Tongyao Zhang 张童谣

Hi! I'm currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University. I work with Dr. Ben Motz at the Change Lab.

I received my Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology and Cognitive Science working with Dr. Emily Fyfe. My dissertation focused on children's early patterning skill and its relationship with cognitive development, particularly numerical knowledge. Please check out this critical review to read more about my research rationales and future directions.

My first name sounds like: tone-yaw. My pronouns are she/they, but sometimes I get called "sir" and that's okay.

Research interests

My research examines learning processes and explores the nature of knowledge and intelligence. I am interested in questions such as: How do children understand patterns, relations, and numbers? How does the design of the learning materials shape learners' conceptual understanding? What do interactions between human learners and AI-based learning tools tell us about reasoning, conceptualization, and memory in humans and AI systems?

Cognitive development and learning
Reasoning and higher-order cognition
AI in education