Liane Gabora
Biographic Data
| ID | 155876 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Liane Gabora |
| GIVEN NAMES | Liane |
| FAMILY NAME | Gabora |
| SIGNATURE | GABORA L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0382-7711 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
An AI-powered Interactive Platform for Visualizing Psychological States and Processes
The Indra’s Net platform aims to enhance self-understanding, emotional regulation, and flourishing by providing a system for visually depicting psychological states (e.g., high arousal) and processes (e.g., repression). It uses a metaphor between properties of light and psychological processes that is cross-culturally universal and reflected in language (e.g., “ray of hope,” “brilliant idea”). A large language model assistant learns to associate …
The form of a ‘half-baked’ creative idea
Identity, Kinship, and the Evolution of Cooperation
Extensive cooperation among biologically unrelated individuals is uniquely human. It would be surprising if this uniqueness were not related to other uniquely human characteristics, yet current theories of human cooperation tend to ignore the human aspects of human behavior. This paper presents a theory of cooperation that draws on social, cultural, and psychological aspects of human uniqueness for which current theories have little or no explana…
The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Facilitates Evolutionary Models of Culture Change
The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) is beginning to fulfill the whole promise of Darwinian insight through its extension of evolutionary understanding from the biological domain to include cultural information evolution. This constitutes the origins of an evolutionary study of culture change free of the social-darwinism and ecologically-deterministic baggage that characterized earlier such approaches
The shifting sands of creative thinking
Dual-process models of cognition suggest that there are two types of thought: autonomous Type 1 processes and working memory dependent Type 2 processes that support hypothetical thinking. Models of creative thinking also distinguish between two sets of thinking processes: those involved in the generation of ideas and those involved with their refinement, evaluation, and/or selection. Here we review dual-process models in both these literatures an…
Five Clarifications about Cultural Evolution
This paper reviews and clarifies five misunderstandings about cultural evolution identified by Henrich et al. (2008). First, cultural representations are neither discrete nor continuous; they are distributed across neurons that respond to microfeatures. This enables associations to be made, and cultural change to be generated. Second, ‘replicator dynamics’ do not ensure natural selection. The replicator notion does not capture the distinction bet…
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity is a comprehensive scholarly handbook on creativity from the most respected psychologists, researchers and educators. This handbook serves both as a thorough introduction to the field of creativity and as an invaluable reference and current source of important information. It covers such diverse topics as the brain, education, business, and world cultures. The first section, 'Basic Concepts', is designed to in…
Toward an Ecological Theory of Concepts
Psychology has had difficulty accounting for the creative, context-sensitive manner in which concepts are used. We believe this stems from the view of concepts as identifiers rather than bridges between mind and world that participate in the generation of meaning. This article summarizes the history and current status of concepts research and provides a nontechnical summary of work toward an ecological approach to concepts. We outline the rationa…
The fate of evolutionary archaeology
It is important to be clear as to whether a theory such as evolutionary\narchaeology pertains to biological evolution, in which acquired change is\nobliterated at the end of each generation, or cultural change, in which\nacquired change is retained. In evolutionary archaeology, (1) the population is\nsaid to consist of artifacts, yet (2) artifacts are said to be phenotypic.\nNeither (1) nor (2) is necessarily problematic in and of itself, but the…
Evolution as context-driven actualisation of potential
It is increasingly evident that there is more to biological evolution than natural selection; moreover, the concept of evolution is not limited to biology. We propose an integrative framework for characterizing how entities evolve, in which evolution is viewed as a process of context-driven actualization of potential (CAP). Processes of change differ according to the degree of nondeterminism, and the degree to which they are sensitive to, interna…
Identity, Kinship, and the Evolution of Cooperation
Extensive cooperation among biologically unrelated individuals is uniquely human. It would be surprising if this uniqueness were not related to other uniquely human characteristics, yet current theories of human cooperation tend to ignore the human aspects of human behavior. This paper presents a theory of cooperation that draws on social, cultural, and psychological aspects of human uniqueness for which current theories have little or no explana…
Five Clarifications about Cultural Evolution
This paper reviews and clarifies five misunderstandings about cultural evolution identified by Henrich et al. (2008). First, cultural representations are neither discrete nor continuous; they are distributed across neurons that respond to microfeatures. This enables associations to be made, and cultural change to be generated. Second, ‘replicator dynamics’ do not ensure natural selection. The replicator notion does not capture the distinction bet…
