We study the cognitive mechanisms that support the everyday human ability to reason about the social world. In particular, we investigate how human adults and children interpret the actions, reactions, and interactions of other people, sometimes called their 'theory of mind.'
Another specific question concerns how humans incorporate social and non-social information to arrive at an understanding of everyday objects and their functions.
A recent area of investigation focuses on the mental representation and development of concepts found in religion and science, and on the mechanisms that underlie the evaluation of communication.
To address this set of questions we combine techniques drawn from cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
Another specific question concerns how humans incorporate social and non-social information to arrive at an understanding of everyday objects and their functions.
A recent area of investigation focuses on the mental representation and development of concepts found in religion and science, and on the mechanisms that underlie the evaluation of communication.
To address this set of questions we combine techniques drawn from cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
Selected Publications
|
Theory of Mind
Quillien, T., & German, T. C. (2021). A simple definition of ‘intentionally’. Cognition, 214, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104806
Barrett, A., Vernon, T., McGarry, E., Holden, A., Bradshaw, J., Ko, J., Horowitz, E., & German, T.C. (2020) Social responsiveness and language use associated with an enhanced PRT approach for young children with ASD: Results from a pilot RCT of the PRISM model. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 71, 101497. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2019.101497 Bradshaw, J., Shic, F., Holden, A.N., Horowitz, E.J., Barrett, A.C., German, T.C., and Vernon, T.W. (2019), The use of eye tracking as a biomarker of treatment outcome in a pilot randomized clinical trial for young children with autism. Autism Research, 12, 779-793. doi:10.1002/aur.2093 Vernon, T.W., Holden, A.N., Barrett, A.C., Bradshaw, J., Ko, J.A., McGarry, E.S., Horowitz, E.J., Tagavi, D.M., & German, T.C. (2019). A pilot randomized clinical trial of an enhanced pivotal response treatment approach for young children with autism: The PRISM Model. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49, 2358–2373. doi:10.1007/s10803-019-03909-1 Cohen, A. S., Sasaki, J. Y., & German, T.C. (2015). Specialized mechanisms for theory of mind: Are mental representations special because they are mental or because they are representations? Cognition, 136, 49-63. PDF Wertz, A.E., & German, T.C. (2013). Theory of Mind in the Wild: Toward Tackling the Challenges of Everyday Mental State Reasoning. PLoS ONE, 8(9): e72835. PDF German, T.C. & Cohen, A.S. (2012). A cue-based approach to ‘theory of mind’: Re-examining the notion of automaticity. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 30, 45-58. PDF Cohen, A.S. & German, T.C. (2010). A reaction time advantage for calculating beliefs over public representations signals domain-specificity for 'theory of mind.' Cognition, 115, 417-425. PDF New, J.J., Schultz, R.T., Wolf, J., Niehaus, J.L, Klin, A., German, T.C., & Scholl, B.J. (2010). The scope of social attention deficits in autism: Prioritized orienting to people and animals in static natural scenes. Neuropsychologia, 48, 51-59. PDF Cohen, A.S. & German, T.C. (2009). Encoding of others’ beliefs without overt instruction. Cognition, 111, 356-363. PDF German, T.C. (2009). Storming the castle. Review of I. Leudar and A. Costall (Eds), "Against Theory of Mind." The Psychologist, 22, p 602. PDF Wertz, A.E. & German, T. (2007). Belief-desire reasoning in the explanation of behavior: Do actions speak louder than words? Cognition, 105, 184-194. PDF German, T. & Hehman, J.A. (2006). Representational and executive selection resources in 'theory of mind': Evidence from compromised belief-desire reasoning in old age. Cognition 101, 129-152. PDF Yazdi, A.A., German, T., Defeyter, M.A. & Siegal, M. (2006). Competence and performance in belief-desire reasoning across two cultures: The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about false belief? Cognition, 100, 343-368. PDF Leslie, A.M., German, T. & Polizzi, P. (2005). Belief-desire reasoning as a process of selection. Cognitive Psychology, 50(1), 45-85. PDF German, T., Niehaus, J.L., Roarty, M.P., Giesbrecht, B. & Miller, M.B. (2004). Neural correlates of detecting pretense: automatic engagement of the intentional stance under covert conditions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(10). PDF Leslie, A.M., Friedman, O. & German, T. (2004). Core mechanisms in 'theory of mind'. