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.
On the web
Recent publications
- Strategies for selecting and evaluating information External link Cognitive Psychology, 123 DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101332
- Explaining Away, Augmentation, and the Assumption of Independence External link Frontiers in Psychology, 11 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.502751
- Dependencies in evidential reports: The case for informational advantages External link Cognition, 204 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104343
- View all publications by David Lagnado