Collaborative Research: Generics in context: Examining mental biases and resources in social and science communication and learning

STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）领域缺乏多样性，阻碍了科学、技术和社会的进步。这个项目从两个角度来解决这个问题。首先，它对阻碍消除成就差距的认知和语言障碍产生了新的实证发现；其次，它建立了一个协作的跨学科指导计划，使两所少数民族服务机构的本科生和研究生受益。该项目采用跨学科的方法，研究如何利用儿童和成人可用的心理和语言资源，促进科学学习和有效的科学交流，在更大的社会结构背景下（“结构思维”）对社会不平等进行更深入的理解，并培养设想社会变革的能力。具体来说，该项目考察了人们如何在社会、生物和物理世界中学习、表达和交流可概括规律的发展轨迹。五项大型研究将几个认知科学学科（心理学、哲学和语言学）的方法和理论衔接起来，探讨了发展中的泛化和通用语言如何(i)受到时间、地点和其他情况下规律稳定性的影响，（ii）灵活并受限于特定背景（例如，今天的美国），以及（iii）影响教育和政治分歧中的（错误）沟通。总体而言，该项目阐明了STEM多元化的几个基本认知和沟通障碍，并确定了心理上可行的方法来克服这些障碍，同时为多元化和包容性的学生群体提供先进的指导和尖端研究方法的强化培训。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Lack of diversity in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) stifles scientific, technological and social progress. This project tackles this issue from two angles. First, it generates new empirical findings on cognitive and linguistic barriers that stand in the way of eliminating achievement disparities, and second, it builds a collaborative interdisciplinary mentoring program benefitting undergraduate and graduate students at two Minority-Serving Institutions. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the project investigates ways to harness the mental and linguistic resources available to children and adults to facilitate science learning and effective science communication, scaffold deeper understanding of social inequities in the context of larger social structures (“structural thinking”), and foster the capacity to envision social change.Specifically, this project examines the developmental trajectory of how people learn, represent and communicate about generalizable regularities in the social, biological and physical world. Bridging methodology and theory from several Cognitive Science disciplines (psychology, philosophy and linguistics), five large-scale studies explore how generalization and generic language across development can (i) be affected by the stability of a regularity across times, places, and other circumstances, (ii) be flexible and restricted to a context (e.g., the US today), and (iii) affect (mis)communication in education and across political divides. Overall, the project elucidates several fundamental cognitive and communicative barriers to diversifying STEM and identifies psychologically feasible ways to counteract them, while offering advanced mentoring and intensive training in cutting-edge research methods to a diverse and inclusive group of students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.