The fate of evolutionary archaeology
It is important to be clear as to whether a theory such as evolutionary\narchaeology pertains to biological evolution, in which acquired change is\nobliterated at the end of each generation, or cultural change, in which\nacquired change is retained. In evolutionary archaeology, (1) the population is\nsaid to consist of artifacts, yet (2) artifacts are said to be phenotypic.\nNeither (1) nor (2) is necessarily problematic in and of itself, but the…
Evolution as context-driven actualisation of potential
It is increasingly evident that there is more to biological evolution than natural selection; moreover, the concept of evolution is not limited to biology. We propose an integrative framework for characterizing how entities evolve, in which evolution is viewed as a process of context-driven actualization of potential (CAP). Processes of change differ according to the degree of nondeterminism, and the degree to which they are sensitive to, interna…
Evolution as context-driven actualisation of potential
It is increasingly evident that there is more to biological evolution than natural selection; moreover, the concept of evolution is not limited to biology. We propose an integrative framework for characterizing how entities evolve, in which evolution is viewed as a process of context-driven actualization of potential (CAP). Processes of change differ according to the degree of nondeterminism, and the degree to which they are sensitive to, interna…
The fate of evolutionary archaeology
It is important to be clear as to whether a theory such as evolutionary\narchaeology pertains to biological evolution, in which acquired change is\nobliterated at the end of each generation, or cultural change, in which\nacquired change is retained. In evolutionary archaeology, (1) the population is\nsaid to consist of artifacts, yet (2) artifacts are said to be phenotypic.\nNeither (1) nor (2) is necessarily problematic in and of itself, but the…
Toward an Ecological Theory of Concepts
Psychology has had difficulty accounting for the creative, context-sensitive manner in which concepts are used. We believe this stems from the view of concepts as identifiers rather than bridges between mind and world that participate in the generation of meaning. This article summarizes the history and current status of concepts research and provides a nontechnical summary of work toward an ecological approach to concepts. We outline the rationa…
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity is a comprehensive scholarly handbook on creativity from the most respected psychologists, researchers and educators. This handbook serves both as a thorough introduction to the field of creativity and as an invaluable reference and current source of important information. It covers such diverse topics as the brain, education, business, and world cultures. The first section, 'Basic Concepts', is designed to in…
Five Clarifications about Cultural Evolution
This paper reviews and clarifies five misunderstandings about cultural evolution identified by Henrich et al. (2008). First, cultural representations are neither discrete nor continuous; they are distributed across neurons that respond to microfeatures. This enables associations to be made, and cultural change to be generated. Second, ‘replicator dynamics’ do not ensure natural selection. The replicator notion does not capture the distinction bet…
The shifting sands of creative thinking
Dual-process models of cognition suggest that there are two types of thought: autonomous Type 1 processes and working memory dependent Type 2 processes that support hypothetical thinking. Models of creative thinking also distinguish between two sets of thinking processes: those involved in the generation of ideas and those involved with their refinement, evaluation, and/or selection. Here we review dual-process models in both these literatures an…
The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Facilitates Evolutionary Models of Culture Change
The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) is beginning to fulfill the whole promise of Darwinian insight through its extension of evolutionary understanding from the biological domain to include cultural information evolution. This constitutes the origins of an evolutionary study of culture change free of the social-darwinism and ecologically-deterministic baggage that characterized earlier such approaches
The form of a ‘half-baked’ creative idea
Identity, Kinship, and the Evolution of Cooperation
Extensive cooperation among biologically unrelated individuals is uniquely human. It would be surprising if this uniqueness were not related to other uniquely human characteristics, yet current theories of human cooperation tend to ignore the human aspects of human behavior. This paper presents a theory of cooperation that draws on social, cultural, and psychological aspects of human uniqueness for which current theories have little or no explana…
An AI-powered Interactive Platform for Visualizing Psychological States and Processes
The Indra’s Net platform aims to enhance self-understanding, emotional regulation, and flourishing by providing a system for visually depicting psychological states (e.g., high arousal) and processes (e.g., repression). It uses a metaphor between properties of light and psychological processes that is cross-culturally universal and reflected in language (e.g., “ray of hope,” “brilliant idea”). A large language model assistant learns to associate …
Psychology (8 works) · Cognitive science (7 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Social Psychology (4 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works) · Biology (3 works) · Cognition (3 works)