Mary Towner: UC Davis Department of AnthropologyCultural traits are distributed across human societies in a patterned way. Study of the mechanisms whereby cultural traits persist and change over time is key to understanding human cultural diversity. For more than a century, a central question has engaged anthropologists interested in the study of cultural trait variation—what […]

Gian Gonzaga: eHarmony.comRelationships are often studied through one of two questions. How does the relationship benefit the individual and/or how does the relationship benefit the dyad? This talk will address the challenges of balancing what is good for me, what is good for my partner, and what is good for the relationship. It will then […]

Andrew Shaner: UCLA VA HospitalVariation in the age at onset of a multifactorial disease often reflects variation in cause. In this talk, I show a linear latitudinal gradient in the mean age at onset of schizophrenia in 13 northern-hemisphere cities, ranging from 25 years old in Cali, Columbia (at 4 degrees north) to 35 years […]

Rob Kurzban: Penn PsychologySubstantial debate remains about the ultimate and proximate explanations for why people choose to punish third parties, individuals involved in interactions that have had and will have no direct effect on the punisher. Here, one particular type of third-party punishment is explored, moralistic punishment, enduring a cost to inflict costs on an […]

Kerri Johnson: UCLA Communication StudiesIn the 1950s, Doris Troy famously sang, “Just one look...that’s all it took,” implying that attraction can begin with little more than a glance. Contemporary research in person construal generally corroborates this observation, but debate continues about precisely how physical cues come to convey attractiveness. One unresolved question centers on whether […]

Richard Lippa: Cal State University, Fullerton Department of PsychologyBBC data from 53 nations and from more than 200,000 participants provide new insights into sex differences in: (1) sexual traits (e.g., sex drive and sociosexuality), (2) mate preferences (e.g., the value assigned to physical attractiveness, intelligence, honesty in a mate), (3) personality traits (e.g., extraversion, agreeableness, […]

Russ Poldrack: UCLA PsychologyIt has become common practice amongst neuroimaging researchers to infer the presence of mental processes from activation in particular parts of the brain. The validity of this practice, which I refer to as "reverse inference", depends upon how selectively specific brain regions are associated with specific mental processes. I will present evidence […]

Michael Arbib: USC NeuroscienceHuman language is far more than speech and its derivatives such as writing. Human signed languages like American Sign Language are fully expressive human languages, and speakers normally accompany their speech with facial and manual gestures. Thus any theory of language evolution must address these integral roles that manual signs and gestures […]

Roger Sullivan: CSU Sacramento, Anthropology, and UC Davis School of Medicine, Psychiatry and Behavioral SciencesNeurobiological models of drug abuse propose that drug use is initiated and maintained by rewarding feedback mechanisms. However, most commonly used drugs are plant neurotoxins that evolved to punish, not reward, consumption by animal herbivores. Reward models therefore implicitly assume an […]

Afzal Upal: OccidentalCognitive anthropologists such as Pascal Boyer have argued that religious concepts are minimally counterintuitive and that this gives them mnemic advantages. I will ague that people have the memory architecture that results in such concepts being more memorable because it makes them better learners which gives them an evolutionary edge over their competitors. […]