Philippe Rochat, Ph.D.

Philippe Rochat is currently a professor in the department of psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Geneva in Switzerland and subsequently worked as a post-doc at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been on the faculty at Emory since 1991 after leaving his faculty post at the University of Massachusettes, Amherst.

His research that is of most relevance to the current course focuses on the development and ontogeny of self-recognition and self-awareness in infants. His lab is also working on a number of other new and related projects: Currently they have been working on the development of face recognition in infants and the impact of cultural development and how it interacts with emerging theories of mind.

Dr. Rochat has recently published a book ("The Infants World" in 2001) which takes a close look at recent literature regarding how infants come to understand themselves in relation to the world and others. It is clear from the description of this book that Rochat falls in line with thinkers that tend to think of infants as more than "little monkeys". His viewpoints are more in line with those of researchers like Colwyn Trevarthen  than thinkers like Michael Lewis who consider infants to have very limited experiences.

Most Cited Article (80 citations):

Simon, TJ, Hespos, SJ, Rochat P. (1995).  Do Infants Understand Simple Arithmetic - A Replication of Wynn (1992). Cognitive Development, 10 (2), 253-269.