Francys Subiaul
Francys Subiaul
Undergraduate Advisor, Associate Professor
Full-time
Contact:
Room 204, Hall of Government, 2115 G Street NW Washington
Washington DC 20052
Francys Subiaul is a Cognitive Scientist with a background in experimental psychology and biological anthropology. His research explores the nature and origins of social intelligence, specifically, social-cultural learning. The ability to rapidly, efficiently, and accurately copy others’ knowledge and responses underlies many of our species’ distinctive qualities including speech and writing as well as the use of complex tools. Dr. Subiaul and his colleagues seek to better understand the psychological features underlying our species' distinct imitative abilities as well as characterize its development.
Current Research
The Subiaul Social Cognition Lab focuses on understanding the development and origins of social learning including characterizing its underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms and relationship to other forms of social and asocial learning.
- Theory of Social Cognition & Communication
- Typical and Atypical Social-Cognitive Development
- Development & Evolution of Cultural Learning
- Comparative Cognition: Primates, Dogs
Subiaul, F. (2021). Assessing Social Learning in Children: Social and Executive Learning in Early Childhood Task (SELECT) Battery. George Washington University, University Facilitating Funds. [$16,510]
Subiaul, F., Park, C., Darcy-Mahoney, Core, C., Wallace, G. (2019). Automated Social Cognitive Imitation Screener for Infants with Autism. Clinical & Translational Science Institute at Children’s National Medical Center (CTSI-CN) Award #: 5UL1TRR001876 [$50,000].
Subiaul F (2007-2014). National Science Foundation. CAREER: The Evolution of Cultural Learning (BCS-0748717). [$440,861].
Development of Social Learning
Subiaul, F*. (2023). Varieties of Social Learning in Children: Characterizing the development of imitation, goal emulation and affordance learning within subjects and tasks. Cognitive Development.
Speidel, R.^, Zimmermann, L.#, Green, L.^, Brito, N.H.#, Subiaul, F., Barr, R*. (2021). Optimizing imitation: Examining cognitive factors leading to imitation, overimitation, and goal emulation in preschoolers, JECP, 203. 105036.
Subiaul, F.*, Patterson, E.##, Renner, E.#, Schilder, B.#, Barr, R. (2014). Becoming a High Fidelity—Super—Imitator: The role of social and asocial learning in imitation development. Developmental Science. Nov;18(6):1025-35. doi: 10.1111/desc.12276. Epub 2014 Dec 28
Atypical Social-Cognitive Development
Rutherford MD*, Subiaul F (2016). Children with Autism have an Exceptional Explanatory Drive. Autism. Aug;20(6):744-53. doi: 10.1177/1362361315605973
Subiaul F*, Lurie H, Klein T, Holmes D, Terrace HS (2007). Cognitive Imitation in Typically-Developing 3- and 4-year Old and Individuals with Autism. Cognitive Development, 22: 230-43.
Cultural Learning
Varallyay, A+., Beller, N.^, Subiaul, F*. (2023). Generative Cultural Learning in Children and Adults. Proceeding of the Royal Society B. Apr 26;290(1997):20222418.doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.2418.
Subiaul, F.*, Stanton, M. (2020). Intuitive Invention by Summative Imitation in Children and Adults. Cognition. 202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104320
Comparative Cognition
Sexton, L.C.#,*, Buckley, C.+, Lieberfarb, J., Subiaul, F., Hecht, E.E., Bradley B.J. (2023). What Is Written on a Dog’s Face? Evaluating the Impact of Facial Phenotypes on Communication between Humans and Canines. Animals. 3, 2385. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13142385
Renner, E.# *, Patterson, E.##, Subiaul, F. (2020). Specialization in the vicarious learning of novel arbitrary sequences in humans but not orangutans. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Philosophical Transactions B. DOI: 10.1098/ RSTB-2019-0442.
Subiaul F*, Cantlon, JF, Holloway, Terrace HS (2004). Cognitive Imitation in Rhesus Macaques. Science, 305(5682), 407-10.
see subiaul.com/publications for all publications and pdfs
- Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Undergraduate Advisor
- CASHP MS Co-Advisor
- Member: GW Institute for Neuroscience
- Reviewer: Various publications in the Cognitive Sciences
- Affiliated Scientist: (1) National Children’s Museum, (2) Barbara Chambers Children’s Center, (3) Center for Young Children (UMD), (4) Animal Welfare League of Arlington
- SLHS 1000: Origins of Social Intelligence
- SLHS 1000: Evolution of the Human Mind
- SLHS 1071: Foundations of Human Communication
- SLHS 3133: Autism
- ANTH/SLHS 3603: Psycholinguistics
- SLHS 6210: Research Methods in SLHS
B.A., Psychology and Anthropology, Boston University
M.A., Anthropology, Columbia University
M.S., Anthropology, Columbia University
Ph.D., Anthropology, Columbia University
Post-Doc, Cognitive Sciences, University of Louisiana, Lafayette