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Professor Thomas Hills

Publications: (all available upon request)

Jeong, D., & Hills, T. T. (2024). Age-Related diversification and specialization in the mental lexicon: Comparing aggregate and individual-level network approaches. Cognitive Science. pdf

Hills, T.T. (in press). The ABCs of behavioral influence. In G. Progrebna and T. T. Hills (Eds) The Handbook of Behavioral and Data Science. Cambridge University Press.

Hills, T. T., & Kenett, Y. N. (2024). An entropy modulation theory of creative exploration. Psychological Review. pdf

Pilgrim, C., Sanborn, A., Malthouse, E., & Hills, T. T. (2024). Confirmation bias emerges from an approximation to Bayesian reasoning. Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105693Link opens in a new window Link opens in a new window pdfLink opens in a new window

Li, Y., Breithaupt, F., Hills, T., Lin, Z., Chen, Y., Siew, C. S. Q., and Hertwig, R. (2023). The struggle for life among words: How cognitive selection affects language change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.pdf

Hills, T., & Miani, A. (forthcoming). A short primer on historical natural language processing. In G. Progrebna and T. Hills (Eds.) Handbook of Behavioural Data Science. Cambridge University Press.

Stella, M., Hills, T., & Kenett, Y. (2023). Using cognitive psychology to understand GPT-like models needs to extend beyond human biases. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi/10.1073/pnas.2312911120 pdf

Malthouse, E., Pilgrim, C., Sgroi, D., and Hills, T. (2023). When fairness is not enough: the disproportionate contributions of the poor in a collective action problem. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. pdf

Hills, T. (2023). The calculus of ignorance. Behavioural Public Policy, 7, 846-850. pdf

He, T., Breithaupt, F., Kübler, S., and Hills, T. (2023). Quantifying the retention of emotions across story retellings. Scientific Reports, 13, 2448. pdf

Moore, R., & Hills., T. (2022). The evolution of imagination and the adaptive value of imaginary worlds. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 45, e288. pdf

Dorfman, A., Hills, T. T., & Scharf, I. (2022). A guide to area‐restricted search: a foundational foraging behaviour. Biological Reviews, 97(6), 2076-2089. pdf

Wulff, D. U., Hills, T. T., & Mata, R. (2022). Structural differences in the semantic networks of younger and older adults. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 21459. pdf

Plunkett, K., Delle Luche, C., Hills, T., & Floccia, C. (2022). Tracking the associative boost in infancy. Infancy, 27(6), 1179-1196. pdf

Jiménez, E., & Hills, T. T. (2022). Differences in the semantic structure of the speech experienced by late talkers, late bloomers, and typical talkers. Developmental Psychology. pdf

Miani, A., Hills, T., & Bangerter, A. (2022). Interconnectedness and (in) coherence as a signature of conspiracy worldviews. Science Advances, 8(43), eabq3668. pdf

Jiménez, E., & Hills, T. (2022). Semantic maturation during the comprehension-expression gap in typical and late talkers. Child Development. pdf

Kennet, Y. & Hills, T. (2022). Editors’ introduction to networks of the mind: How can network science elucidate our understanding of cognition. Topics in Cognitive Science, 14, 45-53.

Siew, C., Engelthaler, T., & Hills, T. (2022). Nymph piss and gravy orgies: Local and global contrast effects in relational humor. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. pdf

Li, Y., & Hills, T. (2021). Language patterns of outgroup prejudice. Cognition. pdf

Miani, A., Hills, T., & Bangerter, A. (2021).LOCO: the 88-million-word language of conspiracy corpus. Behavioral Research Methods. pdf

Hills, T., & Kenett, Y. (2021). Is the mind a network? Maps, vehicles, and skyhooks in cognitive network science. Topics in Cognitive Science. pdf

Pilgrim, C., & Hills, T. (2021). Fixing bias in Zipf’s law estimators using approximate Bayesian computation. Scientific Reports.

