|
D. Vaughn
Becker Department of
Applied Psychology Arizona State University at the Polytechnic
Campus | |
|
The Polytechnic Campus, 40 million BC |
I am a
cognitive and social psychologist, strongly influenced by evolutionary
theory and complexity science. I’m currently researching signal detection
in fundamental social domains, particularly with regard to expression
perception (this is part of a larger attempt to flesh out a functionalist
psychophysics). In a related vein I am interested in using these tools as
assessment methods that identify important task-specific individual
differences--for example, assessing a person’s bias to see outgroup
members as threatening, and determining whether emotionally evocative
situations give rise to such biases. I also have 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. Lastly, I am
interested in the role that computers can play in allowing us to visualize
complex dynamics, how these visualizations can best assist observers to
engage in appropriate regulatory behaviors, and more generally how these
displays can augment cognitive capabilities. My
office is in the Applied Psychology Unit, third floor of the Sutton
building on the Polytechnic campus, room 340G. I’m in
class teaching “Intro Psych” from 9:00 to 10:15 am on Monday and
Wednesday, and Intermediate Statistics (PSY 530), though the location and
time are on a need to know basis only. My office hours are 10:30-11:45
MW and by appointment. On the
Tempe campus, I also run subjects in 331 on Wednesday
afternoons. My Office
phone number is 480.727.1151, but e-mail is better, vaughn.becker@asu.edu |
I am a
cognitive psychologist interested in developing a psychophysics of human
expression perception, and in developing methods to identify biases in such
perception. My background has enabled me to become familiar with a wide variety
of experimental methods for examining perception and memory with this end in
mind. The application of this work will facilitate selecting the right
individuals for jobs in which unbiased accuracy and rapid decision-making is
essential, for example, in military security or air traffic control. I have an
abiding interest in evolutionary psychology, which gives me a valuable
perspective on such matters because situations of high arousal and potential
threat bring out the more stone-age aspects of the mind. I also have a strong
background in social psychology, which has sensitized me to more proximate
sources of bias, like stereotypes, self-presentation, and attribution errors.
Finally, I have been profoundly influenced by James Gibson’s Ecological approach
to perception, which sees perception as having evolved directly coupled to
action, a critical thing to be aware of when studying or modeling human
performance. My immediate goal is to continue to research how fundamental
motivational states—like self-protection, coalition building, and status
striving—affect our decisions about the expressions and the intentions of
others, and our perception and memory of the environment. I further desire to
develop agent based models and dynamical simulations of these scenarios to
explore then in ways that cannot easily be instantiated in the
laboratory.
Selected
Publications
Becker, D.V., Kenrick, D.T., Neuberg, S.L., Blackwell, K.C., & Smith, D. (2007). The confounded nature of angry men and happy women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Becker, D.V., Stone G. O., & Goldinger, S. (2006). Perception and recognition memory of words and werds: Two-way mirror effects. Memory and Cognition.
Kenrick, D.T., Delton, A.W., Robertson, T., Becker, D.V. & Neuberg, S.L. (2006). How the mind warps: Processing disjunctions may elucidate ultimate functions. In J. P. Forgas, W. VonHippel, & M. Haselton (Eds.). The Evolution of the Social Mind: Evolution and Social Cognition. New York: Psychology Press.
Ackerman, J.M., Shapiro, J.R., Neuberg, S.L., Kenrick, D.K., Becker, D.V., Griskevicius, V., Maner, J.K., and Schaller, M. (2006). They All Look the Same to Me (Unless They’re Angry): From Out-Group Homogeneity to Out-Group Heterogeneity. Psychological Science, 17, 836-840.
Becker, D.V., Kenrick, D.T., Guerin, S., & Maner, J.M. (2005). Concentrating on beauty: Sexual selection and sociospatial memory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12, 1643-1652.
Maner, J. K., Kenrick, D. T., Becker, D. V., Robertson, T., Hofer, B., Delton, A., Neuberg, S. L., Butner, J., & Schaller, M. (2005). Functional projection: How fundamental social motives can bias interpersonal perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 63-78.
Becker, D.V., Sagarin, B. J., Nicastle, L.D., Millevoi, A., & Guadagno, R.E. (2004). When the sexes need not differ: emotional reactions to hypothetical infidelities. Personal Relationships, 11, 529-538.
Maner, J. K., Kenrick, D. T., Becker, D. V., Delton, A. W., Hofer, B., Wilbur, C. J., & Neuberg, S. L. (2003). Sexually selective cognition: Beauty captures the mind of the beholder. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6, 1107-1120.
Sagarin, B. J., Becker, D.V., Guadagno, R,E. Nicastle, L.D. & Millevoi, A. (2003). Sex differences (and similarities) in jealousy: the moderating influence of infidelity experience and sexual orientation of the infidelity. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24, 17-23.
Kenrick, D.T., Becker, D.V., Butner, J., Li, N.P., & Maner, J.K. (2003). Evolutionary Cognitive Science: Adding What and Why to How the Mind Works. In J. Fitness & K. Sterelney (Eds.). From Mating to Mentality. Sydney: MacQuarie University Press.
Kenrick, D. T., Maner, J.K., Butner, J., Li, N.P., Becker, D.V. & Schaller, M. (2002). Dynamic Evolutionary Psychology: Mapping the domains of the new interactionist paradigm. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6, 347-356.
My partner KC and I have a beautiful child,
Henry. Here he is expressing his Buddha Nature, and with his equally angelic older
sister Audrey:
Online
Experiments
Note that these are for my students and may require
additional plug-ins or information.
Working Memory Measure (Prototype)
The concentration game:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~loids/concentration1.htm
Next,another example of our memory
game:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~loids/concguide.htm
A rather emotional memory
game:
A feature detection
experiment:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~loids/Lab/featureDoc.html
Our waist to hip ratio experiment (the orthogonal
condition of a Garner interference task):
http://www.public.asu.edu/~loids/gern.htm
Last Revised: 6-25-07