Anouk Lepage

Papers

Total Citations

153

H-Index

About

Anouk Lepage is a developmental psychologist whose pioneering research has fundamentally shaped our understanding of how infants perceive and categorize the world around them. Her work centers on the origins of cognitive concepts, particularly animacy—the ability to distinguish living from non-living things. Lepage’s most influential study, "Infants' concept of animacy" (1996), has garnered 153 citations and remains a cornerstone in early cognitive development. In this seminal paper, she demonstrated that even pre-verbal infants possess sophisticated intuitions about motion patterns, using cues like self-propulsion to identify animate agents. This finding challenged previous assumptions about the timeline of conceptual development, revealing that core knowledge emerges far earlier than thought. Beyond this, Lepage has explored how these early concepts scaffold later social cognition and language acquisition. Her work bridges developmental psychology and philosophy of mind, offering profound insights into the innate foundations of human reasoning. For students and researchers, Lepage’s research is essential reading for anyone interested in the building blocks of cognition and the remarkable capabilities of the infant mind.