Arthur B Markman
Professor — Ph.D., University of Illinois
Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor

Contact
- E-mail: markman@utexas.edu
- Phone: (512) 232-4645
- Office: SEA 5.218, IC2 2nd floor
- Office Hours: M 2-4pm (2nd Floor IC2 Building, 2815 San Gabriel)
- Campus Mail Code: A8000
Interests
Similarity and analogy, categorization, decision making and consumer behavior, and knowledge representation
Biography
After getting a B.S. in Cognitive Science from Brown University in 1988, I went on to graduate school in the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois, where I got my PhD in 1992. Then, I spent five years as an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Columbia University. My research has focused on four main areas. First, I am interested in the way people see things to be similar, and how they process similarity and analogy comparisons. While the study of similarity is interesting for its own sake, it is also interesting because of what it can tell us about other psychological processes. In order to look at the way that our ability to make comparisons affects our cognitive processing, I also do research on category learning and decision making. I have also gotten interested in the way that motivational factors affect learning, decision making, and cognition more generally.
I served as the founding director of the program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations from 2011-2018. This program aims to provide education in the humanities and the social and behavioral sciences to people in business, nonprofits, government, and the military. The aim is to teach leaders about how people, groups, and cultures influence the workplace. HDO has both an MA and a BA program.
I am now executive director of the IC2 Institute. IC2 is a think-and-do tank that focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship. The current mission of the institute is to explore rural and small city economic development in Texas, the US, and around the world.
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In the Fall of 2019, I am teaching HDO 301: Introduction to the Human Dimensions of Organizations on-line as a SMOC.
In the past, I have taught the lower-division course in cognition, PSY 305, graduate seminars on Reasoning and Decision Making and Knowledge Representation. I have also taught PSY 418, Statistics and Research Methods. An old syllabus for PSY 418 is available here. I have coordinated PSY 387R, Fundamentals of Cognition. I have also taught an undergraduate seminar on Reasoning and Decision Making, and a graduate seminar on Motivation and Learning.
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I blog for several outlets and I have written a number of books bringing cognitive science to a broader audience. You can get more information about this work here. In addition, I do a radio show and podcast called Two Guys on Your Head produced by KUT.
Courses
HDO 301 • Intro Hmn Dimensions Of Orgs
29170 • Fall 2019
Meets MW 11:30AM-1:00PM
Two-way Interactive Video
E
SB
PSY 394U • Publc Scholarship For Rsrch
41874 • Fall 2019
Meets T 2:00PM-5:00PM SEA 3.250
(also listed as HIS 381)
HDO 301 • Intro Hmn Dimensions Of Orgs
29735-29745 • Fall 2018
Meets MWF 10:00AM-11:00AM CPE 2.214
E
SB
HDO 301 • Intro Hmn Dimensions Of Orgs
39915 • Fall 2017
Meets MWF 10:00AM-11:00AM NOA 1.124
E
SB
HDO 301 • Intro Human Dimensions Of Orgs
39880 • Spring 2017
Meets MWF 10:00AM-11:00AM ETC 2.136
E
HDO 301 • Intro Human Dimensions Of Orgs
39720 • Fall 2016
Meets MWF 10:00AM-11:00AM NOA 1.124
E
PSY 379H • Honors Research II
42400 • Fall 2015
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 2.108
Wr
PSY 359H • Honors Research I
42765 • Spring 2015
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 2.108
