Alexandra Rosati
University of Michigan, MI·Psychology·Early-career
Why are some individuals better than others at holding back an impulse, keeping information in mind, or planning ahead? These abilities make up cognitive control, the mental processes that line up behavior with current goals.
- Fields
Psychology
Ecology & Evolution
Social Science
- Topics
cognitive control
executive function
self-control
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Identify unique features of human cognitive control by comparing humans with chimpanzees on a new battery of tasks measuring working memory, inhibition, updating, performance monitoring and planning.
- Test whether a slow life history with an extended juvenile period promotes flexible cognition by comparing how cognitive control develops with age in chimpanzees and faster-maturing macaques.
- Compare cognitive control across eight closely related lemur species to weigh the social intelligence hypothesis (complex social life drives cognition) against the ecological intelligence hypothesis (diet drives it).
More about the research
One example is resisting the urge to grab a reward right away in order to get a better one later. This project asks how cognitive control evolved across primate species and how it develops as individuals grow up. It also tests competing explanations for why flexible intelligence emerges in the first place.
Why it matters
This is basic science about the roots of self-control, planning and flexible thinking. By linking evolution and development, it clarifies how robust executive control abilities arise across species and what makes human cognition distinctive. An outreach program on primate cognition, behavior and conservation will also reach children in Michigan, Puerto Rico and Uganda.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Timothy Webster
University of Utah, UT·Ecology & Evolution
Track how individuals of a non-human primate species become integrated into social networks from birth to adulthood, using longitudinal observation and social network analysis.
Raisa Hernandez Pacheco
California State University-Long Beach, CA·Ecology & Evolution
Characterize physical and cognitive traits across the lifespan in rhesus macaques at Cayo Santiago and test whether these traits vary with individuals' social status.
Julie Golomb
Ohio State University, OH·Psychology
Test whether spatial distractions also disrupt nonspatial filters that control what enters visual working memory, using behavioral experiments, neuromodulation and computational analyses.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
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