My research unites theory from social psychology, cognitive science, and communication to answer questions pertaining to the following topics:

Auditory Social Perception

Voices tell us who someone is, how they feel, and which social groups they belong to, often in milliseconds and even when we don’t understand the words being spoken. Despite this, research on social perception has focused mostly on visual cues (e.g., faces, bodies, clothing). I argue that understanding how we hear others is essential for understanding how we make sense of the social world.

Ensemble Coding

Psychological research has long focused on person perception, or the perception of individuals in isolation. However, our daily lives are dominated by groups, teams, and collectives. For this reason, I am particularly interested in people perception, or the perception of ensembles. Some current questions of interest include: Can we rapidly and accurately ascertain group composition (e.g., the ratio of men to women in a group) from voices alone? Does group composition affect group evaluations (e.g., are groups with more men perceived as more threatening)? How accurate are these evaluations in the real-world (e.g., do we accurately detect threat, or lack thereof, in protests/demonstrations)?

Sensory Adaptation

Sensory adaptation refers to the process by which recent experience biases current perceptions. Research shows that adaptation to certain visual features causes those features to appear normative and consequently more favorable. Is there a way to harness visual and auditory adaptation to reduce prejudice against marginalized groups?

Human-Technology Interaction

With artificial intelligence on the rise, it is necessary to understand how individuals perceive nonsocial entities through a social lens. How and why do we assign human social categories (e.g., gender) to AI? How does this influence impressions (e.g., warmth, competence, discomfort)? How can developers design AI that is effective while simultaneously challenging stereotypes?