PSY 379H • Honors Research II
43850 • Fall 2013
Meets M 2:00PM-5:00PM SEA 2.108
Wr
C2
PSY 359H • Honors Research I
43475 • Spring 2013
Meets M 9:00AM-12:00PM SEA 3.250
PSY 379H • Honors Research II
43280 • Fall 2011
Meets M 12:00PM-3:00PM SEA 2.224
Wr
C2
PSY 359H • Honors Research I
43845 • Spring 2011
Meets M 12:00PM-3:00PM SEA 2.224
PSY 394U • Knowledge Representation
44040 • Spring 2011
Meets T 12:30PM-3:30PM SEA 4.242
PSY 355R • Reasoning & Decision Making-W
43980 • Spring 2010
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM SEA 2.108
Wr
C2
PSY 394U • Motivatnl Procs In Lrn & Perf
44191 • Spring 2010
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 5.106
PSY 379H • Honors Research II-W
44220 • Fall 2009
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 2.108
C2
PSY 359H • Honors Research I
43255 • Spring 2009
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 2.108
PSY 379H • Honors Research II-W
45180 • Fall 2007
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 2.114
C2
PSY 359H • Honors Research I
43800 • Spring 2007
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 2.224
PSY 305 • Intro To Cognitive Psychology
44715 • Fall 2006
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM WAG 101
SB
PSY 394U • Motivatnl Procs In Lrn & Perf
45125 • Fall 2006
Meets F 12:00PM-3:00PM SEA 4.242
PSY 341K • Reasoning & Decision Making-W
43034 • Spring 2006
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM SEA 2.108
C2
PSY 379H • Honors Research II-W
43105 • Fall 2005
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 5.106
C2
PSY 394U • Current Topics In Cognition
43280 • Fall 2005
Meets F 2:00PM-5:00PM SEA 3.250
PSY 359H • Honors Research I
41600 • Spring 2005
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 5.106
PSY 305 • Intro To Cognitive Psychology
42410 • Fall 2004
Meets MWF 1:00PM-2:00PM BUR 212
SB
PSY 394U • Knowledge Representation
42830 • Fall 2004
Meets T 2:00PM-5:00PM SEA 2.224
PSY 341K • Reasoning & Decision Making-W
40055 • Spring 2004
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM SEA 3.250
C2
PSY 341K • Reasoning & Decision Making-W
41160 • Fall 2003
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM SEA 3.250
C2
PSY 394U • Reasoning And Decision Making
41380 • Fall 2003
Meets M 1:00PM-4:00PM NOA 1.110
PSY 379H • Honors Research II
41045 • Fall 2002
Meets F 2:00PM-4:00PM SEA 5.106
PSY 394U • Knowledge Representation
41174 • Fall 2002
Meets W 1:00PM-4:00PM SEA 2.224
PSY 359H • Honors Research I-W
40245 • Spring 2002
Meets F 1:00PM-4:00PM MEZ 402
C2
PSY 305 • Intro To Cognitive Psychology
40960 • Fall 2001
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM CAL 100
PSY 305 • Intro To Cognitive Psychology
40965 • Fall 2001
Meets MWF 3:00PM-4:00PM CAL 100
PSY 158H • Honors Seminar
40005 • Spring 2001
Meets TH 5:00PM-6:00PM MEZ 302
PSY 394U • Knowledge Representation
40170 • Spring 2001
Meets TH 2:00PM-5:00PM BEN 422
PSY 355 • Cognition
40930 • Fall 2000
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM UTC 3.124
PSY 158H • Honors Seminar
40960 • Fall 2000
Meets F 4:00PM-5:00PM MEZ 402
PSY 359H • Honors Research I-W
40970 • Fall 2000
Meets M 3:00PM-6:00PM MEZ 402
C2
Publications
- Similarity and Analogy
- Decision Making
- Categorization
- Knowledge Representation and Philosophy of Psychology
- Reasoning, Performance, and Individual Differences
Similarity and Analogy
Markman, A.B. & Gentner, D. (1993). Splitting the differences: A structural alignment view of similarity. Journal of Memory and Language, 32(4), 517-535.
Markman, A.B. & Gentner, D. (1993). Structural alignment during similarity comparisons. Cognitive Psychology, 25(4), 431-467.
Gentner, D. & Markman, A.B. (1994). Structural alignment in comparison: No difference without similarity. Psychological Science, 5(3), 152-158.
