current projects
Category Based Reasoning
We use categories (e.g., “Democrats,” “furniture”) to organize our experiences in memory, to communicate them, and to bring existing knowledge to bear on new situations. Most entities belong to multiple categories. For example, a dog might be an animal, a pet, a living thing, a security device, and a medical aid. We explore how people decide which categories to use in making inferences about entities belonging to multiple categories.
Decision Deferral and Indecisiveness
People must determine not only what to choose but also when to choose. We explore how individuals determine when to commit to choices, considering situational variables--such as the attractiveness of the alternatives--as well as individual-difference variables associated with clinical disorders, personality, cultural. We also consider how people weigh the costs and risks of waiting against what they perceive to be the benefits.
Planning and Goal Representations
We are interested in how people represent goals in memory and recognize opportunities to achieve their goals. We have previously considered how the way a goal is encoded in memory influences when it will come to mind at a later time. Future work will also consider how ongoing processing of the goal influences other mental activities, and the adaptability of behaviors towards achieving goals.