Read D., & Hills, T. (2021) A negotiation in Middlemarch. Negotiation Journal, 37, 203-220. pdf

Haebig, E., Jimenez, E., Cox, C., & Hills, T. (2021). Characterizing the early vocabulary profiles of preverbal and minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 25, 958-970. lpdf

Menczer, F., & Hills, T. (2020). The Attention Economy. Scientific American. pdf

Jimenez, E., Haebig, E., & Hills, T. (2020). Identifying areas of overlap and distinction in early lexical profiles of children with autism spectrum disorder, late talkers, and typical talkers Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Badman, R., Hills, T. T., Akaishi, R. (2020). Multiscale computation and dynamic attention in biological and artificial intelligence. Brain Sciences. pdf

Li, Y., Hills, T. T., Hertwig, R. (2020). A brief history of risk. Cognition. pdf

Todd, P.M., & Hills, T. T. (2020). Foraging in mind. Current Directions in Psychological Science. pdf

Li, Y., Annasya, M., & Hills, T. T. (2020). The emotional recall task: Juxtaposing recall and recognition-based affect scales. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Language, Emotion, and Cognition. pdf

Sang, K., Todd, P.M., Goldstone, R.L., & Hills, T.T. (2020). Simple threshold rules solve explore/exploit trade-offs in a resource accumulation search task. Cognitive Science, 44, 1-30. pdf

Hills, T.T., Proto, E., Sgroi, D., & Seresinhe, C. (2019). Historical analysis of national subjective wellbeing using millions of digitized books. Nature Human Behavior, 1-5. pdf

Hills, T.T. (2019). Neurocognitive free will. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 286, 1-9. pdf.

Li, Y., Engelthaler, T., Siew, C. S., & Hills, T. T. (2019). The Macroscope: A tool for examining the historical structure of language. Behavior Research Methods, 1-14. pdf

Herzog, S., & Hills, T. T. (2019) Mediation centrality in adversarial policy networks. Complexity, 1-15. pdf

Hills, T.T. (2018). The dark side of information proliferation. Perspectives on Psychological Science. Advanced online publication. pdf*

Jagiello, R., & Hills, T.T. (2018). Bad news has wings: Dread risk mediates social amplification in risk communication. Risk Analysis, 38, 2193–2207. pdf

Hills, T. T., & Siew, C. S. (2018). Filling gaps in early word learning. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(9), 622. pdf

Engelthaler, T., & Hills, T. T. (2018). Humor norms for 4,997 English words. Behavior Research Methods, 50(3), 1116-1124. pdf

Dubossarsky, H., De Deyne, S., & Hills, T. T. (2017). Quantifying the structure of free association networks across the lifespan. Developmental Psychology, 53(8), 1560. pdf

Engelthaler, T. & Hills, T. (2017). Feature biases in early word learning: Network distinctiveness predicts age of acquisition. Cognitive Science, 41, 120-140. pdf

Hertwig, R., & Hills, T. (2017). The evolutionary limits of neuroenhancement. In A. Mohammed (Ed.) Rethinking Cognitive Enhancement. Oxford University Press.

Noguchi, T., & Hills, T. (2016). Description-experience gap in choice deferral. Decision, 3, 54-61. pdf

Hills, T., Adelman, J., & Noguchi, T. (2017). Attention economies, information crowding, and language change. In M. Jones (Ed.), Big Data in Cognitive Science. Florence, Kentucky: Psychology Press. pdf

Wulff, D., Hills, T., & Hertwig, R. (2015). How short- and long-run aspirations impact search and choice in decisions from experience. Cognition, 144, 29-37. pdf

Hills, T., Todd, P., Lazer, D., Redish, A., Couzin, I., and the Cognitive Search Research Group* (*Bateson, M., Cools, R., Dukas, R., Giraldeau, L., Macy, M.W., Page, S.E., Shiffrin, R.M., Stephens, D.W., Uzzi, B., Wolfe, J.W.) (2015). Exploration versus exploitation in space, mind, and society. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19, 46-54. pdf

Hills, T.T., Proto, E., & Srgoi, D. (2015). Historical analysis of national subjective wellbeing using millions of digitized books. IZA Discussion Paper No. 9195. pdf

Hills, T.T., & Adelman, J. (2015). Recent evolution in the learnability of American English from 1800 to 2000. Cognition, 143, 87-92. pdf

Hills, T.T., Todd, P.M., & Jones, M.N. (2015) Foraging in semantic fields: How we search through memory. Topics in Cognitive Science. Article first published online: 22 JUN 2015 | DOI: 10.1111/tops.12151 pdf

Jones, M.N., Hills, T.T., & Todd, P.M. (2015). Hidden processes in structural representations: A reply to Abbot, Austerweil, and Griffiths (2015). Psychological Review, 122, 570-574. pdf

Bilson, S., Yoshida, H., Tran, C., Woods, E., & Hills, T. (2015). Semantic facilitation in bilingual first language acquisition. Cognition, 140, 122-134. pdf