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Gentner, D., Rattermann, M.J., Markman, A.B., & Kotovsky, L. (1995). Two forces in the development of relational similarity. In G.S. Halford & T. Simon (Eds), Developing Cognitive Competence: New Approaches to Process Modelling, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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Markman, A.B., & Gentner, D. (1996). Commonalities and differences in similarity comparisons. Memory and Cognition, 24(2), 235-249.
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Markman, A.B. (1996). Structural alignment in similarity and difference judgments. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 3(2), 227-230.
Markman, A.B. (1996). Extended book review of French's "The subtlety of sameness", The International Journal of Neural Systems, 7(5), 665-670.
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Gentner, D., Brem, S., Ferguson, R., Markman, A.B., Wolff, P., Levidow, B.N., & Forbus, K.D. (1997). Analogical reasoning and conceptual change: A case study of Johannes Kepler. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(1), 3-40.
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Gentner, D., & Markman, A.B. (1997). Structure mapping in analogy and similarity. American Psychologist, 52(1), 45-56.
Markman, A.B., & Gentner, D. (1997). The effects of alignability on memory. Psychological Science, 8(5), 363-367.
Markman, A.B. (1997). Constraints on analogical inference. Cognitive Science, 21(4), 373-418.
Forbus, K.D., Gentner, D., Markman, A.B., & Ferguson, R.W. (1998). Analogy just looks like high level perception. Why a domain-general approach to analogical mapping is right. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 10(2), 231-257.
Markman, A.B., & Gentner, D. (2000). Structure mapping in the comparison process. American Journal of Psychology, 113, 501-538.
Markman, A.B., & Gentner, D. (2001). Thinking. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 223-247.
Gentner, D., & Markman, A.B. (2002). Analogy-based reasoning and metaphor. In M.A. Arbib (Ed.) The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks (2nd ed.). (pp. 106-109) Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
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Dietrich, E., Markman, A.B., Stilwell, C.H., & Winkley, M. (2003). The role of representational change in chance discovery. In Y. Ohsawa & P. McBurney (Eds.) Chance Discovery: Foundations and applications (pp. 208-230). Heidelberg: Springer.
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Markman, A.B., & Gentner, D. (2005). Nonintentional similarity processing. In R. Hassin, J.A. Bargh, & J.S. Uleman (Eds.) The new unconscious. (pp. 107-137) New York: Oxford University Press.
Larkey, L.B., & Markman, A.B. (2005). Processes of similarity judgment. Cognitive Science, 29(6), 1061-1076.
Linsey, J.S., Laux, J., Clauss, E.F., Wood, K.L., & A Markman, A.B. (2007). Effects of analogous product representation on design-by-analogy. International Conference on Engineering Design ICED'07. Paris, France.
Markman, A.B., Taylor, E., & Gentner, D. (2007). Auditory presentation leads to better analogical retrieval than written presentation. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 14(6), 1101-1106.
Linsey, J.S., Wood, K.L., & Markman, A.B. (2008). Modality and representation in analogy. Artificial Intelligence for Engeinnering Design, Analysis, and Manufacturing, 22(2), 85-210.
Markman, A. B., Wood, K. L., Linsey, J. S., Murphy, J. T., & Laux, J. (2009). Supporting innovation by promoting analogical reasoning. In A. B. Markman & K. L. Wood (Eds.), Tools for Innovation (pp. 85-103). New York: Oxford University Press.
Rein, J.R., & Markman, A.B. (2010). Assessing the concreteness of relational representation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(6), 1452-1465.
Grimm, L.R., Rein, J.R., & Markman, A.B. (2012). Determining transformation distance in similarity: Considerations for assessing representational changes a priori. Thinking and Reasoning, 18(1), 59-80.
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Decision Making
Medin, D.L., Goldstone, R.L., & Markman, A.B. (1995). Comparison and choice: Relations between similarity processing and decision processing. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 2(1), 1-19.
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Markman, A.B., & Medin, D.L. (1995). Similarity and alignment in choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 63(2), 117-130.
