Curriculum Vitae
Steven Pinker
Department of Psychology
William James Hall 970
Office: 617-495-0831
Fax: 617-495-3278
Internet address: pinker at wjh period Harvard period edu
Web site: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu
Biographical
Information
Born
Education
Doctor of Philosophy (Experimental
Psychology),
Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honors in
Psychology),
Diploma of College Studies,
Academic Positions
2008-2013 Harvard
College Professor,
2003- Johnstone
Family Professor of Psychology,
2000-2003 Peter
de Florez Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1994-99 Director,
1989-2000 Professor,
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1985-94 Co-Director,
Center for Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
1985-89 Associate
Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology
1982-85 Assistant
Professor, Department of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1981-82 Assistant
Professor, Department of Psychology,
1980-81 Assistant
Professor, Department of Psychology,
1979-80 Postdoctoral
Fellow, Center for Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Honors and Awards
General:
Innovation for
Humanity Prize, La Ciudad de las Ideas,
Honorary
President, Canadian Psychological Association, 2008.
Prospect and Foreign Policy, “The World’s
Top 100 Public Intellectuals,” 2005, 2008.
Humanist of the
Year, American Humanist Association, 2006.
Communication
and Leadership Award, Toastmasters International (District 31), 2006.
02138 Magazine: “The Harvard 100: The Most
Influential Alumni,” 2006.
Time 100:
“The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today,” 2004.
Humanist Laureate,
Golden Plate Award,
Newsweek One Hundred Americans for the Next
Century, 1995.
Esquire
Register of Outstanding Men and Women Under Forty, 1986.
Honorary Doctorates:
Doctor of
Philosophy honoris causa,
Doctor of
Humane Letters,
Doctor of Science honoris causa,
Doctor of the University honoris causa,
Doctor Philosophiae honoris causa,
Doctor of Science honoris causa,
Research:
George A. Miller Prize, Cognitive
Neuroscience Society, 2010.
Henry Dale Prize, The Royal Institution of
Troland Research Award, National
Boyd R. McCandless Young Scientist Award, Division of
Developmental Psychology, American Psychological Association, 1986.
Distinguished Scientific
Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology, American Psychological
Association, 1984.
Books: The Language Instinct
Public Interest Award, Linguistics Society of
William James Book Prize, American Psychological Association,
1995.
New York Times Book Review Editor's
Choice: Ten Best Books of 1994.
Finalist, Rhone-Poulenc Science Book
Prize, 1994.
One Hundred Best Science Books of the
Century, American Scientist.
Honorable Mention, Best Books of the
1990s, Lingua Franca
Books: How the Mind Works
William James Book Prize, American
Psychological Association, 1999.
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction,
1998.
Ten Best Books of the Decade / One Hundred
Best Books of the Century, Amazon.com, 1999.
Good Book Guide Award: Best Science Book of 1998.
Finalist, Rhone-Poulenc Science Book
Prize, 1999.
Finalist, National Book Critics' Circle
Award, 1998.
Finalist, Winship Book Prize, PEN
Literary Lights,
Books to Remember (25 best of 1997), New
York Public Library, 1998.
Best Books of 2002, Publishers Weekly
Honored Author,
Great Brain Books, Dana
Books: The Blank Slate
50 Psychology Classics, T. Butler-Bowdon, Brealey Publishing, 2007
Kistler Book Award, Foundation for the
Future, 2005
William James Book Prize, American
Psychological Association, 2003
Eleanor Maccoby Book Award, American
Psychological Association, 2003
Literary Lights,
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction,
2003.
Finalist, Aventis Science Book Prize,
2003.
Book of the Year 2003,
Best Books of 2002: amazon.com, Borders
Bookstores, The Evening Standard, The Globe and Mail, The Independent, The Los Angeles Times, New Statesman, New York
Times (“Notable Books”), Publishers Weekly, The Spectator, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, The Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement
Books: The Stuff of Thought
Editors’ Picks: Ten Best Science Books
of 2007, amazon.com
Outstanding Academic Titles of 2008, Choice (magazine for academic libraries)
Teaching:
Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT,
2000-2003.
Graduate Student Council Teaching Award,
MIT, 1986.
Essays:
Sidney Hook Award,
best essays of 2005 (from David Brook’s New
York Times column), “The Science of
Gender and Science” with Elizabeth Spelke.
