08.10.2024 - Federico Rossano

In recent years, acronyms such as WEIRD, STRANGE, BIZARRE have been used to remind us that issues in replicability and predictive power of our cognitive models come from an incomplete picture of the diversity of intelligence in humans and non-humans that is easily detectable outside the lab. Yet venturing outside the lab to study cognition in the wild remains rare and when done it often relies on less than optimal tools to measure such diversity, where diversity is self-reported rather than observed or measured. Towards providing a more solid base for our empirical models, we have collected extensive data on social interaction and social cognition cross-ages, cross-cultures and cross-species, because of an interest in bringing evolution, diversity, individual differences and change to the forefront of Cognitive Science.  In this talk I report some of the things we have learned along the way and why they matter: from the importance of taking seriously individual differences, life history and relationships to how to minimize the chances of being shot at or being chased by lions before you complete your study.