Lindemann, P.G., & Markman, A.B. (1996). Alignability and attribute importance in choice. In The proceedings of the 18th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. San Diego, CA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Brendl, C.M., Markman, A.B., & Higgins, E.T. (1998). Mentale Buchhaltung als Selbst-Regulation: Representativitat fur ziel-geleitete Kategorien [Mental accounting as self-regulation: Representativeness to goal-derived categories. Zeitschrift fuer Sozialpsychologie, 29, 89-104.. (An English translation of this paper can be obtained from any of the authors).
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Zhang, S., & Markman, A.B. (1998). Overcoming the early entrant advantage via differentiation: The role of alignable and nonalignable differences. Journal of Marketing Research. 35, 413-426.
Markman, A.B., & Brendl, C.M. (2000). The influence of goals on value and choice. In D.L. Medin (Ed.) The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 39. (pp. 97-129) San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Markman, A.B., & Moreau, C.P. (2001). Analogy and analogical comparison in choice. In D. Gentner, K.J. Holyoak, & B. Kokinov (Eds.) Analogy: Theoretical and Empirical Research. (pp. 363-400) Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
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Moreau, C.P., Lehman, D.R., & Markman, A.B. (2001). Entrenched category structures and resistance to 'really' new products. Journal of Marketing Research, 38(1), 14-29.
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Moreau, C.P., Markman, A.B., & Lehman, D.R. (2001). 'What is it?' Categorization flexibility and consumers' responses to really new products. Journal of Consumer Research, 27, 489-498.
Zhang, S., & Markman, A.B. (2001). Processing product-unique features: Alignment and involvement in preference construction. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 11(1), 13-27.
Brendl, C.M., Markman, A.B., & Messner, C. (2001). How do indirect measures of evaluation work? Evaluating the inference of prejudice in the Implicit Association Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 760-773.
Markman, A.B., & Medin, D.L. (2002). Decision Making. In D.L. Medin & H. Pashler (Eds.) Stevens Handbook of Experimental Psychology (3rd Edition), Volume 2. (pp. 413-466). New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Brendl, C.M., Markman, A.B., & Messner, C. (2003). Devaluation of goal-unrelated choice options. Journal of Consumer Research, 29, 463-473.
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Brendl, C.M., Markman, A.B., & Messner, C. (2005). Indirectly measuring evaluations of several attitude objects in relation to a neutral reference point. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41(4), 346-368.
Markman, A.B., & Brendl, C.M. (2005). Goals, policies, preferences, and actions. In F.R. Kardes, P.M. Herr, & J. Nantel (Eds.) Applying social cognition to consumer-focused strategy. (pp. 183-200). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Markman, A.B., Brendl, C.M., & Kim, K. (2007). Preference and the specificity of goals. Emotion, 7(3), 680-684.
Worthy, D.A., Maddox, W.T., & Markman, A.B. (2007). Regulatory fit effects in a choice task. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 14(6), 1125-1132.
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Worthy, D.A., Maddox, W.T., & Markman, A.B. (2008). Ratio and difference comparisons of expected reward in decision making tasks. Memory and Cognition, 36(8), 1460-1469.
Otto, A.R., Gureckis, T.M., Markman, A.B., & Love, B.C. (2009). Navigating through abstract decision spaces: Evaluating the role of state generalization in a dynamic decision task. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
Markman, A.B. & Loewenstein, J. (2010). Structural comparison and consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 20, 126-137.
Otto, A.R., Markman, A.B., Gureckis, T.M., & Love, B.C. (2010). Regulatory fit and systematic exploration in a dynamic decision-making environment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3), 797-804.
Otto. A.R., Taylor, E.G., & Markman, A.B. (2011). There are at Least Two Kinds of Probability Matching: Evidence from a Secondary Task. Cognition. 118, 274-279.
Otto, A.R., Markman, A.B., & Love, B.C. (in press). Taking more now: The optimality of impulsive choice hinges on environment structure. Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Categorization
Markman, A.B. (1989). LMS rules and the inverse base-rate effect: Comment on Gluck and Bower (1988). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 118, 417-421.
