Developing a Life History Theory of Mind: Awareness that the Mind Learns from the Past to Imagine the Future

Professor Lagattuta will provide an overview of her research on 4- to 10-year-olds' and adults’ beliefs about whether people generalize from their past social interactions when engaging in episodic future thinking; that is, their awareness that people’s minds draw from prior experiences when imagining what will happen next. Across multiple studies, results reveal significant age-related increases in expecting people’s future-oriented thoughts, emotions, and decisions to be biased by preceding life events, with 8- to 10-year-olds and adults presuming broader future generalizations compared to younger children. Professor Lagattuta will further discuss sources of individual differences, including using eye-tracking to examine variability in how children and adults weight different types of past event information.

Room: 
3105
Event Type: 
Colloquium
Location: 
Tolman Hall
Date: 
Monday, October 30, 2017
Time: 
12:10:00
Event Sponsor: 
Psychology, Department of
Event Speakers: 
Kristin H. Lagattuta