Memory and
Development Lab
Dept of Psychology, Washington University
Dept of Psychology, Washington University
Research
projects
Evolution and
Culture
We study cognitive systems and developmental paths that support the acquisition of cultural concepts and norms. Evolution by natural selection results in specific capacities and dispositions for the acquisition of. e.g. subtle moral feelings, complicated mathematical concepts, notions of social groups, coalitions and social categories, as well as many other domain-specific principles and intuitions. Our aim is to show how these evolved dispositions shape human culture.
Lurking
in the dark...
Threat-Detection and Precaution
Threat-Detection and Precaution
Normal human minds are equipped with specific mechanisms detecting and preempting potentially costly environmental cues. Particularly costly are enemy presence, predator proximity, predictable decline in resources, sources of contagion and contamination, situations of social strife or exclusion. We are running cross-cultural studies on the processes whereby people detect such potential threats and make their environments safer.
Why
Perform
Rituals?
Precaution Systems and Ritual
Precaution Systems and Ritual
We are working on a general model of ritualized behaviour (observed in cultural rituals, in many children’s complicated routines, in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders). We use evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuro-psychology and neuro-imaging, as well as our own experimental evidence, to test a general model of ritualized action in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared to the detection of and reaction to specific threats to fitness. See articles page for more on the Precaution model.
Who
told
you
that?
Source memory and inference
Source memory and inference
Humans depend on information provided by conspecifics. A whole variety of cognitive processes are engaged in gauging the reliability of this information, in terms both of its intrinsic plausibility and in terms of source quality. We are studying the way children and adults encode and remember sources of information and how that influences inferential processes.
Origins of Truth
Intuitive epistemics
Intuitive epistemics
Young children's mathematical intuitions support the gradual acquisition of complex counting systems. But what shaped these intuitions? We examine the influence of various contexts of mathematical inference (e.g;. foraging, social exchange) on our untutored intuitions about number.
Past projects
See the articles page and the books page for references on previous research projects: on religious concepts and their evolutionary roots, on animacy and causation detection, and other themes.