Sara Cordes' research is centered upon understanding how infants, children, and adults keep track of numbers, time, and other quantities, and how these quantitative abilities relate to more formal mathematical abilities. She is interested in how early experiences may influence later mathematical abilities and attitudes towards mathematics, as well as how early numerical abilities may intersect with prosocial development. Additional areas of interest are infant and child cognitive development; math learning; influences of language and context on learning; the influence of emotion on quantitative processing; rational number understanding (fractions, decimals) and its relationship to algebraic competence; and mathematics education. Dr. Cordes has been co-author to a over 30 journal publications, among them: “Fewer Things Lasting Longer: The Effects of Emotional Stimuli on Quantity Judgments” (Psychological Science);  “The Influence of Perceptual Variability on Preschoolers’ Understanding of Cardinality” (Journal of Cognition and Development); “The Development of Area Discrimination and its Implications for Number Representation in Infancy” (Developmental Science); “Being Sticker Rich: Children’s Propensity To Give In Response to Increased Need and Resources (PLOS One); “Signal Clarity: An Account of the Variability in Infant Quantity Discrimination Tasks” (Developmental Science); “Comparing Fractions, Decimals, and Whole Numbers: Rational Number Understanding in Adults (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance); “Numerical Cognition Explains Age-Related Changes in Third-Party Fairness” (Developmental Psychology); and “Crossing the Divide: Infants Discriminate Small From Large Numerosities” (Developmental Psychology)