Current Projects

1. Specialized mechanisms for theory of mind across development: Are mechanisms supporting theory of mind specifically designed to process mental states or are they more broad in their function, processing other kinds of information? If there is specialization, does it form the basis or outcome of development?
2. Social cues and the front-end of the theory of mind system: Are there social cues that have privileged access to activating the theory of mind system? Is the theory of mind system obligated to operate in the presence of these social cues?
   
3. Neural and computational organization of theory of mind: How is theory of mind organized in the human brain and how do the underlying neural systems change across development? What are the multiple component processes that make up the theory of mind network and how do these processes construct and transform representations of mental states?
4. The back-end of the theory of mind system and its connection to output systems: Theory of mind mechanisms evolved to generate knowledge about the social world not as an end in itself but as a means to adaptively regulate behavior. How does the theory of mind system plug into motor and language systems?
   
5. Development of mechanisms for social attention: Do the systems that shift attention in response to averted eye gaze cues respond to any directional cue? Or are some of these systems selective for processing directional social cues? Or are some even more selective, strictly processing gaze cues? How does selectivity change across development?
   
6. Cultural calibrating of evolved mechanisms for social attention How does cultural input tune adaptations for social attention? What cultural variables are relevant to the wiring of systems for social attention?