Rutherford Lab

Our work at the Rutherford Lab is experimental psychology motivated by evolutionary theory. We work on the questions of Social Perception and Social Perceptual Development. We study the perception of social categories, using both face-perception paradigms and essentialist paradigms. We use these approaches to explore evidence-based approaches to equity, diversity and inclusion. We are exploring developing psychological machinery underlying prosocial and moral behaviour, and exploring whether we can expand our definition of our ingroup to extend our moral concern to a bigger circle . We study animacy perception, as the first developmental step in social cognition. Using eye-tracking technology, we study the development of autistic characteristics and of the broader autism phenotype.