Elected Fellowships in Scholarly Societies:
Fellow, Linguistics Society of
Herbert Simon Fellow, The
Fellow, Académie Internationale de
Philosophie des Sciences, 2007- .
Fellow,
Fellow, Committee for the Scientific
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, 2000-.
Fellow, Neurosciences Research Program,
1995-2002.
Fellow, American Psychological
Association, 1992- .
Fellow, Division of Experimental Psychology, American
Psychological Association, 1991- .
Fellow, American Psychological Society,
1990- .
Fellow, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, 1987- .
Distinguished Fellow, New England Institute for Cognitive Science
and Evolutionary Psychology, 2001-2004.
Fellow-elect, Center for Advanced Study in
the Behavioral Sciences,
Extramural Grants
Google University Research Awards, “The Bibliome: Uncovering the
Dynamics of the Human Past,” 2009-2011.
National Institutes of Health, “Development and Neural Bases of Words
and Rules,” 2000-2008.
MIT Classes of ’51, ’55, and ’72 Funds for Excellence in Teaching
and Educational Innovation, “Computer-Based Multimedia Demonstrations in
Psychology,” 2000-2001.
National Institutes of Health, “Language Learnability and Language
Development”, 1983-2000 (competitively renewed 1986, 1989, 1994).
National Institute of Mental Health Training Grant, “Development
of Cognition,” 1997-2002 (PI 2001-2002).
National Institute of Mental Health Training Grant, “Visual Cognition,” 1998-2003 (PI 1998-2001).
American Council of Learned Societies/Deutscher Akademischer
Austauschdienst, German American Collaborative Research Grant, “Symbolic
Representation and Network Models: The Psycholinguistic Basis of Inflectional
Morphology,1992-1993.
National Science Foundation Research Training Grant, “Language
Acquisition and Computation” (1 of 15 Co-Investigators), 1991-1996.
McDonnell-Pew Program in Cognitive Neuroscience grant, “From
Perception to Action,” 1990-1998 (competitively renewed 1994).
National Science Foundation, “Inflection as a Model System for the
Psychology of Language,” 1991-1994.
National Institutes of Health, “Development of Cognition”, program
training grant (1 of 6 Co-Investigators), 1987-1992.
National Science Foundation, “The Mental
Representation of 3-D Space and Objects, 1986-89.
National Science Foundation, “Language
Learnability and Language Development”, 1982-85.
National Science Foundation, “The Mental
Representation of 3-D Space”, 1981-83.
Other Positions
Visiting Professor,
Honorary Visiting Professor, Department of Psychology,
Visiting Scholar, Departments of Psychology and Linguistics,
Faculty, McDonnell Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience,
1990, 1993, 1994
Visiting Scholar, Cognitive Development Unit, Medical Research
Council,
Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychology, Harvard University,
1987-88.
Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychology, Brandeis University,
1987-88.
Consultant, Cognitive and Instructional Sciences Group, Xerox
Corporation Palo Alto Research Centers, 1981-82.
Major Professional
Activities
Chair, Usage Panel, American
Heritage Dictionary, 2008- .
Contributing Editor, The New
Republic, 2008- .
Contributing Editor, Seed,
2006- .
Executive Associate Editor, Cognition:
International Journal of Cognitive Science, 1985-2006.
Executive Council, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 2006- .
Member-at-Large, Section on Linguistics and Language Science,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2005-2009.
Jury, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Excellence in the Literature
of Diversity, 2002-present.
Membership Section Panel,
Editorial Boards of Scientific and Scholarly Journals
134, 2008- .
American Journal of Bioethics:
Neuroscience
Canadian Psychology, 2003-.
Cognition, 1982-2008.
Cognitive Science,
1991-1996.
Daedalus, 2002- .
Earth & Sky, 2007- .
English Linguistics, 2003- .
Evolution and Human Behavior,
1998- .
Evolutionary Psychology, 2001- .
Intercultural Pragmatics, 2003- .
International Journal of Bilingualism. 1996- .
Journal of Child Language, 1994-2004.
Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2000- .
Journal of Social,
Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2008- .
Language Acquisition,
1990-2004; Advisory Board, 2004- .
Mind & Society, 2002- .
PLoS ONE, 2006- .
The Evolutionary Review, 2008- .
