David Lagnado

My research focuses on the psychological processes that underlie human learning, reasoning and decision-making.  A major theme is the central role played by causal models in cognition. I investigate how people learn causal models from uncertain data, and how they use these models to draw inferences and make decisions. I have extended this work to the area of juror decision-making, showing that people use their causal knowledge to organize legal evidence and make decisions. I am currently developing a general framework for evidential and legal reasoning, and studying the dynamics of jurors’ beliefs across the course of a trial. Another key theme in my research is the interplay between causal thinking and judgments of responsibility. I examine how people use causal models to attribute responsibility and blame, both with normal and patient populations.