Research

I am interested broadly in what it means for people to understand, especially in the sense that we find most valuable (e.g., as in the ‘aha’ moment of an insight when we suddenly understand something better, or the sense of ‘really understanding’ another person that can be so deeply valuable). In studying this, my work uses an interdisciplinary approach, which integrates social, cognitive, philosophical, and computational perspectives, and combines human behavioral studies and formal mathematical/computational modelling (e.g., Bayesian cognitive modelling).

Within this, my research focuses on three areas: emotion, explanation, stereotyping. Some of the key questions examined in these areas are listed below.

1) EMOTIONS:

How can a computational based approach to emotions shed light on the nature and function emotions, and the importance of understanding in resolving emotions?

• Example question include: What are the underlying computations involved in different emotions (e.g. different kinds of value-updating), and how can they be formalized (e.g. within a reinforcment learning framework)? How can this shed light on what it mean to ‘resolve’ an emotion, and why people sometimes get ‘stuck’ in emotions? What role does understanding play in helping people resolve emotions (e.g., understanding exactly what emotion one is feeling, or understanding what triggered the emotion)?

2) EXPLANTION:

What makes for a subjectively good explanation (i.e., a subjectively good way of understanding something)? 

• Example questions include: Why do we often prefer simpler explanations, and what computational and cognitive functions might this serve? If simplicity can serve multiple functions (e.g. promoting cognitive efficiency, signaling more probable explanations), can we dissociate these, and distinguish which function is at play in a given situation? Is one of these functions particularly linked to why we seem to find simpler explanations intrinsically satisfying? Can answering this shed light on the nature of any innate primary rewards that drive curiosity, explanation-seeking, and self-guided learning?

3) STEREOTYPING:

How does our understanding of other people go wrong, especially when we try to understand other people based on their groups (as in cases of stereotyping)?

• Example questions include: How do ordinary people distinguish between problematic stereotype use and acceptable group-based generalizations? How can formal modelling (e.g., Bayesian models) help us identify biases in people’s group-based inferences about others? How does biased information about groups lead to biased beliefs about groups? How does processing others in terms their group-membership relate to processing them in terms of their individual identities: are these two things in conflict, independant, mutually supportive?

For a longer summary of my research (as of Spring 2023), including how my research has tried to answer some of these questions, please read my research statement here.