Wisniewski, E.J. & Markman, A.B. (1993). The role of structural alignment in conceptual combination. In The Proceedings of the 15th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Boulder, CO.
Markman, A.B., Yamauchi, T., & Makin, V.S. (1997). The creation of new concepts: A multifaceted approach to category learning. In T.B. Ward, S.M. Smith & J. Vaid (Eds.) Creative thought: An investigation of conceptual structures and processes, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
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Markman, A.B., & Wisniewski, E.J. (1997). Similar and different: The differentiation of basic level categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,23(1), 54-70.
Markman, A.B. (1997). Structural alignment in similarity and its influence on category structure. Cognitive Studies, 4, 19-37.
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Yamauchi, T., & Markman, A.B. (1998). Category learning by inference and classification. Journal of Memory and Language, 39(1), 124-148.
Markman, A.B., & Makin, V.S. (1998). Referential communication and category acquisition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 331-354.
Yamauchi, T., & Markman, A.B. (2000). Learning categories composed of varying instances: The effect of classification, inference, and structural alignment. Memory and Cognition, 28(1), 64-78.
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Yamauchi, T., & Markman, A.B. (2000). Inference using categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 776-795.
Markman, A.B. (2001). Structural alignment, similarity, and the internal structure of category representations. In U. Hahn, & M. Ramscar (Eds.) Similarity and Categorization (pp. 109-130). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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Markman, A.B., & Stilwell, C.H. (2001). Role-governed categories. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 13(4), 329-358.
Yamauchi, T., Love, B.C., & Markman, A.B. (2002). Learning nonlinearly separable categories by inference and classification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28(3), 585-593.
Markman, A.B., & Maddox, W.T. (2003). Classification of exemplars with single and multiple feature manifestations: The effects of relevant dimension variation and category structure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29(1), 107-117.
Markman, A.B., & Ross, B.H. (2003). Category use and category learning. Psychological Bulletin, 129(4), 592-615.
Love, B.C., & Markman, A.B. (2003). The non-independence of stimulus properties in category learning. Memory and Cognition, 31(5), 790-799.
Markman, A.B., & Stilwell, C.H. (2004). Concepts a la modal: Review of Prinz's "Furnishing the Mind." Philosophical Psychology, 17(3), 391-401.
Markman, A.B. (2005). What are categories and why are they coherent? In W.K. Ahn, R.L. Goldstone, B.C. Love, A.B. Markman, & P. Wolff (Eds.) Categorization inside and outside the laboratory: Essays in honor of Douglas L. Medin. (pp. 215-227). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
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Bohil, C.J., Markman, A.B., & Maddox, W.T. (2005). A feature-salience analogue of the inverse base-rate effect. Korean Journal of Thinking and Problem Solving, 15(1), 17-28.
Markman, A.B., Baldwin, G.C., & Maddox, W.T. (2005). The interaction of payoff structure and regulatory focus in classification. Psychological Science, 16(11), 852-855.
Markman, A.B., Maddox, W.T., & Baldwin, G.C. (2005). The implications of advances in research on motivation for cognitive models. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 17(4), 371-384.
Maddox, W.T., Markman, A.B., & Baldwin, G.C. (2006). Using classification to understand the motivation-learning interface. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 47, 213-250.
Markman, A.B., Maddox, W.T., & Worthy, D.A. (2006). Choking and excelling under pressure. Psychological Science, 17(11), 944-948.
Maddox, W.T., Baldwin, G.C., & Markman, A.B. (2006). A test of the regulatory fit hypothesis in perceptual classification learning. Memory and Cognition, 34(7), 1377-1397.
Markman, A.B., Maddox, W.T., Worthy, D.A., & Baldwin, G.C. (2007). Using regulatory focus to explore implicit and explicit processing on concept learning. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14(9-10), 132-155.
Grimm, L.R., Markman, A.B., Maddox, W.T., & Baldwin, G.C. (2008). Differential effects of regulatory fit on category learning. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 920-927.
