Shlomi Sher

Associate Professor of Psychological Science
With Pomona Since: 2012
  • Expertise

    Expertise

    Shlomi Sher’s research explores decision-making and consciousness. His work examines problems that arise when we attempt to relate different theoretical perspectives on the psychological subject—as intentional agent and cognitive mechanism, as neural network and locus of subjective experience.

    In the experimental study of decision-making, the psychologist’s view of the human as an information-processing mechanism is contrasted with the economist’s view of the human as a rational agent.  While rational and psychological levels of analysis are often seen as radically incompatible, Sher believes that the interplay between these levels is subtler and less sharply antagonistic. His research explores the complex interplay between rational and psychological levels of analysis in framing effects, context effects and apparent preference reversals.

    In contemporary scientific research on consciousness, a central objective is to correlate experiential states with underlying neural states. Today, many researchers believe that this neutral empirical approach can bypass age-old philosophical puzzles about consciousness. Sher is interested in the ways in which the old philosophical problems continually re-emerge in, and wreak havoc with, the new scientific work.

    Research Interests

    • The interplay between rational and psychological levels of analysis
    • Scientific approaches to the mind-body problem

    Areas of Expertise

    PSYCHOLOGY

    • Cognitive psychology
    • Decision-making
    • Consciousness
  • Work

    Work

    Sher, S., McKenzie, C. R. M., Müller-Trede, J., & Leong, L. (in press). Rational choice in context. Current Directions in Psychological Science.

    Paul, E. S., Sher, S., Tamietto, M., Winkielman, P., & Mendl, M. (2020). Towards a comparative science of emotion: Affect and consciousness in humans and animals. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 108, 749-770.

    Müller-Trede, J., Sher, S., & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2018). When payoffs look like probabilities: Separating form and content in risky choice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147, 662-670.

    Sher, S. & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2014). Options as information: Rational reversals of evaluation and preference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 1127-1143.

    Sher, S. & Winkielman, P. (2014). What we (don’t) know about what we know. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37, 38-39.

    Schurger, A. & Sher, S. (2008). Awareness, loss aversion, and post-decision wagering. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 209-210.

    Sher, S. & McKenzie, C. R. M. (2006). Information leakage from logically equivalent frames. Cognition, 101, 467-494.

  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D.
    Princeton University

    Master of Arts
    Princeton University

    Bachelor of Arts
    Harvard University

    Recent Courses Taught

    • Cognitive Psychology
    • Psychological Approaches to the Study of People
    • Research Design and Methodology
    • Seminar in Consciousness and Cognition
    • Critical Inquiry Seminar