“I see a rubber duck” – babies categorise objects in the brain at just two months old
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Our article "Infants have rich visual categories in ventrotemporal cortex at 2 months of age" was published in Nature Neuroscience. It has been widely cited in press, radio and TV worldwide.
Altmetrics ranked it as the top article of 50 of a similar age in this journal, and in the top 0.05% of articles published worldwide for media attention. Read the Press Release
This study has been featured in more than 100 news outlets globally!
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Infants participating in their FOUNDCOG scan with their caregivers
Listen to the findings:
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Babies use ‘helpless’ infant period to learn powerful foundation models, just like ChatGPT
Prof Rhodri Cusack, together with collaborators Christine Charvet from Google DeepMind and Marc’Aurelio Ranzato from Auburn University, published the provocative opinion piece “Helpless infants are learning a foundation model” in Trends in Cognitive Sciences. The paper proposes that human infants use their prolonged period of postnatal helplessness to learn powerful “foundation models” that support later cognition, drawing parallels with pre-training in modern AI systems. Read the Press Release.
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The piece has sparked many fascinating conversations and lively academic debate, including a published commentary, “‘Helpless’ infants are active, goal-directed agents: response to Cusack et al.”, followed by the authors’ reply, “Defending the foundation model view of infant development.”
How babies can unlock the next generation of artificial intelligence
Lorijn Zaadnoordijk and Rhodri Cusack from the lab, and a collaborator Tarek Besold, published an article "Lessons from infant learning for unsupervised machine learning" in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence. It was featured in the media in countries such as Australia, India, United States, United Kingdom, India, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Croatia, Bangladesh, and Argentina.
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Events
Zero is an Even Number
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Zero is an Even Number was an exhibition of new work by artist Cian McLoughlin, developed during his 2024 residency at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. The work was inspired in part by research from the FOUNDCOG project, exploring how infants perceive and organise visual information.
The exhibition was presented at the Molesworth Gallery in November, including a panel event where McLoughlin was joined by Prof Rhodri Cusack and Dr Cliona O'Doherty to discuss his work and its connections to infant visual development. |
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Baby Groove
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babyGROOVE was a 70s-inspired show for babies under 12 months, presented at Trinity College Dublin in March 2022. Created by Anna Newell Theatre Adventures, the production combined harmony singing, immersive video, movement and free play.
The residency took place in the former Science Gallery as part of Creative Brain Week, in collaboration with the FOUNDCOG project at Trinity College Institute for Neuroscience. babyGROOVE was part of The Network for Extraordinary Audiences programme and was funded by the Arts Council of Ireland. |
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Bach for Babies
Bach for Babies was a classical Christmas concert for infants, held on 6 December in collaboration with Trinity Orchestra. The programme combined infant lullabies with well-known classical works, including Ave Maria and Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, alongside music by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.
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Look Who's Learning
Look Who’s Learning was held as part of European Researchers’ Night in collaboration with Filskit Theatre. The event invited young participants to think about what might be happening inside an infant’s mind, introducing some of the questions we investigate in the Cusack Lab through an interactive theatre experience.
A recording of the event is available to watch here.
A recording of the event is available to watch here.
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Prof Cusack on the Radio
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