University of London
Goldsmiths

SCAPA Invited Speaker Series 2024-25
6 Feb 2025
Marina Bazhydai
Lancaster University
Abstract
Curiosity, wonder and creativity hold a special place in the study of human development as core mechanisms behind knowledge acquisition and knowledge transformation. As such, curiosity drives information seeking, wonder expands and enriches the quest for knowledge to new dimensions, and creativity enables transformation of existing knowledge and generation of new, original knowledge about the world. These capacities are already present, albeit in rudimentary forms, and reliably observable in early childhood. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the processes of curiosity, wonder and creativity, the links between them, and their developmental trajectories are currently poorly understood. In this talk, I will present recent studies aiming to develop measures of curiosity and wonder in children, and explore how curiosity and wonder relate to creativity, focusing on conceptual and methodological considerations.
Bio
Dr Marina Bazhydai is Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at Lancaster University where she leads the Active Learning Lab (http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/all) focusing on the study of children’s information seeking, information transformation, and information transmission.