Lisa M. Oakes is an American psychologist and professor who has made major contributions to understanding infant cognitive development. She wrote an influential book, Developmental Cascades: Building the Infant MindOakes, L. M., & Rakison, D. H. (2019). Developmental cascades: Building the infant mind. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195391893. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195391893.001.0001(with David Rakison), which promotes a cascades approach to conceptualizing development. She also wrote a textbook on infant psychological development, Infancy: The development of the whole child Oakes, L. M., LoBue, V., & Casasola, M. (2023). Infancy: The Development of the Whole Child. SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781071830987. (with Vanessa LoBue and Marianella Casasola). From 2018 to 2020, she was the President of the International Congress on Infant Studies (ICIS), the major professional society for research on infant psychological development, and she is currently Editor-in-Chief of the society's journal, Infancy.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15327078, Published by Wiley.
Biography
In 1985, Oakes received a B.A. in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, where she worked with Elizabeth Bates and Jeffrey O. Miller In 1991, she received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin, where she worked with Leslie B. Cohen. She then took a faculty position in the Department of Psychology at the University of Iowa, where she was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and Professor in 2004. In 2006, she moved to the Department of Psychology and the Center for Mind & Brain at the University of California, Davis, where she is currently a Distinguished Professor.
Oakes is the eldest child of education scholar Jeannie Oakes.
Research contributions
Oakes's research has focused on how infants come to understand the world. She has focused on how they learn to perceive causalityOakes, L. M., & Cohen, L. B. (1990). Infant perception of a causal event. ‘’’Cognitive Development’’’, 5, 193-207. https://doi.org/10.1016/0885-2014(90)90026-P and categorize objects Oakes, L. M., Coppage, D. J., & Dingel, A. (1997). By land and by sea: The role of perceptual similarity in infants’ categorization of animals. Developmental Psychology, 33, 396-407. https://doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.33.3.396 how their ability to direct attention becomes more sophisticated over development,Oakes, L. M. (2023). The cascading development of visual attention in infancy: Learning to look and looking to learn. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32, 410-417. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214231178 and how they develop the ability to store and use information in working memory.Ross-Sheehy, S., Oakes, L. M., & Luck, S. J. (2003). The development of visual short-term memory capacity in infants. Child Development, 74, 1807-1822. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-8624.2003.00639.xOakes, L. M., Ross-Sheehy, S., & Luck, S. J. (2006). Rapid development of feature binding in visual short-term memory. Psychological Science, 17, 781-787. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01782 Her general theoretical view is that development is a set of cascading interactions between the environment and the infant, in which the infant's developing psychological and physical abilities impact the input they receive from the environment (e.g., the ability to sit changes the visual input), and the environmental inputs then impact further development.Oakes, L.M. (2017). Plasticity may change inputs as well as processes, structures, and responses. Cognitive Development, 42, 4-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.02.012 As Editor-in-Chief of Infancy, she has stressed the importance of conducting research with infants from a broad range of societies and cultures across the globe Singh, L., Cristia, A., Karasik, L.B., Rajendra, S.J., & Oakes, L.M., (2023). Diversity and representation in infant research: Barriers and bridges towards a globalized science of infant development. Infancy, 28, 708-737. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12545
She has argued that it is not useful to study the development of individual cognitive processes in isolation with the hope that the resulting theories can later be integrated; this leads to what she called the “Humpty Dumpty problem,” in which the pieces corresponding to the individual processes cannot easily be put back together again.Oakes, L. M. (2009). The “Humpty Dumpty” problem in the study of early cognitive development: Putting the infant back together again. Current Perspectives in Psychological Science, 4, 352-358. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01137.x She has also been a leader in developing and using eye tracking methods in infancy Oakes, L. M. (2012). Advances in eye tracking in infancy research, Infancy, 17, 1-8. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2011.00101.x and has promoted best practices for quantifying and optimizing statistical power in infant research.DeBolt, M. C., Rhemtulla, M., & Oakes, L. M. (2020). Robust data and power in infant research: A case study of the effect of number of infants and number of trials in visual preference procedures. Infancy, 25, 393-419. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12337Visser, I., Kucharsky, S., Levelt, C., Stefan, A.M., Wagenmakers, E-J., & Oakes, L.M. (2024). Bayesian sample size planning for developmental studies. Infant and Child Development, 33, e2412 https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2412Oakes, L. M. (2017). Sample size, statistical power, and false conclusions in infant looking‐time research. Infancy, 22, 436-469. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12186
Awards and honors
Oakes is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and Divisions 3 and 7 of the American Psychological Association She won the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award in Developmental Psychology in 2022 for Developmental Cascades: Building the Infant Mind (with David Rakison). She has also won several teaching awards from the University of California, Davis, including the Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award in 2023, the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research in 2024, and the Distinguished Teaching Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 2025.
Representative publications
Oakes, L. M., & Cohen, L. B. (1990). Infant perception of a causal event. Cognitive Development, 5, 193–207. Infant perception of a causal event Madole, K. L., & Oakes, L. M. (1999). Making sense of infant categorization: Stable processes and changing representations. Developmental Review, 19, 263–296. Making Sense of Infant Categorization: Stable Processes and Changing Representations Ross-Sheehy, S., Oakes, L. M., & Luck, S. J. (2003). The development of visual short-term memory capacity in infants. Child Development, 74, 1807–1822. The Development of Visual Short-Term Memory Capacity in Infants Pomaranski, K. I., Hayes, T. R., Kwon, M.-K., Henderson, J. M., & Oakes, L. M. (2021). Developmental changes in natural scene viewing in infancy. Developmental Psychology, 57,1025–1041. Developmental changes in natural scene viewing in infancy.
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