Affiliated with the Cognitive and Developmental Divisions

My research interest is the evolution and development of higher cognition in artificial and biological systems. My experimental investigations and simulation work focus on Causal Cognition and Social Cognition. The aim of my research is investigating and explaining characteristics of higher cognition that emerge early in development, persist into adulthood, and are prefigured in the cognition of non-human animals.

ELECTRONIC COPIES OF REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM MY WEBPAGE.

Representative Publications:

• Cummins, D.D. (in press) How memory processes temper causal inferences. In M. Oaksford, (Ed.) Cognition and conditionals: Probability and logic in human thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Cummins, D.D. (2005). Dominance, status, and social hierarchies. In D. Buss (ed.),The evolutionary psychology handbook (pp. 676-697). New York: Wiley.
• Cummins, D.D. (2004) The evolution of reasoning. In J.P. Leighton and R.J. Sternberg (eds.), The nature of reasoning (pp. 339-374). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Cummins, R.C., Cummins, D.D., & Poirier, P. (2003) Cognitive evolutionary Psychology without representational nativism. Journal of experimental & theoretical artificial intelligence, 15, 125-141. (Special Issue: Cognitive Science in the New Millenium: Foundations, Directions, Applications, and Problems).
• Cummins, R.C., & Cummins, D.D. (Eds.) (1999) Minds, brains, and computers: Foundations of Cognitive Science. London: Blackwell.

Classes Recently Taught:

• Evolution of Mind (Psyc/Phil 356)
• Learning and Memory (Psyc 248)
• Thinking & Reasoning (Psyc/Phil 351)