Markman, A.B., Maddox, W.T., & Worthy, D.A. (2006). Choking and excelling under pressure. Psychological Science, 17(11), 944-948.
Worthy, D.A., Markman, A.B., & Maddox, W.T. (2009). What is pressure? Evidence for social pressure as a type of regulatory focus. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 16(2), 344-349.
Worthy, D.A., Markman, a.B., & Markman, W.T. (2009). Choking and excelling under pressure in experienced classifiers. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 71(4), 924-935.
Rein, J.R., Goldwater, M.B., & Markman, A.B. (2010). What is typical about the typicality effect in category-based induction? Memory and Cognition, 38(3), 377-388.
Goldwater, M.B., Markman, A.B., & Stilwell, C.H. (2011). The empirical case for role-governed categories. Cognition, 118, 359-376.
Goldwater, M.B. & Markman, A.B. (2011). Categorizing entities by common role. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 18(2), 406-413.
Knowledge Representation and Philosophy of Psychology
Markman, A.B. (1999). Knowledge Representation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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Dietrich, A.B., & Markman, A.B. (Eds.) (2000). Cognitive Dynamics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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Markman, A.B., & Dietrich, E. (2000). In defense of representation. Cognitive Psychology, 40, 138-171.
Markman, A.B., & Dietrich, E. (2000). Extending the classical view of representation.Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 4, 70-75.
Markman, A.B. (2002). Knowledge Representation. In D.L. Medin & H. Pashler (Eds.) Stevens Handbook of Experimental Psychology (3rd Edition), Volume 2. (pp. 165-208). New York: John Wiley and Sons.
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Dietrich, E., & Markman, A.B. (2003). Discrete thoughts: Why cognition must use discrete representations. Mind and Language, 18, 95-119.
Woolley, J.D., Boerger, E.A., & Markman, A.B. (2004). A visit from the Candy Witch: Factors influencing young children's belief in a novel fantastical entity. Developmental Science. 7(4), 456-468
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Markman, A.B., & Brendl, C.M. (2005). Constraining theories of embodied cognition. Psychological Science, 16(1), 6-10.
Markman, A.B., Beer, J.S., Grimm, L.R., Rein, J.R., & Maddox, W.T. (2009). The optimal level of fuzz: Case studies in a methodology for psychological research. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 21(3), 197-215
Goldwater, M.B., & Markman, A.B. (2009). Constructional sources of implicit agents in sentence comprehension. Cognitive Linguistics, 20(4), 675-702.
Reasoning, Performance, and Individual Differences
Kim, K. & Markman, A.B. (2006). Differences in Fear of Isolation as an explanation of Cultural Differences: Evidence from memory and reasoning. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 350-364.
Kim, K., Narvaez, L.R., & Markman, A.B. (2007). Self-construal and the processing of covariation information in causal reasoning. Memory and Cognition, 35(6), 1337-1343.
Grimm, L.R., Markman, A.B., Maddox, W.T., & Baldwin, G.C. (2009). Stereotype threat reinterpreted as a regulatory mismatch. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(2), 288-304.
Markman, A.B., Grimm, L.R., & Kim, K. (2009). Culture as a vehicle for studying individual differences. In R.S. Wyer, C.Y. Chiu, & Y.Y. Hong (Eds.) Understanding Culture: A theory, research and application (pp. 93-106). New York: A Taylor and Francis.
Worthy, D.A., Markman, A.B., & Maddox, W.T. (2009). Choking and excelling at the free-throw line. International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving, 19(1), 53-58.
Maddox, W.T., Filoteo, J.V., Glass, B.D., & Markman, A.B. (2010). Regulatory match effects on a modified Wisconsin Card Sort task. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 16, 352-359.
Laux, J.P., Goedert, K.M., & Markman, A.B. (2010). Causal discounting in the presence of a stronger cue is due to bias. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 17(2), 213-218.
Maddox, W.T., & Markman, A.B. (2010). The motivation-cognition interface in learning and decision making. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(2), 106-110.
