Final answer:
Dr. Lou is a cognitive psychologist studying children's cognitive mental processes. His research focuses on how children create and adjust their mental schemas to understand the world around them, particularly how they differentiate between animals like horses and dogs.
Step-by-step explanation:
Dr. Lou is a cognitive psychologist. His most recent study involved an exploration of how children understand the difference between a horse and a dog, which means he is studying their cognitive mental processes. Cognitive psychology is a field that focuses on the way people think, perceive, remember, and learn. This study of children's understanding relates to the development of schemas, which are mental concepts that inform a person about what to expect from a variety of experiences and situations.
For example, the concept of a schema is illustrated by how 2-year-old Abdul has learned to categorize dogs. When he encounters animals with similar features, such as four legs and fur, he assimilates them into his existing schema for dogs. However, when he misidentifies a sheep as a dog, his mother's correction requires him to accommodate his schema to differentiate between dogs and other animals. The study of schemas is a critical part of understanding cognitive development in psychology.