Diane Poulin-Dubois

Research areas: Cognitive Development (categorization, selective trust, theory of mind) Language Development (bilingualism);

Biography

Education

PhD (Université de Montréal)
Postdoctoral Fellow (McGill; Harvard University)

Research interests

My research interests center on early cognitive and language development. A first area of research concerns the cognitive benefits of bilingualism during the first years of life (NSERC Discovery Grant). A second area of research concerns early social cognition, particularly the development of a theory of mind during the first two years of life (SSHRC Insight grant). At what age and how infants attribute desires, emotions, and intentions is currently being examined by comparing infants' behaviors towards people and robots. My team is also conducting research on selective learning by exploring trust in robot vs. human informants in collaboration with research teams in Italy, Singarore and US.

Teaching activities

Undergraduate-Level

PSYC 431 Infancy

PSYC 364 Fundamentals of Cognition

Graduate-Level

PSYC 714 Central Topics, Graduate Seminar

PSYC 725 Current Issues in Developmental Science, Special Topic Seminar

Psyc 726. Executive Functions across the lifespan, Special Topic Seminar

Selected publications

Recent publications

Magnini, M., Poulin-Dubois, D., Goldman, E. J., Tacci, A. L., Aquilino, L., Manzi, F., Baumann, A. E., Massaro, D., & Marchetti, A. (2027). Social priming enhances young children’s trust in robots. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 273, 106618. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2026.106618

Fratino, V., Zaharakis, E., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2026). Training word learning in toddlers: Translation equivalents are more challenging to learn than native language words and facilitate working memory growth. Infant Behavior and Development, 84, 102231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2026.102231

Piuze, A., Jennings, S., & Poulin‐Dubois, D. (2026). A test of the cognitive benefits of bilingualism with the early childhood inhibitory touchscreen task. Infancy, 31(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.70118

Poulin-Dubois, D., & Goldman, E. J. (2026). Do infants attribute false beliefs to a visible agent with no visual access? Cognitive Development, 79, 101745. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101745

Smolak, E., Michaud, E., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2026). Predicting vocabulary development in bilingual children using early measures of word comprehension. International Journal of Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069261451719

Dragon, M., Montpetit, B., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2026). Why copy faithfully? Examining the role of social affiliation and norms understanding in preschoolers’ overimitation. Cognitive Development, 78, 101706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101706

2025

Poulin-Dubois, D. (2025). Theory of Mind in Childhood. Cambridge University Press.

Nicoladis, E., Morin, A. J. S., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2025). Does pointing predict bilingual children’s vocabulary? Language Acquisition, , 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2025.2534392

Dragon, M. & Poulin Dubois, D. (2025). “I Wanna Be Like You”: Testing the Link between Social Affiliation and Overimitation in Infancy. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, 3, 1559513. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdpys.2025.1559513

Goldman, E. J., Baumann, A-E., Pare, L., Beaudoin, J., & Poulin Dubois, D. (2025). Children’s attribution of mental states to humans and social robots assessed with the Theory of Mind Scale. Scientific Reports, 15, 16357. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-96229-7

2024

Goldman, J. & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2024). Children’s anthropomorphism of inanimate agents. WIREs Cognitive Sciencess https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1676

Dutemple, E., Brokl, C., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2024). I think therefore I learn: Metacognition is a better predictor of school readiness than executive functions. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdpys.2024.1332358

Schuwerk, T., Kampis, D., Baillargeon, R., Biro, S., Bohn, M., Byers-Heinlein, K., ..., Poulin-Dubois, D., M. C., Rakoczy, H. (accepted pending data collection). Action anticipation based on an agent's epistemic state in toddlers and adults. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/x4jbm

2023

Baumann, A-E., Goldman, E. J., Cobos, M-G. C., & Poulin-Dubois, P. (2023) Do preschoolers trust a competent robot pointer? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 5(238), 105783. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105783

Poulin-Dubois, D. & Goldman, E. J. (2023). Is False Belief Understanding Stable from Infancy to Childhood? We don’t know yet. Cognitive Development, 66(5), 101309. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2023.101309.

Poulin-Dubois, D., Goldman, E. J., Meltzer, A., & Psaradellis, E. (2023). Discontinuity from implicit to explicit theory of mind from infancy to preschool age. Cognitive Development, 65, 101273. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101273

Dutemple, E., Hakimi, H. & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2023). Who knows best? Studying the link between children’s monitoring and control skills, theory of mind, and selective social learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 227. 105572. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105572

Goldman, E. J., Baumann, A. E. & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2023). Of children and social robots. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, e35. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X22001583.

Dragon, M., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2023). To copy or not to copy: A Comparison of Selective Trust and overimitation in young children. Cognitive Development, 66, 101316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2023.101316.

Goldman, E. J., Baumann, A.-E., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2023). Preschoolers’ anthropomorphizing of robots: Do human-like properties matter? Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1102370. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1102370.

Baumann, A-E., Goldman, E. J., Meltzer, A. & Poulin-Dubois, D. (2023). People Do Not Always Know Best: Preschoolers’ Trust in Social Robots. Journal of Cognition and Development, 24(4), 535-562. doi: 10.1080/15248372.2023.2178435.