David A. Lagnado
My main research interests are in human learning and inference, with specific focus on the role of causal models in cognition.
Research Associates
Christos Bechlivanidis
My current research topic is the interaction between causal and temporal judgments. How do we exploit information about time order to understand the causal structure of our environment and, more interestingly, can strong causal beliefs influence our perception of time?
Stephen Dewitt
As part of the translation team for the Bayesian ARgumentation via Delphi (BARD) project, I am currently examining the role of prior judgements and prejudice on the incorporation of ambiguous evidence into belief structures. I am also investigating the impact of the surprisal value of evidence on belief updating and the degree to which the incorporation of surprising evidence is undertaken according to normative standards.
Toby D. Pilditch
My interests are in the domains of evidential, probabilistic, and causal reasoning, as well as belief updating and cognitive biases. I am currently an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL, whilst taking up a Post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford, at the Complex Human-Environmental Systems Simulation Laboratory.
PhD Students
Lara Kirfel
I am interested in how normative factors shape our judgements of causal processes. My PhD researchs investigates how “soft” factors, e.g. the normative features of a causal context, change the way we think about the cause of an event, and whether (and, if so, to what extent) counterfactual theories of causation can capture these effects. Further research interests include various areas of philosophy, including philosophy of cognition, causation, and political philosophy.
Alice Liefgreen
I completed a BSc Psychology at the University of Bath, which included a 1-year work placement within the clinical forensic psychology team in a prison. Subsequently I completed the MSc Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL and continued working as research assistant within the Memory and Space lab in the year following graduation. I am currently undertaking a PhD supervised by Prof. Lagnado, within the Experimental Psychology department at UCL. Research interests include investigating the psychological processes underlying evidential and causal reasoning, as well as developing a normative framework for optimal information search strategies in a range of contexts, including forensic.
Claire Machan
My broad area of interest lies within socio-cognitive psychology applied to the forensic domain. More specifically, my PhD research is focusing on investigating cognitive biases and stereotypes surrounding juvenile offenders within the legal system; how they effect the decision-making processes and outcomes, as well as establishing new methodology to effectively measure and mitigate their effects.
Tamara Shengelia
My research interests are based in the area of judgment and decision making. The focus of my PhD is understanding and modelling interpretation and integration of evidence in legal contexts. The PhD research aims to build Bayesian models of legal decision making and identify psychological inference mechanisms related to evidence accumulation and integration as well as processes underlying the evaluation of evidence. My background is in cognitive psychology and public understanding of science.
Paul Troop
I research legal behaviour using cognitive science. I like to think of human behaviour as part of the natural world. I am therefore interested in the philosophy of cognitive science, the computational theory of mind, Herbert Simon’s notions of bounded rationality, and evolutionary psychology. Key questions that I am interested in are the relationship between the inferences people make and the reasons they give to explain those inferences, the relationship between scientific explanations of behaviour and blame, and how people integrate scientific theories of the world with more common sense theories of human behaviour.
Alumni
Neil Bramley
I am interested in mental representation and its role in thinking, reasoning and decision making. In particular, my research explores the idea that generative causally structured representations, or causal mental models, underlie many of the cognitive abilities that people (even psychologists) often take for granted. These include our ability to imagine alternative states of the world, predict the consequences of our actions and generate explanations for the phenomena we encounter.
Caren Frosch
My research falls into two broad categories. The first examines the cognitive processes involved in causal and counterfactual thinking in children and adults, and the second is focused on fast and frugal heuristics in judgment and decision making. In collaboration with Teresa McCormack and David Lagnado I am currently examining time and intervention in children's and adult's causal structure judgments.
Tobias Gerstenberg
I am exploring the complex relationship between causality and responsibility in situations in which multiple agents are involved. How much should an individual within a group be held responsible for a collectively brought about outcome?
Anne Hsu
My research combines computer science methods and psychology. Research topics include probabilistic modelling, causal reasoning, narrative formation, reasoning, category learning, language learning, and personality psychology.
Jens Koed Madsen
I am currently working on developing a theory of persuasion. How are we persuaded from believing A into believing B? The work is predominantly clustered around four elements. Mainly, pragmatic and contextual accounts of utterance comprehension, logic and Bayesian models of rationality, mental intention attributions, and socially shared representations. These elements are mainly informed by theories from rhetorical theory, philosophy, psychology, economic theory, and decision-making theories.
Milena Nikolic
I am interested in the cognitive processes and representations underlying
judgment and decision-making.
Erica Yu
My current research focuses on decisions based on and retrospective evaluations of temporally-extended outcomes. I am exploring this research area in the context of gambling (fruit machines, financial markets) and evidential reasoning. Unrelated to my research interests, I also like to play (and win) board games.
Ro'i Zultan
I study different aspects of decision making, with an emphasis on strategic decision making. I'm particularly interested in the different effects of communication on cooperation and in performance and attributions of individuals in a team environment.