The Humanist, 2007- .
The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief,
2002-.
Theoria et Historia Scientiarum: An International Journal for
Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000- .
Trends in Cognitive Science, 2000-
.
Words, 2002- .
Advisory Boards of Scientific and Scholarly Organizations
American Council on Science and Health, 2008- .
BrainTrust Project.
Campus Freedom Network, 2009- .
Cognitive Neuroscience Society, 1994- .
Center for Research on Language, Mind, and Brain,
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the
Paranormal, 1979- .
Cybereditions, Advisory Board, 1998- .
The Decade of Behavior, 2003-2005
E. O. Wilson Foundation, 2007- .
Endangered Language Fund, 1998- .
English for the Children, 2001-2004.
Executive Board, Society for Language Development, 2003- .
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, 2007- .
Paul G. Allen Institute for Brain Science, 2001- .
International Association for the Study of Attention and
Performance, 1992- .
Naturalism Research Project, Center for Inquiry.
Office of Public Policy, Center for Inquiry,
Science and Entertainment Exchange, The
Rock-It Science, 2008- .
Secular Coalition for America
Science for Peace, 2009- .
Society for Evolutionary Analysis in Law, 2009- .
Student Achievement and Advocacy Services, 2002- .
World Science Festival,
Selected Past Professional Activities
Linguistics, Language, and the Public Interest Award Committee,
Linguistics Society of
Chair, Eleanor Maccoby Book Prize Committee, Division of
Developmental Psychology, American Psychological Association, 2004.
Panel on Integrative Cognitive Science, National Science
Foundation, 2003.
Testimony, President’s Council on Bioethics, 2003, 2008.
Grant review panel, Program in Biological Anthropology, National
Science Foundation, 2002.
Senior Independent Advisory Panel, Biopsychology of Humane
Leadership Project, Center for Positive Psychology, University of Pennsylvania,
2000.
Scientific Advisor, Nova/WGBH, 7-part
television series on Evolution, 1998-2001.
Panel on the Bioethics of Brain Imaging, Center for Bioethics,
University of Pennsylvania, 2000-2002.
Usage Panel, American
Heritage Dictionary, 1995-2008.
Selection Committee, Centennial Fellowship in Human Cognition,
McDonnell Foundation, 1998.
Grant review panel, Learning and Information Systems, National
Science Foundation, 1997.
Academic Editorial Board, MIT Press,
1996-2001.
Section Editor for Language, M. S. Gazzaniga’s
The Cognitive Neurosciences, MIT
Press, 1995.
Electorate Nominating Committee, Section on Linguistics and
Language Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science,
1994-1999.
Consultant,
Reviewing
Journals: American Anthropologist, American Psychologist, Applied
Psycholinguistics, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Behavioral Neuroscience,
Canadian Journal of Psychology, Child Development, Cognition, Cognitive
Psychology, Cognitive Science, Current Biology, Current Directions in
Psychological Science, Development and Psychopathology, Developmental
Psychology, Evolution and Human Behavior, Human Nature, Journal of the American
Statistical Association, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, Journal of
Linguistics, Journal of Mental Imagery, Journal of Personality, Journal of
Theoretical Biology, Language, Language Acquisition, Language and Cognitive
Processes, Language Learning and Development, Lingua, Linguistic Inquiry,
Linguistics and Philosophy, Memory and Cognition, Mind and Language, Nature,
Nature Genetics, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, Neuron,
Neuropsychologia, Parenting: Science and Practice, Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Proceedings of the
Royal Society, Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Review, Psychological
Science, Psycholoquy, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Science,
Spatial Vision, Synthèse, Trends In Cognitive Science.
Publishers: Blackwell, MIT Press,
Cambridge University Press, Free Press, Harvard University Press,
Harvester-Wheatsheaf, MIT Press, Oxford University Press, Prentice-Hall,
Princeton University Press, Reidel, Rowman & Littlefield, Scientific
American Books, University of Arizona Press, University of California Press,
University of Chicago Press, Yale University Press.
Funding Agencies: Air Force Office of
Scientific Research, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, John and Catherine
Macarthur Foundation, Leverhulme Trust (
Publications: Books
Pinker, S. (1984) Language
Learnability and Language Development.
Pinker, S. (Ed.). (1985) Visual Cognition.
Pinker, S. & J. Mehler (Eds.) (1988). Connections and Symbols.
