Hello =]

Welcome to my website. Please have a look around and feel free to contact me!

About me

I am a postdoc researcher and course instructor in the cognitive science department at Aarhus University working on social learning, embodiment, and the evolution of symbolic cognition.

I was first trained as a biologist (BSc) and gradually moved to the study of behaviour (MSc and PhD), so I now usually introduce myself as an experimental psychologist or cognitive scientist. Broadly speaking, I’m interested in understanding how the mind works and in the similarities and differences that exist between humans and other animals in terms of fundamental sociocognitive processes (yes, very broadly speaking!). My research has been interdisciplinary and includes conceptual work–like examining the notions of ‘information’ and ‘culture’–and empirical–like doing behavioural, psychophysical, and eye-tracking experiments to investigate different aspects of human cognition (see more details in the Projects tab).

Keywords

social learning; biology-culture; symbolic cognition; visual perception; Paleolithic art; children drawing; meaning; developmental systems theory; embodied cognition; ecological psychology; enaction

A bit more on my scientific interests

At some point in my education, I became intrigued by the animal cultures debate and the controversies that it raises in relation to our place in nature. On the one hand, the concept of culture gradually emerged as a way to demarcate humans from other animals and to demarcate anthropology from neighbouring disciplines like biology and psychology. One essential ingredient of human culture is how our cognitive development depends on our relation with others, which itself is constrained by our collective history in a common environment. So, traditionally, only humans were said to have culture, and you may have read somewhere that culture allowed humans to escape biology (or some similar idea).

On the other hand, researchers in animal behaviour started arguing and providing evidence that many nonhuman animals also have culture, including primates, cetaceans, birds, fish, and insects. This is largely because, similar to humans, many animals also acquire knowledge and skills by engaging in learning that is facilitated by the presence and behaviour of other indviduals rather than strictly on their own. For example, in some populations of chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys, young individuals learn to crack nuts with stones partly by observing skilled individuals; and young killer whales learn hunting techniques by foraging with skilled adults. In the psychological literature, this kind of learning is called social learning in contrast to the second type, known as asocial learning.

Are human culture and animal culture equivalent concepts? I find this debate fascinating! I also think that the biology-culture opposition itself is highly problematic, along with others such as social-asocial, nature-nurture, organism-environment, and body-mind. Can we find a more coherent way of thinking about these phenomena that does not depend on these binary oppositions?

Motivated by these concerns, I have been working on topics related to social learning and other cognitive capacities considered to be uniquely humans, such as the use of symbols and visual representation. Specifically, I’m gradually developing a way of thinking about social learning consistent with developmental systems theory in biology (to avoid the nature-nurture oppositon), the ecological and enactive approaches to cognition (to avoid the organism-environment and body-mind opposition), and relational approaches in anthropology (which shares similar concerns). This conceptual work also motivates some of the empirical and applied work in which I have been involved. You can read more in the Projects and Publications tabs.

Emerging project on conflict resolution

I am developing ideas for a project on conflict resolution that will include researchers from different disciplines (psychology, social sciences, political sciences, law, philosophy, …) as well as stakeholders outside academia (counselors, educators, community leaders, politicians, monastics, …). I will update the website when it takes a more concrete shape.

Teaching

In addition to research in basic sociocognitive processes, I teach at the cognitive science bachelor program at Aarhus University (check my Teaching tab), but my experience as an educator started before my PhD. I worked in primary schools teaching general science to children aged 11-14 in Brazil (3 years). I also worked for Moderna/Santillana, an educational publishing group, writing and editing dozens of chapters on scientific topics for school textbooks (2 years). And in one of my postdocs, I helped define, implement, and assess a professional development program for educators in France, which was organised as a collaborative citizen science project (see ‘Profs-Chercheurs’ in the Projects tab).