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(12), 528-533. PDF German, T. & Leslie, A.M. (2001). Children's inferences from 'knowing' to 'pretending' and 'believing'. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 19, 59-83. PDF Bloom, P. & German, T. (2000). Two reasons to abandon the false belief task as a test of theory of mind. Cognition, 77, B25-B32. PDF German, T. & Leslie, A.M. (2000). Attending to and learning about mental states. In P. Mitchell & K. Riggs (Eds.), Children’s reasoning and the mind (pp. 229-252). Hove, UK: Psychology Press. PDF Heyes, C.M. & German, T. (1994). Eye to eye, but not a meeting of minds. Current Psychology of Cognition, 13(5), 607-614. PDF |
|
Conceptual representation and development
Mermelstein, S. & German, T. C. (2021). Counterintuitive pseudoscientific beliefs propagate by exploiting the mind’s communication evaluation mechanisms. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, full text: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.739070
Mermelstein, S., Barlev, M., & German, T. C. (2021). She told me about a singing cactus: Counterintuitive concepts are more accurately attributed to their speakers than ordinary concepts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(5), 972 982. doi: https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000987. Preprint: https://psyarxiv.com/6cp8e Barlev, M., Mermelstein, S., Cohen, A. S., & German, T. C. (2019). The Embodied God: Core intuitions about person physicality coexist and interfere with acquired Christian beliefs about God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. Cognitive Science, 43, e12784. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12784 Barlev, M., Mermelstein, S., & German, T. C. (2018). Representational coexistence in the God concept: Core knowledge intuitions of God as a person are not revised by Christian theology despite lifelong experience. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1 - 9. Link Barlev, M., Mermelstein, S., & German, T. C. (2017). Core intuitions about persons coexist and interfere with acquired Christian beliefs about God. Cognitive Science, 41(S3), 425 - 454. PDF Function & Tool Use
Defeyter, M.A., Hearing, J. & German, T.C. (2009). A developmental dissociation between category and function judgments about novel artifacts. Cognition, 110, 260-264. PDF
Defeyter, M.A., Avons, S.E. & German, T. (2007). Developmental changes in information central to artifact representation: evidence from ‘functional fluency’ tasks. Developmental Science, 10(5), 538-546.PDF German, T., Truxaw, D. & Defeyter, M.A. (2007.) The Role of Information About “Convention,” “Design,” and “Goal” in Representing Artificial Kinds. New directions for child and adolescent development, 115, 69-81. PDF Truxaw, D., Krasnow, M., Woods, C. & German, T. (2006). Conditions under which function information attenuates name extension via shape. Psychological Science, 17(5), 367-371. PDF German, T. & Barrett, H.C. (2005). Functional fixedness in a technologically sparse culture. Psychological Science, 16(1), 1-5. PDF Defeyter, M.A. & German, T. (2003). Acquiring an understanding of design: evidence from children's insight problem solving. Cognition, 89, 133-155. PDF German, T. & Johnson, S.A. (2002). Function and the origins of the design stance. Journal of Cognition and Development, 3, 279-300. PDF German, T. & Defeyter, M.A. (2000). Immunity to functional fixedness in young children. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 7, 707-712. PDF |
|
Misc.
Cohen, A. S., Sasaki, J. Y., German, T. C., & Kim, H. S. (2015). Automatic Mechanisms for Social Attention Are Culturally Penetrable. Cognitive Science. PDF
New, Joshua J., & German, Tamsin C. (2014). Spiders at the Cocktail Party: An Ancestral Threat that Surmounts Inattentional Blindness. Evolution and Human Behavior. PDF / USA Today article Pietraszewski, D., & German, T.C. (2013) Coalitional psychology on the playground: Reasoning about indirect social consequences in preschoolers and adults. Cognition, 126. 352-363. PDF German, T. & Nichols, S. (2003). Children’s counterfactual inferences about long and short causal chains. Developmental Science, 6, 514-523. PDF German, T. (1999). Children's causal reasoning: Counterfactual thinking occurs for negative outcomes only. Developmental Science, 2, 442-447. PDF Harris, P.L., German, T. & Mills, P. (1996). Children's use of counterfactual thinking in causal reasoning. Cognition, 61, 233-259. PDF |