Pinker, S. (1989) Learnability
and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure.
Levin, B. & S. Pinker (Eds.) (1992) Lexical and Conceptual Semantics.
Pinker, S. (1994) The
Language Instinct.
Pinker, S. (1997) How the
Mind Works.
Pinker, S. (1999) Words and
Rules: The Ingredients of Language.
Pinker, S. (2002) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human
Nature.
Pinker, S. (Ed.). (2004) The Best American Science and Nature
Writing 2004.
Pinker, S. (2005) Hotheads (excerpt from How the Mind
Works).
Pinker, S. (2007) The Stuff
of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature.
Pinker, S. (2008) The seven
words you can’t say on television (excerpt from The Stuff of Thought).
Publications: Articles
in Scholarly Journals
Millenson, J. R., Allen, R. B. & Pinker, S. (1977). Adjunctive
drinking during variable and random-interval food reinforcement schedules. Animal Learning and Behavior, 5,
285-290.
Bregman, A. S. & Pinker, S. (1978). Auditory streaming and the
building of timbre. Canadian Journal of
Psychology, 32, 19-31.
Pinker, S. & Kosslyn, S. M. (1978). The representation and
manipulation of three-dimensional space in mental images. Journal of Mental Imagery, 1, 69-84.
Pinker, S. (1979). Formal models of language learning. Cognition, 7, 217-283. Reprinted (1994)
in N. Sheehy & T. Chapman (Eds.), Cognitive
Science.
Pinker, S. & Birdsong, D. (1979). Speakers’ sensitivity to
rules of frozen word order. Journal
of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior,
18, 497-508.
Kosslyn, S. M., Pinker, S., Smith, G. E., Shwartz, S. P. (1979).
On the demystification of mental imagery.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1, 535-581. Reprinted (1981) in N. Block (Ed.), Imagery
(pp. 131-150).
Pinker, S. (1980). Mental imagery and the third dimension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 109, 254-371.
Pinker, S. & Finke, R. A. (1980). Emergent two-dimensional
patterns in images rotated in depth. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 6,
244-264.
Pinker, S. (1981). On the acquisition of grammatical morphemes.
Journal of Child Language, 8,
477-484.
Finke, R. A. & Pinker, S. (1982). Spontaneous mental image
scanning in mental extrapolation. Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory, and Cognition, 8, 142-147.
Finke, R. A. & Pinker, S. (1983). Directional scanning of
remembered visual patterns. Journal of
Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9, 398-410.
Rosenblum, T. & Pinker, S. (1983). Word magic revisited:
Monolingual and bilingual preschoolers’ understanding of the word-object
relationship. Child Development, 54,
773-780. Reprinted (1987) in M. B. Franklin & S. S. Barten (Eds.), Child language: A book of readings.
Pinker, S. (1984). Visual cognition:
an introduction. Cognition, 18, 1-63.
Pinker, S. Choate, P., & Finke, R. A. (1984). Mental
extrapolation in patterns constructed from
memory. Memory and Cognition, 12,
207-218.
Downing, C. J. & Pinker, S. (1985). The spatial structure of
visual attention. In M. Posner and O. Marin (Eds.), Attention and Performance XI:
Mechanisms of attention and visual search.
Stromswold, K., Pinker, S., and Kaplan, R. M. (1985) Cues for
understanding the passive voice. Papers and Reports in Child Language1985.
Pinker, S., Lebeaux, D. S., & Frost, L. A. (1987) Productivity
and constraints in the acquisition of
the passive. Cognition, 26,
195-267.
Pinker, S. & Prince, A. (1988) On language and connectionism:
Analysis of a parallel distributed processing model of language
acquisition. Cognition, 28, 73-193.
Reprinted in S. Pinker & J. Mehler (Eds.) (1988) Connections and symbols.
Prince, A. & Pinker, S. (1988) Rules and connections in human
language. Trends in Neurosciences, 11,
195-202. Reprinted (1989) in R. G. Morris (Ed.), Parallel Distributed Processing: Implications for psychology and
neurobiology.
Prince, A., & Pinker, S. (1989) Wickelphone ambiguity. Cognition,
30, 189-190.
Tarr, M. J. & Pinker, S. (1989) Mental rotation and
orientation-dependence in shape recognition.
