Jon Freeman (academic) explained

Birth Name:Jonathan B. Freeman
Alma Mater:New York University
Tufts University
Workplaces:Columbia University
Dartmouth College
New York University

Jonathan B. Freeman is an American psychologist and associate professor of psychology at Columbia University. He is best known for his work on the neuroscience of person perception and social cognition, as well as mouse-tracking methodology in cognitive science. His research focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying split-second social judgments and their impact on behaviour.

Early life and education

Freeman received his BA from New York University in 2007, where he first studied social psychology.[1] He earned his PhD at Tufts University in 2012, where he worked with Nalini Ambady.

Research and career

After his doctorate, Freeman joined the faculty of Dartmouth College as an Assistant Professor.[2] [3] He moved to New York University as an Assistant Professor in 2014, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018, and moved to Columbia University as an Associate Professor in 2022.[4] [5] He directs the Social Cognitive and Neural Sciences Lab.[6] His research combines behavioural paradigms with computational modelling and human neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Freeman investigates how we form social judgments and first impressions. In particular, his work has shown that, because facial cues are often complex and ambiguous, multiple “partial” perceptions must initially compete over fractions of a second. This dynamic competition is argued to be central to the ability to form social judgments. He proposed a theoretical framework known as the "dynamic interactive model" that posits flexible interplay between social cognition and visual perception, and his work has shown that stereotypes and other kinds of social or emotional knowledge can affect visual processing.[7] [8] An example is how stereotypes become expectations that impact visual prototypes and create distortions in how faces are perceived.[9] His research has demonstrated that tacit assumptions about social groups, emotions, or personality can all influence the way we visually perceive and internally represent others' faces.[10] [11] [12] [13] These effects are thought to be driven by specific interactions between the fusiform face area, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior temporal lobe.[14]

Freeman studies several other topics in social neuroscience related to social cognition, emotion, and decision-making. For instance, he has examined mechanisms underlying the acquisition and reversal of unconscious bias, the brain's response to facial expressions or a person's trustworthiness outside conscious awareness, and the impact of split-second judgments on real-world outcomes.[15] [16] [17] [18]

Freeman developed MouseTracker, a software that tracks decision-making in the brain over hundreds of milliseconds by analysing the trajectory of a human subject's response-directed hand movement via a mouse cursor.[19] It allows researchers to assess real-time processing in cognitive tasks.[20] MouseTracker is used by over 3,000 researchers in several different disciplines.[21] Freeman's work has helped establish and popularise the mouse-tracking technique in cognitive science.[22] [23] [24]

Freeman is on the editorial board of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.[25] He previously served as an Associate Editor of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Advocacy and academic service

Freeman wrote a commentary for Nature about how biases and non-supportive science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) environments hinder the careers of LGBTQ people in STEM fields, and yet this group is often left out of diversity initiatives.[26] He identified that LGBTQ people in STEM are less represented than statistically expected, reporting negative workplace experiences, and leaving STEM fields at a high rate.[27] Realising the importance of comprehensive data, he led a collaborative effort with the support of 17 scientific organisations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, requesting the National Science Foundation to include sexual orientation and gender identity demographic questions in its U.S. STEM workforce surveys.[28] [29] LGBTQ data from these surveys is critical for researchers and policymakers to be able to understand and address potential disparities and disadvantages of LGBTQ people in U.S. STEM fields. For instance, data from these surveys is necessary for official documentation of underrepresented groups in STEM and potential allocation of federal resources.[30] The National Science Foundation is currently piloting these questions for future surveys.[31]

Awards

2019 LGBTQ Scientist of the Year, National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals

2019 Association for Psychological Science Janet T. Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions[32]

2017 Society for Social Neuroscience Early Career Award

2017 National Science Foundation CAREER Award[33]

2016 Innovation Award, Social and Affective Neuroscience Society

2016 Early Career Award, International Social Cognition Network[34]

2016 SAGE Young Scholar Award, Foundation for Personality & Social Psychology

2015 Rising Star Award, Association for Psychological Science[35]

2015 Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30[36]

