David Becker

David Becker is a cognitive and social psychologist, strongly influenced by evolutionary theory and complexity science. His work explores how social and emotional forces affect cognitive processing in order to facilitate basic biological and social goals (for example, self-protection and resource acquisition). He uses a wide variety of experimental methodologies to explore the full spectrum of information processing, from perception and attention to memory, categorization, and decision making. He wants to know how these things work in the real world. His latest efforts involve using mobile technology to implement field replications of some basic findings of laboratory cognitive science. This has the potential to both generalize these results to non-traditional populations and to address traditional limitations of cognitive science research. To this end, he is developing and coordinating a network of international collaborators who can both implement and inform the direction of these investigations.

Becker has an abiding interest in how the dynamics and self-organization of complex social systems might be influenced by ecological and evolutionary factors, particularly with regard to social traps, mating-related behaviors, and the dynamics of popular culture. He is also interested in the role that computers can play in allowing us to visualize and understand these complex dynamics, how these visualizations can help people to engage in appropriate regulatory behaviors, and more generally how these displays can augment cognitive capabilities.