Glass, B.D., Maddox, W.T., Markman, A.B., Schnyer, D.M., Bowen, C., Savarie, Z.R., & Matthews, M.D. (2011). The effects of 24-hour sleep deprivation on the exploration-exploitation trade-off. Biological Rhythm Research 42, 99-110.
Vohs, K.D., Glass, B.D., Maddox, W.T., & Markman, A.B. (2011). Ego depletion is not just fatigue: Evidence from a total sleep deprivation experiment. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(2), 166-173.
Glass, B.D., Maddox, W.T., & Markman, A.B. (2011). Regulatory fit effects on stimulus identification. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 73, 927-937.
Worthy, D.A., Brez, C.C., Markman, A.B., & Maddox, W.T. (in press). Motivational influences on cognitive performance in children: Focus over fit. Journal of Cognition and Development.
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Grimm, L.R., Markman, A.B., & Maddox, W.T. (in press). End-of-semester syndrome: How situational regulatory fit affects test performance over an academic semester. Basic and Applied Social Psychology.
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Media
UT Knowledge Matters
Ask a UT Psychologist — Art Markman
Psychologist Art Markman, author of "Smart Thinking" (Penguin, Jan. 2012) and director of Human Dimensions of Organizations, discusses the consequences of suppressing emotions, and how to come up with new problem-solving ideas. Watch him discuss these topics and more in a Knowledge Matters 2-part video series.
UT Game Changers
Art Markman: Smart Thinking: Three Essential Keys to Solve Problems, Innovate, and Get Things Done
Intelligence and smart thinking are not the same. In fact, sciences confirms that smart thinking is not an innate quality but rather a skill to be cultivated. Drawing on diverse studies of the mind, from psychology to linguistics, philosophy, and learning science, Markman demonstrates the difference between smart thinking and raw intelligence, showing how memory works, how to learn effectively, and how to use knowledge to get things done.
Science Network Interview
CogSci 2011
Arthur Markman is director of the Similarity and Cognition Lab at The University of Texas. He studies how people learn, how people perform under pressure, and how incentives affect performance. His research has focused on three main areas. First, he is interested in the way people see things to be similar, and how they process similarity and analogy comparisons. While the study of similarity is interesting for its own sake, it is also interesting because of what it can tell us about other psychological processes. In order to look at the way that our ability to make comparisons affects our cognitive processing, he also does research on category learning and decision making. He is a Governing Board member of the Cognitive Science Society and Executive Editor of the Cognitive Science journal. He shares insights into current issues ranging from the psychology of politics to teen drug-taking behavior in "Ulterior Motives," a blog series in Psychology Today.
Research + Pizza Presentation
Dr. Art Markman — Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor in the Department of Psychology — discussed his work in the field of cognitive science.
Markman has written a book on the subject, Smart Thinking, that differentiates between raw intelligence and the act of using intelligence to understand memory, learn effectively and accomplish goals.
Empathy Interview
Art Markman & Edwin Rutsch: How to Build a Culture of Empathy with Science
"Why Empathy Makes You More Helpful. There is a lot of research suggesting that empathy increases people’s desire to help others. Empathy is the ability to share other people’s emotion. The better able you are to feel what someone else is feeling, the more likely you are to want to help them when they are in a difficult situation. This ability also extends to animals. We are able to project feelings onto animals like dogs, and that increases our need to help them. But, what is it about empathy that promotes the need to help?"
Saathi Wellness Social Media Week Panel
Changing Face
Panel discusses the changing face of technology during the New York Health and Wellness Social Media Week.
KXAN Austin Interview
'Smart Thinking' New Book by UT Professor
Dr. Art Markman, professor of Psychology and Marketing at The University of Texas, is the author of the book "Smart Thinking - Three Essential Keys to Solve Problems, Innovate, and Get Things Done."
