I am a Cognitive Scientist and Director of the Reasoning and Decisions Lab. My research focuses on testing the cognitive processes that drive human reasoning and decision-making, with the overarching question: how do people draw conclusions or make decisions, based on new and existing knowledge? I seek to understand the strengths of human thinking and also the situational and cognitive factors that can lead to errors and biases in thinking. This will inform the development of interventions (e.g. reasoning aids or training) that can help people to reason more effectively.

Research program: Testing dual-process and single-process reasoning theories

One of my current main lines of research is testing influential dual-process theories, which propose that human reasoning and judgement is driven by two qualitatively different kinds of cognitive processes: One is often characterized as fast and intuitive, while the other is described as slow and deliberative. A major project I am working on with Prof. Brett Hayes (University of New South Wales) and Prof. John Dunn (University of Western Australia) involves testing whether dual-process theories are needed to account for reasoning across a range of contexts, such as when people are put under time pressure, are preoccupied with other tasks, or are faced with different task instructions. An important finding of our work has been that despite the popularity of dual-process theories, simpler single-process theories have not yet been ruled out. This suggests that the dual-process distinction may be unwarranted. We have recently begun exploring how these competing theories account for developmental changes in reasoning across childhood.

Research program: Monitoring And Guarding the Public Information Environment (MAGPIE)

Another ongoing branch of my research with Dr Keith Ransom, Prof. Carolyn Semmler, Prof. Lewis Mitchell, Prof. Andrew Perfors, (University of Melbourne) and others examines how people navigate online information environments such as social media. We are interested in how people's beliefs and attitudes are influenced by information on social media and the factors that drive associated behaviours, including information sharing and seeking. We aim to help build resilience against challenges in online environments including misinformation, influence campaigns, and echo chambers. In one major line of research, we are investigating how people perceive the level of consensus in a given claim on social media. This is a complex reasoning problem because the independence of sources and original evidence is often unclear. We have received funding from Defence Innovation Partnership, Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator, and the University of Adelaide's Digi+ FAME scheme to develop digital tools that can help people to understand the structure of online information and calibrate their beliefs appropriately against the available evidence. See our Research News article: Mitigating misinformation on social media.

PhD, Masters, Honours, or Intern Research Projects

Please contact me if you are interested in any of these projects:

1. Theoretical or applied research on reasoning from social consensus, including in online social media environments.
    
2. Theoretical or applied research in reasoning and decision making, including under time-pressure or in high-stakes situations. Applied research includes investigating how people assess the healthiness of foods based on their labels (Nutrition Information Panel, etc.).
    
3. Training reasoning and critical thinking skills in educational or occupational settings.
    
4. Developing and testing reasoning aids, such as the fact-checking tags on social media.
    
5. Exploring developmental changes in the reasoning of children or older adults.