Hills, T. & Butterfill, S. (2015). From foraging to autonoetic consciousness: The primal self as a consequence of embodied prospective foraging. Current Zoology, 61, 368-381. pdf

Hills, T. (2015). Crowdsourcing content creation in the classroom. Journal of Computing in Higher Education. Published online: DOI 10.1007/s12528-015-9089-2 pdf

Hills, T., Todd, P., Lazer, D., Redish, A., Couzin, I., and the Cognitive Search Research Group* (*Bateson, M., Cools, R., Dukas, R., Giraldeau, L., Macy, M.W., Page, S.E., Shiffrin, R.M., Stephens, D.W., Uzzi, B., Wolfe, J.W.) (2015). Exploration versus exploitation in space, mind, and society. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19, 46-54. pdf

Wulff, D., Hills, T., & Hertwig, R. (2014). Online product reviews and the description-experience gap. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. doi: 10.1002/bdm.1841.pdf

Hills, T., & Segev E. (2014). The news is American but our memories are...Chinese? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. pdf

Segev, E. & Hills, T. (2014). When news and memory come apart: A cross-national comparison of countries’ mentions. The International Communication Gazette. Data News Network Data (IL = Israel, US = US, CN = China, CH = Switzerland) from 3 time periods

Sanborn, A., & Hills, T. (2014). The frequentist implications of optional stopping on Bayesian hypothesis tests. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 21, 283-300.pdf

Sanborn, A, Hills, T., Dougherty, M R., Thomas, R. P., & Erica, CY (2014). Reply to Rouder (2014): Good frequentist properties raise confidence. Psychonomic bulletin & review 21 (2), 309-311.pdf

Hills, T., Kalff, C., & Wiener, J. (2013). Adaptive Lévy processes and area-restricted search in human foraging. PLoS One.pdf

Hills, T., Noguchi, T., & Gibbert, M. (2013). Information overload and search-amplified risk: Set size and order effects on decisions from experience. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.pdf

Hills, T., Mata, R., Wilke, A., & Samanez-Larkin, G. (2013). Mechanisms of age-related decline in memory search across the adult life span. Developmental Psychology.pdf

Hills, T. (2012). The company that words keep: Comparing the statistical structure of child versus adult-directed language. Journal of Child Language, available on CJO2012. doi:10.1017/S0305000912000165.pdf

Hills, T., & Hertwig, R. (2012). Two Distinct Exploratory Behaviors in Decisions From Experience: Comment on Gonzalez & Dutt, 2011. Psychological Review, 119, 888-892. pdf

Hills, T., Jones, M. & Todd, P. M. (2012). Optimal foraging in semantic memory. Psychological Review, 119, 431-440. pdf

Fischer, D., & Hills, T. (2012). The baby effect and young male syndrome: Social influences on cooperative risk-taking in women and men. Evolution and Human Behavior. Advance online publication. pdf

Todd, P. M., Hills, T., & Robbins, T. W. (2012). Building a foundation for cognitive search. Todd, P. M., Hills, T., & Robbins, T. (Eds.) Cognitive Search: Evolution, Algorithms, and the Brain. Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 9, J. Lupp, series ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pdf

Hills, T., & Dukas, R. (2012). The evolution of cognitive search. Todd, P. M., Hills, T., & Robbins, T. (Eds.) Cognitive Search: Evolution, Algorithms, and the Brain. Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 9, J. Lupp, series ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pdf

Hutchinson, J. M. C., Stephens, D., Bateson, M., Couzin, I., Dukas, R., Giraldeau, L., Hills, T., Méry, F., & Winterhalder, B. (2012). Searching for fundamentals and commonalities of search. In P. M. Todd, T. Hills, & T. Robbins, (Eds.) Cognitive Search: Evolution, Algorithms, and the Brain. Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 9, J. Lupp, series ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pdf

Todd, P. M., Hills, T., & Robbins, T. (Eds.) (2012). Cognitive Search: Evolution, Algorithms, and the Brain, vol. 9. Strüngmann Forum Reports,, vol. 9, J. Lupp, series ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. http://www.esforum.de
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=13082

Hills, T., & Pachur, T. (2012). Dynamic search and working memory in social recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 38, 218-228. pdf

Hills, T. & Hertwig, R. (2011). Why aren’t we smarter already: Evolutionary trade-offs and cognitive enhancements. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 373-377. pdf

