Skip to main content

Psychological Sciences

Psychological Sciences
  2. People
  3. Profile

Megan Saylor

Professor of Psychology and Human Development
Department Chair

Dr. Saylor's research focuses on how children learn about language and the mind. In recent studies she has focused on the intersection between language and representation. In particular, she asks how weak versus strong representations affect language comprehension during infancy. In other research she asks how infants and children use information about others' minds (what they know and want) to figure out what they mean when they use novel words or ask for absent things. In recent work, she has been investigating active learning in the context early word learning. 

Lab Website

Representative Publications

  • *Tippenhauer, N., *Sun, Y,  *Jimenez, S., *Greene, M., & Saylor, M. M. (in press). Preschoolers Judge Definition Quality. Journal of Experimental Child     Psychology.
  •  
  • *Osina, M., Needham, A. & Saylor, M. M. (in press). Twelve-month-old infants  respond to speech about absent inaccessible objects. Child Development.
  •  
  • *Tippenhauer, N. & Saylor, M. M. (2019). Effects of context variability on two-year- olds’ fact and word learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 179, 248-259.
  •  
  • Troseth, G. L., *Strouse, G. A., *Verdine, B. N., & Saylor, M. M. (2018). Let’s chat:On Screen social responsiveness is not sufficient to support toddlers’ word learning from video. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2195.
  •  
  • * Osina, M. A., Saylor, M. M., & Ganea, P. A. (2018). Infants Use Category Label Knowledge to  Interpret Absent Reference. Infancy, 23 (5), 650-673.
  •  
  • *Strouse, G. A., Troseth, G. T., *O’Doherty, K., & Saylor, M. M. (2018). Co-Viewing and contingency support toddlers learning from video. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 166, 310-326.
  •  
  • *Jimenez, S. R. & Saylor, M. M. (2017). Word learning from picture books. Cognitive Development, 44, 57-68.
  •  
  • * Osina, M., & Saylor, M. (2017). Infants’ Use of Intonation to Interpret Ambiguous Reference. Psychology. Journal of Higher School of Economics, 14(2), 236-249.
  •  
  • *Osina, M., Saylor, M. M., Ganea, P. (2017). Out of reach, Out of mind? Infants’ comprehension of references to hidden in accessible objects. Child Development, 88, 1572-1580.