Why do we have an experience of the world that is coherent, connected, and something we can interact with, rather than a bunch of things that just happen in an arbitrary order? Why are human beings so much better at engaging in causal interactions with our environment than any other species? How do we learn to interact with a complex causal world in the first years of life?
Who we are
The CEU Causal Cognition Lab under the direction of PI Jonathan F. Kominsky is interested in answering these questions by studying how people identify cause-and-effect relationships, how we represent those relationships in our minds, and how we manipulate those representations in our reasoning. The lab was established in 2022 at CEU's Vienna campus as part of the Department of Cognitive Science.
What we do
Our methods include online studies and in-lab eye-tracking and behavioral studies with adults. We also partner with the CEU Cognitive Development Center to study how these abilities emerge early in life.