I study how people learn and make decisions, especially when they lack knowledge about important elements of their environment. My research focuses broadly on how people create and improve representations of their environments under such conditions. I’m interested in questions such as: How do people interpret and use environmental feedback, and how do they know what kind of feedback to pay attention to in the first place? What is the role of people’s background knowledge (e.g., of communicational and other cultural norms, of common environmental regularities, etc.) in building representations? How and why do people become and remain motivated to create and improve representations (or, when they don’t, why not)?

I’m also interested in the philosophy of (psychological) science, particularly in the question of what constitutes a good psychological explanation. More specifically, I explore questions such as: In what ways do good psychological explanations differ from those of other sciences? What role can prediction and replication play in psychological theory development? How should psychological theories be evaluated and what role can mathematical-statistical models play in such assessments?

Feel free to get in touch if you’re interested in my work.