Since April, Dr. María Emilia Oñate has been conducting her postdoctoral research with a CONICET grant co-financed by the Universidad Austral, based at our Institute of Philosophy. She holds a Bachelor's and a Doctorate in Psychology from the Catholic University of Argentina. Since 2009, she has taught Personality Psychology at the Catholic University of Argentina, and since 2017, she has taught the Thesis Workshop at the University of the Cuenca del Plata.

Her research project is titled “ Children’s Distinction Regarding the Capacity for Prior Knowledge of Human and Non-Human Agents.” It aims to determine whether children aged 4 to 6 can differentiate between various types of human and non-human agents (animal and divine) and whether this distinction changes as they grow. To this end, a longitudinal study will be conducted with two groups of children. Cognitive development and theory of mind will be assessed, and three tests will be administered to evaluate the attribution of prior knowledge to these agents. The study will examine whether children attribute different capacities for prior knowledge to human agents (mother or caregiver) and non-human agents (dog and God). Furthermore, it will determine whether the attribution of prior knowledge to different agents (human and non-human) changes as children grow, specifically in two groups of children aged 4 to 5 and 5 to 6. Finally, the study will examine changes in theory of mind capacity in these two groups of children. Finally, we will analyze whether the theory of mind capacity achieved by the child affects changes in the levels of attribution of prior knowledge to different agents (human and non-human) as they grow up.