Books
Bring Your Brain to Work
Brain Briefs
Smart Change
Smart Thinking
Tools for Innovation
Knowledge Representation
Links
Blogs
Program in the Human Dimensions of Organizations
IC2 Institute
Similarity and Cognition Lab
The Similarity and Cognition Lab
Seay Psychology Building (SEA) 5.130
University of Texas at Austin
Research Overview
The Similarity and Cognition Lab, run by Art Markman, does research on how people see things to be similar to each other and how the way that we can compare things affects other aspects of cognition.
One of the core organizing frameworks of the lab is a search for ways to study cognitive processes that provide a good balance between the control that laboratory experiments allow and ecological validity. That is, whatever we study in the lab should bear some resemblance to what people do in their daily lives (when they are not participating in an experiment). We use this philosophy in our studies of comparison, decision making, and categorization.
Comparison is a central aspect of cognitive processing that affects abilities as simple as noticing that a pair of identical twins are in fact the same to our ability to notice that an atom is like the solar system, because something revolves around something else in each. The research we do on similarity and comparison reflects that the same process can account for both the mundane similarity comparisons and also the more complex analogical comparisons.
Of course, the study of similarity is primarily interesting, because we believe that the process of making comparisons operates in domains beyond similarity. Two areas that we have looked at in particular are Decision Making and Categorization.
The research on Decision Making focuses on the processes that people use to choose among a set of alternatives. One thing that people seem to do is to compare the alternatives they are choosing between. In these comparisons (as in similarity comparisons), corresponding pieces of information become important. For example, when choosing which of two colleges is best, people are more likely to pay attention to information about the academic reputation of the schools if they have information about the reputation of both schools than if they have that information about only one school. Thus, you could have some feature of a choice that you think is quite important, but you might not pay much attention to it if you don't have a corresponding piece of information for all of the options. We are also interested in the influence of people's goals on what they value. We are using the patterns of change in people's preferences for items when a goal is activated to better understand what people's goals are.
The research on Categorization is primarily focused on how the way people use categories affects what they learn about them. In some research, we have contrasted learning categories by learning to classify new items with learning categories by learning to predict features of new items. In other research, we have asked people to build LEGO models collaboratively in an effort to understand how communicating (in this case about LEGO pieces) affects the categories (of LEGO pieces) that are formed. We have also explored how people learn categories in the process of forming preferences about them.
We also study different types of categories. Most research examines how people learn which features are associated with a category or which features help to distinguish one category from another. We are also interested in the development of role-governed categories, which are categoiries that are defined by the role they play in some situation. For example, there is no particular set of properties that defines something as a game. Instead, games are the kinds of things that people play. Similarly, a barrier is not defined by a set of properties, but instead is marked by being the sort of thing that obstructs. We are developing methods to examine how role-governed categories are learned and how learning of role-governed categories differs from learning of categories associated with sets of features.
Finally, we explore the relationship between motivation and learning broadly. We are interested in whether people's orientation to potential gains and losses in the environment affect performance on a range of cognitive tasks. We find that when this orientation to gains or losses matches the actual rewards available in the environment, then people are more flexible in their performance than when there is a mismatch between their motivational orientation and the reward structure of the environment.
Who are we?
Alumni of the lab
Graduate Students
- Kyungil Kim, PhD
- Levi Larkey, PhD
- C. Page Moreau, PhD
- Yung-Cheng Shen, PhD
- Takashi Yamauchi, PhD
- Shi Zhang, PhD
- Ryan Gossen, MA
- Jon Rein, PhD
- Micah Goldwater, PhD
- Lisa Grimm, PhD
- Jeff Laux, PhD
- A. Ross Otto, PhD
- Evan Stein
- Joy Wyckoff
Undergrads, etc.
- Erin Spalding
- Kristin Austin
- Danny Chung
- Noah Cornman
- Sam Day
- Billy Dilly
- Christin Grant
- Brian Gurbach
- Joel Holder
- Randy Jupio
- Valerie Makin
- Saskia Traill
- Evelyn Novello
- Adalis Sanchez
- Eric Taylor
- Loan Vuong