The Gilliam Lab : Situated Cognition Lab

The ways in which we think about and perceive information are affected by our individual backgrounds and surrounding environments. Our minds and mental processes are always situated within a greater context, or cultural and cognitive set of patterns. 

Our research focuses on how culture influences cognition and vice versa. In particular, we explore the acquisition of culture cognitively and acquisition of culturally-influenced cognitive patterns in terms of their underlying mechanisms. We are particularly interested in within-culture variation and the flexibility of culturally-influenced cognitive biases as a function of this.

I am a cultural and cognitive scientist, trained in cultural and cognitive anthropology and in cultural and cognitive psychology. See below and on the "Our Research" page more details of how I think about the current lines of my research. 

We may accrue more cultural and cognitive patterns throughout our lives. This is the case even with brief periods of living within another cultural context (~7 months) and when most of our close others are from our own cultural background. One set of patterns could become prioritized in the long-term through repeated training in it, thus I am using strategy implementation to understand the mechanisms of these patterns. This could include from our values (top-down) and from our cognitive engagement itself (bottom-up), including within earlier forms of cognitive processing that thus influence the later forms. I am continuing to explore the cognitive underpinnings of culture via both naturally-occurring flexibility and malleability, or training. How much do I attend to and recognize my cognitive patterns and in what ways can I change them?

Within the West, there are multiple cultural and cognitive patterns in which we become situated, but it has been typically characterized as being one homogenous independent (self-focused) global region, and the United States as being one homogenous independent (self-focused) nation. Work that has examined Western cultural variation in connection with aspects of cognition has typically focused on prejudice, social interaction, and sense of honor within Southern America. However, we do know that there is variation in values and behavior across the United States. I am working towards establishing a United States regional culture's set of cognitive patterns for the first time. In particular, I am currently focused on Appalachian culture and cognition.