2014 Pacific Standard Magazine's Top 30 Thinkers Under 30

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Spotlight on Social Neuroscience SPSP. spsp.org. 2019-02-14.
  2. Web site: Neurotree - Jon Freeman. neurotree.org. 2019-02-14.
  3. Web site: The 30 Top Thinkers Under 30: Jon Freeman, 27, Psychology. Andrews. Avital. Pacific Standard. 2019-02-14.
  4. Web site: Jonathan B Freeman. as.nyu.edu. 2019-02-14.
  5. Web site: Jon Freeman Department of Psychology. 2022-01-04. psychology.columbia.edu.
  6. Web site: Freeman Lab. NYU. 2019-02-14.
  7. Freeman. Jonathan B.. Johnson. Kerri L.. 2016. More Than Meets the Eye: Split-Second Social Perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 20. 5. 362–374. 10.1016/j.tics.2016.03.003. 27050834. 5538856. 1364-6613.
  8. Freeman. Jonathan B.. Ambady. Nalini. 2011. A dynamic interactive theory of person construal.. Psychological Review. 118. 2. 247–279. 10.1037/a0022327. 21355661. 7101466 . 1939-1471.
  9. Brooks. Jeffrey A.. Stolier. Ryan M.. Freeman. Jonathan B.. 2018. Stereotypes Bias Visual Prototypes for Sex and Emotion Categories. Social Cognition. 36. 5. 481–493. 10.1521/soco.2018.36.5.481. 29000638. 0278-016X.
  10. Freeman. Jonathan B. Stolier. Ryan M. Brooks. Jeffrey A. Stillerman. Benjamin S. December 2018. The neural representational geometry of social perception. Current Opinion in Psychology. 24. 83–91. 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.10.003. 6377247. 30388494.
  11. Freeman. Jonathan B.. Walker. Mirella. Keller. Matthias D.. Hehman. Eric. Stolier. Ryan M.. 2018-09-11. The conceptual structure of face impressions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115. 37. 9210–9215. 10.1073/pnas.1807222115. 0027-8424. 30139918. 6140507. 2018PNAS..115.9210S . free.
  12. Riemannian Geometry Boosts Representational Similarity Analyses of Dense Neural Time Series. Barachant. Alexandre. King. Jean-Remi. 2017-12-13. 10.1101/232710. free.
  13. Web site: How we judge personality from faces depends on our beliefs about how personality works. ScienceDaily. 2019-02-14.
  14. Barnett. Benjamin O. Brooks. Jeffrey A. Freeman. Jonathan B. 2020-12-03. Stereotypes bias face perception via orbitofrontal–fusiform cortical interaction. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 16. 3. en. 302–314. 10.1093/scan/nsaa165. 33270131. 7943359. 1749-5016. free.
  15. Hehman. Eric. Carpinella. Colleen M.. Johnson. Kerri L.. Leitner. Jordan B.. Freeman. Jonathan B.. September 2014. Early Processing of Gendered Facial Cues Predicts the Electoral Success of Female Politicians. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 5. 7. 815–824. 10.1177/1948550614534701. 7191969. 1948-5506.
  16. Freeman. J. B.. Stolier. R. M.. Ingbretsen. Z. A.. Hehman. E. A.. 2014-08-06. Amygdala Responsivity to High-Level Social Information from Unseen Faces. Journal of Neuroscience. 34. 32. 10573–10581. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5063-13.2014. 25100591. 6802589. 0270-6474. free.
  17. Lick. David J.. Alter. Adam L.. Freeman. Jonathan B.. 2018. Superior pattern detectors efficiently learn, activate, apply, and update social stereotypes.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. en. 147. 2. 209–227. 10.1037/xge0000349. 28726438. 21350104. 1939-2222. free.
  18. Chua. Kao-Wei. Freeman. Jonathan B.. 2020-11-28. Facial Stereotype Bias Is Mitigated by Training. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 12. 7. en. 1335–1344. 10.1177/1948550620972550. 229147576. 1948-5506.
  19. Web site: MouseTracker Jon Freeman. MouseTracker. 2019-02-14.
  20. Freeman. Jonathan B.. Ambady. Nalini. 2010. MouseTracker: Software for studying real-time mental processing using a computer mouse-tracking method. Behavior Research Methods. 42. 1. 226–241. 10.3758/brm.42.1.226. 20160302. 1554-351X. free.
  21. Web site: User Base. MouseTracker. 2019-02-14.
  22. Tracking the continuous dynamics of numerical processing: A brief review and editorial. Faulkenberry. Thomas J.. Witte. Matthias. 2018-03-20. Hartmann. Matthias. 10.31234/osf.io/pruz7.
  23. Freeman. Jonathan B.. Dale. Rick. 2012-07-18. Assessing bimodality to detect the presence of a dual cognitive process. Behavior Research Methods. 45. 1. 83–97. 10.3758/s13428-012-0225-x. 22806703. 1554-3528. free.
  24. SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 27. 5. 315–323. 10.1177/0963721417746793. 6301007. 30581254. 2018. Freeman. Jonathan B..
  25. Web site: Editorial Board Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Oxford Academic. academic.oup.com. 2019-02-14.
  26. Freeman. Jon. July 2018. LGBTQ scientists are still left out. Nature. 559. 7712. 27–28. 10.1038/d41586-018-05587-y. 29968839. 2018Natur.559...27F. free.
  27. Freeman. Jonathan B.. 2020. Measuring and Resolving LGBTQ Disparities in STEM. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences. en. 7. 2. 141–148. 10.1177/2372732220943232. 222111518. 2372-7322.
  28. Web site: 2019-02-04: NOGLSTP Recognizes Chan, Morales, and Freeman as LGBTQ+ Educator, Engineer, and Scientist of the Year for 2019, Esposito is Walt Westman Awardee – NOGLSTP. 2019-02-14.
  29. Web site: AERA, AAAS, and Key Researchers Call on OMB to Require NSF to Include Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Measures in Surveys. 2020-12-26. www.aera.net.
  30. Langin. Katie. LGBTQ researchers say they want to be counted. Science. 2020. 370. 6523. 1391. 10.1126/science.370.6523.1391. 33335044. 2020Sci...370.1391L. 229317144.
  31. Web site: NSF moves to pilot LGBT questions on national workforce surveys. Langin. Katie. 2018-11-07. Science AAAS. 2019-02-15.
  32. Web site: APS Awards and Honors. Association for Psychological Science. 2019-02-14.
  33. Web site: NSF Award Search: Award#1654731 - CAREER: Neural Mechanisms of Stereotypic Vision. www.nsf.gov. 2019-02-14.
  34. Web site: About - Jon Freeman. Jon Freeman. 2019-02-14.
  35. Web site: NYU Psychology Awards and Honors. NYU. 2019-02-14. 2017-06-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20170619052048/http://psych.nyu.edu/news_awards_honors.html. dead.
  36. Web site: Jon Freeman, 28. Forbes. 2019-02-14.

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