Early Social Development Lab
Institute of Child Study

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About Dr. Kang Lee

Our Research

Dr. Kang Lee supervises the Early Social Development Lab and the Child Development Research Group. Within the Early Social Development Lab we are currently conducting studies with babies aged 0-9 months involving something that we call “face processing”. Past research has shown that from a very early age babies prefer to look at faces over other objects. We are trying to find out more about how early babies can recognize different types of faces and what information they use to do so. We ask questions like: At what age do babies begin to recognize their own mother’s face? When can babies begin to tell the difference between male and female faces? Do babies prefer to look at the faces of other babies over the faces of adults? The answers to questions like these are important and relevant not only to developmental researchers like us, but also to parents, caregivers, teachers, and physicians.

Research like ours contributes to a clearer understanding of how infants’ minds grow and develop and allows us to be better equipped to nurture that development. It also helps us find new ways to identify and treat developmental problems that may occur, such as autism. Our research depends entirely on the volunteer participation of parents and their infants. Without this participation we cannot continue this valuable and interesting work. Our research is supported by federal grants from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and has been approved by the University of Toronto Research Ethics Committee. Our studies are all non-diagnostic in nature and we are interested in general developmental trends, not the responses of individual babies.

If you think you might be interested in participating in one of our studies and would like more information please visit our Contact Us page.

For links to list of selected publications please visit our Publications page.