annual Stanford Child Language Research Forum, Stanford, CA. Kelemen, D. (1993, March). The effects of domain-specific knowledge on categorization judgments. Paper presented at the Southwestern Cognitive Science Conference, Tucson, AZ. |
Presentations: Invited Colloquia Kelemen, D. (2010, March). The Human Function Compunction. Psychology Department Colloquium Series, Boston College. Kelemen, D. (2009, April). Intuitive theism? The teleological bias and its implications for biology education. Applied Developmental Colloquim Series, Boston College. Kelemen, D. (2009, March). The Human Function Compunction: Teleological bias and religious cognition. Presentation to the Religious and Psychological Well-being Research Group, Boston University. Kelemen, D. (2008, February). Are people "intuitive theists"?: Teleo-functional biases in children and adults. Masters Proseminar, Boston University. Kelemen, D. (2007, September). Are people "intuitive theists"?: Teleo-functional biases in children and adults. Developmental Psychology Series, University of Connecticut. Kelemen, D. (2004, October). Intuitive theism: Children’s reasoning about the function and design of natural and unnatural things. Department of Psychology Colloquium Series, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Kelemen, D. (2003, November). Are children “intuitive theists”?: Attributions of purpose and design to nature. Developmental Psychology Colloquium Series, Emory University. DiYanni, C. & Kelemen, D.(2003, April). How do young children learn about tools? Human Development Program Colloquium Series, Boston University. Casler, K. & Kelemen, D. (2003, April). Will any object do? Categorization by purpose and design. Human Development Program Colloquium Series, Boston University. Kelemen, D. (2002, Feb). Children’s beliefs about the natural world. Tufts University Daycare Talk Series, Boston. Kelemen, D. (2001, Feb). Children’s reasoning about design and object function. Department of Psychology, Yale University. Kelemen, D. (2000, April). Children’s beliefs about purpose: The development of teleological thought. Department of Psychology, Brown University. Kelemen, D. (2000, April). Children’s beliefs about purpose: The development of teleological thought. Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago. Kelemen, D. (2000, February). Children’s beliefs about purpose: The development of teleological thought. Department of Psychology, Boston University. Kelemen, D. (1999, November). Origins and artifact identity. Department of Psychology, Cognitive Brown Bag Series, Pennsylvania State University, . Kelemen, D. (1999, February). Children’s beliefs about the purpose of natural objects. Invited talk. Cognitive Science Colloquium Series, Lehigh University. Kelemen, D. (1998, April). Children’s beliefs about the purpose of natural objects. Department of Psychology Colloquium Series, University of Pittsburgh. Kelemen, D. (1998, July). Children’s teleological beliefs about purpose in nature. Cognitive Development Unit, Medical Research Council, London. Kelemen, D. (1997, November). The scope of teleological thought. Department of Psychology, Cognitive Brown Bag Series, Pennsylvania State University. Kelemen, D. (1997, February). Beliefs about purpose: The development of teleological thinking. Department of Psychology, Yale University. Kelemen, D. (1997, February). Beliefs about purpose: The development of teleological thinking. Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University. Kelemen, D. (1996, January). Naive theology?: The origin of beliefs about purpose. Behavior, Evolution and Development Colloquium Series, University of Arizona, Tucson. |