Fiery Cushman
Papers
2
Total Citations
95
H-Index
2
About
Fiery Cushman is a leading cognitive scientist whose research illuminates the psychological and computational foundations of moral judgment, social learning, and decision-making. His work bridges moral psychology, reinforcement learning, and cognitive science to explore how humans learn from and influence one another. Cushman is perhaps best known for developing a normative framework for understanding how evaluative feedback—rewards and punishments—functions as a unique form of social teaching, distinct from standard reinforcement learning. His highly cited paper, “Social is special: A normative framework for teaching with and learning from evaluative feedback” (2017, 91 citations), argues that people strategically use feedback not just to shape behavior but to communicate information about norms and values, reshaping our understanding of social influence. Beyond this, Cushman has made foundational contributions to the study of moral cognition, including the role of intent versus outcome in moral judgment and the computational mechanisms behind blame and punishment. His work has been recognized with numerous awards and has profoundly impacted fields from psychology to artificial intelligence, making him a pivotal figure in understanding the cognitive architecture of human sociality.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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