Research topic: The psychology of search

Our minds have evolved to search in both external and internal environments. We are constantly searching, whether for solutions to our problems, soul mates, lost memories, truth, or the meaning of life. Like birds hunting for insects in an open field, we search our phenomenological world for the resources to achieve our goals.

Given the core nature of search in our lives, our study of how we search addresses many basic topics, including the control and evolution of attention, individual differences in executive (goal-directed) processing, the structure and navigation of memory, and how our information search policies influence our subsequent decisions, even when the results of our search would otherwise be equivalent.

Key investigators: Thomas Hills & Ralph Hertwig

Current project: SNF project "Search in space and mind: Dynamics and structure in recall from long-term memory"

Key reference:

Hills, T. T. (2006). Animal foraging and the evolution of goal-directed cognition. Cognitive Science, 30, 3–41. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog0000_50 PDF [PDF / 482 KB]