We will also stream this seminar via Zoom.
For the link, please contact us: pennmindcore@sas.upenn.edu

Natalia Velez
Department of Psychology
Princeton University

Thinking Collaboratively

Since the cognitive revolution, psychologists have developed formal theories of cognition by thinking about the mind as a computer. However, this metaphor is typically applied to individual minds. Humans rarely think alone; compared to other animals, we are curiously dependent culturally transmitted skills and knowledge, and we are particularly good at collaborating with others. In this talk, I will argue that—rather than studying the human mind as an isolated computer—we can instead imagine each mind as a node in a vast distributed system. I will present two lines of work, which each provide a complementary view of how humans think together. The first line of work takes stock of the basic psychological processes that enable collaboration. I will present evidence that the human capacity to understand other minds—or *mentalizing*—enables us to navigate key challenges of collaboration, including effectively communicating and learning from collaborators and managing collaborative teams. The second line of work examines how communities create conditions that foster or stifle collaboration. I will present results from an ongoing effort to trace the rise and fall of communities in One Hour One Life, a multiplayer online game where players build technologically advanced settlements from scratch (N = 2,700 communities, 22,011 players, 428,255 playthroughs). Together, these projects lay a foundation to understand how human collaboration is supported by micro-scale psychological processes, macro-scale community structures, and meso-scale interactions between individuals and communities.

A pizza lunch will be served. Please bring your own beverage.

Graduate students and postdocs are encouraged to sign up for lunch with the speaker after the seminar. Space is limited – to join, please email: pennmindcore@sas.upenn.edu