Faculty member Emily Liquin headshot

Emily Liquin

Assistant Professor
Office: UNH COLA Psychology, McConnell Hall, Durham, NH 03824
Websites:
Pronouns: She/her/hers

I am interested in how humans learn and discover new things, with a particular focus on curiosity, exploration, and question asking. For example, my recent work has asked: How are curiosity, exploration, and question asking shaped by a person’s prior knowledge, experience, and context? And how does information-seeking behavior change between childhood and adulthood? I take an interdisciplinary approach to answering these questions, incorporating perspectives and methods from cognitive and developmental psychology, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. My ultimate goal is to gain a comprehensive understanding of how humans play an active role in their own learning—with the potential to inform interventions to improve learning in everyday settings.

Lab Website: liquinlab.github.io

Courses Taught

  • PSYC 741W: SpcTop/Psychology of Curiosity

Education

  • Ph.D., Psychology, Princeton University

Research Interests

  • Cognitive psychology
  • Human Learning and Memory
  • Cognitive Development/Processes
  • Exploration
  • Play
  • Cognitive Sciences

Selected Publications

  • Liquin, E. G., & Lombrozo, T. (2024). Breaking down (and moving beyond) novelty as a trigger of curiosity.. Behav Brain Sci, 47, e106. doi:10.1017/S0140525X23003333

  • Metz, S. E., Liquin, E. G., & Lombrozo, T. (2023). Distinct Profiles for Beliefs About Religion Versus Science.. Cogn Sci, 47(11), e13370. doi:10.1111/cogs.13370

  • Lombrozo, T., & Liquin, E. G. (2023). Explanation Is Effective Because It Is Selective. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32(3), 212-219. doi:10.1177/09637214231156106

  • Lewry, C., Gorucu, S., Liquin, E. G., & Lombrozo, T. (2023). Minimally counterintuitive stimuli trigger greater curiosity than merely improbable stimuli.. Cognition, 230, 105286. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105286

  • Hart, Y., Kosoy, E., Liquin, E. G., Leonard, J. A., Mackey, A. P., & Gopnik, A. (2022). The development of creative search strategies.. Cognition, 225, 105102. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105102

  • Liquin, E. G., & Lombrozo, T. (2022). Motivated to learn: An account of explanatory satisfaction.. Cogn Psychol, 132, 101453. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2021.101453

  • Liquin, E. G., & Gopnik, A. (2022). Children are more exploratory and learn more than adults in an approach-avoid task.. Cognition, 218, 104940. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104940

  • Liquin, E. G., Metz, S. E., & Lombrozo, T. (2020). Science demands explanation, religion tolerates mystery.. Cognition, 204, 104398. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104398

  • Liquin, E. G., & Lombrozo, T. (2020). Explanation-seeking curiosity in childhood. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 35, 14-20. doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.05.012

  • Liquin, E. G., & Lombrozo, T. (2020). A functional approach to explanation-seeking curiosity.. Cogn Psychol, 119, 101276. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101276

  • Liquin, E. G., & Lombrozo, T. (2018). Structure-function fit underlies the evaluation of teleological explanations.. Cogn Psychol, 107, 22-43. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2018.09.001

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