Beckage, N., Smith, L., & Hills, T. (2011). Small worlds and semantic network growth intypical and late talkers. Plos One, 6(5), 1-6. pdf

Stroup, W., Hills, T., & Carmona, G. (2011). Computing the average square: An agent-based introduction to aspects of current psychometric practice. Technology, Knowledge, & Learning, 16, 199-220. pdf

Hills, T. (2011). The evolutionary origins of cognitive control. Topics in Cognitive Science, 3, 231-237. pdf

Hills, T. (2010) Investigating mathematical search behavior and problem solving using network analyses. In Lesh, R., Galbraith, P., Blum, W., and Hurford, A. (Eds.) Modeling Students Mathematical Modeling Competencies. USA: Springer. pdf

Goldstone, R.L., Hills, T., & Day, S. (2010). Concept formation. In I.B. Weiner & W.E. Craighead (Eds.), Corcini’s Encyclopedia of Psychology: Fourth Edition. John Wiley & Sons. pdf

Hills, T., & Hertwig, R. (2010). Information search and decisions from experience: Do our patterns of sampling foreshadow our decisions? Psychological Science, 21, 1787-1792. pdf Data by trail: txt file

Hills, T., Todd, P. M., & Goldstone, R. L. (2010). The central executive as a search process: Priming exploration and exploitation across domains. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 590-609. pdf

Hills, T., Maouene, J., Riordan, B., & Smith, L. (2010). The associative structure of language and contextual diversity in early language acquisition. Journal of Memory and Language, 63, 259-273. pdf

Hills, T., Maouene, M., Maouene, J., Sheya, A., & Smith, L. (2009). Emergent categories in the feature structure of early-learned nouns. Cognition, 112, 381-396. pdf

Hills, T., Maouene, M., Maouene, J., Sheya, A., & Smith, L. (2009). Longitudinal analysis of early semantic networks: preferential attachment or preferential acquisition? Psychological Science, 20, 729-739. pdf

Hills, T., & Todd., P.M. (2008). Population heterogeneity and individual differences in an agent-based marriage and divorce model (MADAM) using search with relaxing expectations. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 11(4). pdf

Hills, T., Todd, P.M., & Goldstone, R.L. (2008). Search in external and internal spaces: Evidence for generalized cognitive search processes. Psychological Science, 19, 676-682. pdf

Hills, T. (2007). Is constructivism risky? Social risk-taking, classroom participation, competitive game play, and constructivist preferences in teacher development. Teacher Development, 11, 335-352. pdf

Hills, T., Hurford, A., Stroup, W., & Lesh, R. (2007). Formalizing learning as a complex system: scale invariant power law distributions in group and individual decision making. In R. Lesh, E. Hamilton, J. Kaput (Eds.), Foundations for the Future in Mathematics Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. pdf

Hills, T. (2006). Animal foraging and the evolution of goal-directed cognition. Cognitive Science, 30, 3-41. pdf

Hills, T. (2006). Making science relevant: Using students’ interests to teach the art of scientific inquiry. Science Scope, September 2006. pdf

Hills, T., Brockie, P., Maricq, A.V. (2004) Dopamine and glutamate control area-restricted search behavior in Caenorhabditis elegans. Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 1217-1225. pdf

Hills, T. (2003) Towards a unified theory of animal event timing. In W.H. Meck (Ed.) Functional and Neural Mechanisms of Interval Timing. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. pdf

Hills, T. & Adler, F. (2002) Time’s crooked arrow: Optimal foraging and rate-biased time perception. Animal Behavior, 64, 589-597. pdf

Brockie, P., Mellem, J.E., Hills, T., Madsen, D.M., & Maricq, A.V. (2001) The C. elegans glutamate receptor subunit NMR-1 is required for slow NMDA-activated currents that regulate reversal frequency during locomotion. Neuron, 31, 617-630. pdf

Glendinning, J.I., & Hills, T. (1997) Electrophysiological evidence for two transduction pathways within a bitter-sensitive taste receptor. Journal of Neurophysiology (Bethesda), 78, 734-745. pdf

Childes Co-occurrance at window size 5: cooc5

Childes Co-occurrance at window size 15: cooc15

Free association network: fannet

Distinctiveness data: Engelthaler_R_scripts_and_data

*for academic use only.

My book recommendations

Data for Behavioral Network Science: Language, Mind, and Society

Class materials A B