Presentation Title:
Embodied mental procedures: The case of cleansing as a procedure of separation

Research Summary:
Spike is interested in how human beings accomplish abstract thinking, especially abstract thought that matters in social life (e.g., morality, suspicion, love). He investigates how low-level bodily processes help construct and are in turn influenced by higher-level mental processes, often leading to quirky effects (e.g., physical cleansing helps people move on by “wiping the slate clean”; when people “smell something fishy,” they become suspicious and invest less money in a trust-dependent economic game).
In terms of theoretical goals, he explores how the mind interacts with the body through multiple mechanisms; why mind-body relations are often predicted by the metaphors we use; when and how metaphors influence judgments, feelings, and behaviors; what cognitive principles govern embodied effects; and how they vary by experimental, social, and cultural contexts.
His work has been published in leading journals such as Science, Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. He received the 2010 Early Graduate Student Researcher Award by the American Psychological Association and the 2016 Rising Star designation by the Association for Psychological Science.