Biography
George Kachergis is Lead Research Scientist at Skillprint, where he applies computational models of learning and cognition to game-based mood and skill assessment, and continues as a research scientist in Stanford University’s Language & Cognition Lab. His research seeks to understand how memory and attention support language learning and skill development. He is particularly interested in creating computational explanations of how cognitive skills develop in children, with an eye towards making AI that is more human-like.
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Interests
- Human Learning and Memory
- Language Development
- Computational Cognitive Models
- Artificial Intelligence
- Educational Games
Education
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Lead Research Scientist, 2022-present
Skillprint
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Research Scientist in the Language & Cognition Lab, 2018-present
Stanford University
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Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence, 2016-2018
Radboud University / Donders Institute
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Postdoctoral Scholar in the Computation & Cognition Lab, 2015-2016
New York University
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Postdoctoral Scholar on the RoboHow Project, 2013-2014
Leiden University
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PhD in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science, 2012
Indiana University
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BA in Computer Science and Cognitive Studies, 2007
Carleton College
Featured Publications
Recent Publications
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(2026).
Automated Adversarial Collaboration for Advancing Theory Building in the Cognitive Sciences.
(2026).
Continuous developmental changes in word recognition and language learning across early childhood.
eLife.
(2025).
Learning Variability Network Exchange (LEVANTE): A global framework for measuring children’s learning variability through collaborative data sharing.
Child Development.
(2024).
Comparing apples to manzanas and oranges to naranjas: A new measure of English-Spanish vocabulary for dual language learners.
Infancy.
(2024).
Using Psychometrics to Improve Cognitive Models--and Theory.
Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2023).
Measuring children’s early vocabulary in low-resource languages using a Swadesh-style word list.
Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2023).
Online computerized adaptive tests of children’s vocabulary (CDI-CAT).
MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories User’s Guide and Technical Manual (3rd Ed.).
(2023).
The CDI-III.
MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories User’s Guide and Technical Manual (3rd Ed.).
(2023).
Video games as a path to a contextualized cognitive science, or How to move beyond 20 questions with nature.
Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2022).
A critical period for robust curriculum-based deep reinforcement learning of sequential action in a robot arm.
Topics in Cognitive Science.
(2022).
A longitudinal analysis of the social information in infants' naturalistic visual experience using automated detections.
Developmental Psychology.
(2022).
Active learners learn what simple samplers cannot: A Zipf-distributed vocabulary from limited data.
(2022).
An automated classifier for child-directed speech from LENA recordings.
Proceedings of the 46th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD).
(2022).
An Online Computerized Adaptive Test (CAT) of Children's Vocabulary Development in English and Mexican Spanish.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
(2022).
Behavioral Optimization in a Robotic Serial Reaching Task using Predictive Information.
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems.
(2022).
Estimating demographic bias on tests of children’s early vocabulary.
Topics in Cognitive Science.
(2022).
Estimating demographic bias on tests of children’s early vocabulary.
Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2022).
Peekbank: An open, large-scale repository for developmental eye-tracking data of children’s word recognition.
Behavior Research Methods.
(2022).
Plurality is a good start, but it's time for unification.
Language Learning.
(2021).
A longitudinal analysis of the social information in infants' naturalistic visual experience using automated detections.
Developmental Psychology.
(2021).
Characterizing the object categories two children see and interact with in a dense dataset of naturalistic visual experience.
Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2021).
Detecting social information in a dense database of infants' natural visual experience.
Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2021).
Exploring variation in infants' preference for infant-directed speech: Evidence from a multi-site study in Africa.
Developmental Science.
(2021).
Peekbank: Exploring children's word recognition through an open, large-scale repository for developmental eye-tracking data.
Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2021).
Predicting children's and adults' preferences in physical interactions via physics simulation.
Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2021).
Toward a ``Standard Model'' of Early Language Learning.
Current Directions in Psychological Science.
(2020).
What counts as an exemplar model, anyway? A commentary on Ambridge (2020).
First Language.
(2019).
Computational and robotic models of early language development: A review.
Handbook on Language Development.
(2019).
Evidence of error-driven cross-situational word learning.
Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2019).
Exploring informal science interventions to promote children's understanding of natural categories.
Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2018).
Detecting reading strategies during task-oriented reading: Building an automated classifier.
Workshop on Personalization Approaches in Learning Environments at AIED 2018.
(2018).
Optimized behavior in a robot model of sequential action.
Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2018).
Predictive movements in human reinforcement learning of sequential action.
Cognitive Science.
(2018).
The other human in the loop: A pilot study to find selection strategies for active learning.
2018 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN).
(2018).
Word Learning: Associations or Hypothesis Testing?.
Current Biology.
(2017).
'Leveraging mutual exclusivity for faster cross-situational word learning: A theoretical analysis'.
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2017).
Children's familiarity preference in self-directed study improves recognition memory.
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2017).
Desirable difficulties in the development of active inquiry skills.
Cognition.
(2017).
Executive function and attention predict low-income preschoolers' active category learning.
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2017).
IQ and working memory predict plan-based sequential action learning.
Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2017).
Observing and modeling developing knowledge and uncertainty during cross-situational word learning.
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems.
(2017).
Quantifying the impact of active choice in word learning.
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2016).
A bootstrapping model of frequency and contextual diversity effects in word learning.
Cognitive Science.
(2016).
A Dream Model: Reactivation and re-encoding mechanisms for sleep-dependent memory consolidation.
Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2016).
Desirable difficulties in the development of active inquiry skills.
Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2016).
Human reinforcement learning of sequential action.
Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2015).
Robotic action control: On the crossroads of cognitive psychology and robotics.
Cognitive Robotics.
(2015).
Should androids dream of electric sheep? Mechanisms for sleep-dependent memory consolidation.
International Conference on Cognitive Modeling.
(2014).
A continuous time neural model for sequential action.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
(2014).
Continuous measure of word learning supports associative model.
protectIEEE Conference on Development and Learning-EpiRob (ICDL).
(2014).
Cross-situational word learning is both implicit and strategic.
Frontiers in Cognitive Science.
(2014).
Developing semantic knowledge through cross-situational learning.
Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2014).
Everyday robotic action: Lessons from human action control.
Frontiers in Neurorobotics.
(2014).
Reward effects on sequential action learning in a trajectory serial reaction time task.
IEEE Conference on Development and Learning / EpiRob 2014.
(2014).
Trajectory effects in a novel serial reaction time task.
Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2013).
Actively Learning Object Names Across Ambiguous Situations.
Topics in Cognitive Science.
(2013).
More naturalistic cross-situational word learning.
Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2013).
Naturalistic word-concept pair learning with semantic spaces.
Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2013).
Similarity and strategic effects in recognition memory.
Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2013).
The effects of repeated sequential context on recognition memory.
Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2012).
Actively learning nouns across ambiguous situations.
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2012).
An associative model of adaptive inference for learning word--referent mappings.
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
(2012).
Cross-situational Word Learning is Better Modeled by Associations than Hypotheses.
protectIEEE Conference on Development and Learning-EpiRob (ICDL).
(2012).
Gaussian Process Regression for Trajectory Analysis.
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2012).
Learning Nouns with Domain-General Associative Learning Mechanisms.
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2012).
Mechanisms for cross-situational learning of word-referent mappings: Empirical and modeling evidence.
(2012).
Re-learning Labeled Categories Reveals Structured Representations.
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2011).
Adaptive Magnitude and Valence Biases in a Dynamic Memory Task.
Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2011).
OrBEAGLE: Integrating Orthography into a Holographic Model of the Lexicon.
Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks.
(2011).
Towards a Scalable Holographic Word-form Representation.
Behavior Research Methods.
(2010).
A Cue Imputation Bayesian Model of Information Aggregation.
Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2010).
Adaptive constraints and inference in cross-situational word learning.
Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2010).
Cross-Situational Statistical Learning: Implicit or Intentional?.
Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2010).
Is categorical perception really verbally mediated perception?.
Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2010).
Simultaneous Cross-situational Learning of Category and Object Names.
Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2009).
Frequency and contextual diversity effects in cross-situational word learning.
Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2009).
Temporal contiguity in cross-situational statistical learning.
Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
(2007).
Depth of Field and Cautious-Greedy Routing in Social Networks.
Proceedings of 18th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation.