What is listening effort?

When speech is heard in the presence of background sound, or when hearing is impaired, the sensory information at the ear is often too ambiguous to support speech recognition by itself. In such circumstances, knowledge-guided processes that help to interpret and repair the degraded signal are required. Such recruitment of cognitive processes is probably why listening in noise “feels” effortful, even when intelligibility is high. Such effort can be aversive, and the goal of making listening less effortful is increasingly recognized as important.

Musical representation across cultures

Discovering the universal features of human musicality is a prerequisite for explaining the biological and cultural evolution of music. What is universal about the psychological representation of music, and what varies? In this talk I will present analyses of the Natural History of Song Discography, which includes songs recorded in 86 mostly small-scale societies, and experiments using these songs. We find that acoustical forms of songs are predictive of their primary behavioral functions across cultures.

Genomic analysis of 1.5 million people reveals genes associated with substance use, antisocial behavior, and health

Behaviors and disorders related to problems in self-regulation, such as substance use disorders, childhood behavior problems, and adult antisocial behavior are collectively referred to as Externalizing. In this talk, I will describe research that pooled information on multiple forms of externalizing behavior in ~1.5 million people and identified more than 500 genetic loci associated with a general liability to Externalizing.

The social brain in adolescence

Adolescence, defined as 10-24 years, is a period of life often characterised by behaviours that can appear, prima facie, irrational such as dangerous risk-taking and impulsivity. However, these behaviours can be interpreted as adaptive and rational given that a key developmental goal of this period of life is to mature into an independent adult while navigating a social world that is unstable and changing.

Deliberate ignorance: The curious choice not to know

Western history of thought abounds with claims that knowledge is valued and sought. Yet people often choose not to know. We call the conscious choice not to seek or use knowledge (or information) deliberate ignorance. Using examples from a wide range of domains, we demonstrate that deliberate ignorance has important functions. We systematize types of deliberate ignorance, describe their functions, discuss their normative desirability, and consider how they can be modeled. To date, psychologists have paid relatively little attention to the study of ignorance, let alone the deliberate kind.

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