Cognitive Psychology, 21,
233-282.
Gropen, J., Pinker, S., Hollander, M., Goldberg, R. & Wilson,
R. (1989) The learnability and
acquisition of the dative alternation in English. Language, 65, 203-257.
Finke, R. A., Pinker, S., & Farah, M. J. (1989) Reinterpreting
visual patterns in mental imagery. Cognitive
Science, 13, 51-78.
Tarr, M. J. & Pinker, S. (1990) When does human object
recognition use a viewer-centered reference frame? Psychological Science, 1, 253-256.
Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990) Natural language and natural
selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
13, 707-784. Reprinted in J. Barkow,
L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.) (1991), The
Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture.
Gropen, J., Pinker, S, Hollander, M., & Goldberg, R. (1991)
Syntax and semantics in the acquisition
of locative verbs. Journal of Child
Language, 18, 115-151.
Kim, J. J., Pinker, S., Prince, A, & Prasada, S. (1991) Why no
mere mortal has ever flown out to center field. Cognitive Science, 15, 173-218.
Gropen, J., Pinker, S, Hollander, J., & Goldberg, R. (1991)
Affectedness and direct objects: The role of lexical semantics in the
acquisition of verb argument structure. Cognition, 41, 153-195. Reprinted (1992)
in B. Levin & S. Pinker (Eds.), Lexical
and conceptual semantics.
Pinker, S. (1991) Rules of language. Science, 253, 530-535.
Reprinted (1993) in P. Bloom (Ed.), Language
acquisition: Core readings.
Tarr, M. & Pinker, S. (1991) Orientation-dependent mechanisms
in shape recognition: Further issues. Psychological Science, 2,
207-209.
Marcus, G., Pinker, S., Ullman, M., Hollander, M., Rosen, T. J.
& Xu, F. (1992) Overregularization in language acquisition. Monographs
of the Society for Research in Child Development, 57 (4, Serial No. 228).
Prasada, S. & Pinker, S. (1993) Generalizations of regular and
irregular morphology. Language and
Cognitive Processes, 8, 1-56.
Cave, K. R., Pinker, S., Giorgi, L., Thomas, C., Heller, L.,
Wolfe, J. M., & Lin, H. (1994) The representation of location in visual
images. Cognitive Psychology, 26, 1-32.
Pinker, S. (1994) How could a child use verb syntax to learn verb
semantics? Lingua, 92, 377-410. Reprinted in L. Gleitman and
B. Landau (Eds.), (1994) The acquisition
of the lexicon.
Kim, J. J., Marcus, G. F., Pinker, S., Hollander, M., &
Coppola, M. (1994) Sensitivity of
children’s inflection to morphological structure. Journal of Child Language, 21, 173-209. Reprinted in K. Perera, G.
Collis, & B. Richards (Eds.), Growing points in child language.
Pinker, S. (1994) On language (interview). Journal
of Cognitive Neuroscience, 6, 91-96. Reprinted (1997) as “Evolutionary
Perspectives” in M. Gazzaniga (Ed.), Conversations
in the cognitive neurosciences.
Marcus, G. F., Brinkmann, U., Clahsen, H., Wiese, R., &
Pinker, S. (1995) German inflection: The
exception that proves the rule. Cognitive
Psychology, 29, 189-256.
Xu, F. & Pinker, S. (1995) Weird past tense forms. Journal of Child Language, 22, 531-556.
Pinker, S., Prince, A. (1996), The nature of human concepts:
evidence from an unusual source. Communication
and Cognition, 29, 307-361. Reprinted (1999) in P. Van Loocke (Ed.), The nature, representation and evolution of
concepts.
Ullman, M., Corkin, S., Coppola, M., Hickok, G., Growdon, J. H.,
Koroshetz, W. J., & Pinker, S. (1997) A neural dissociation within
language: Evidence that the mental dictionary is part of declarative memory,
and that grammatical rules are processed by the procedural system. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9,
289-299. Reprinted in Bánréti
Zoltán (Ed.). Nyelvi Struktúrák és az Agy: Neurolingvisztikai Tanulmányok.
Pinker, S. (1997) Words and rules in the human brain. Nature, 387, 547-548.
Pinker, S. (1998) Obituary: Roger Brown. Cognition, 66, 199-213.
Pinker, S. (1998) Words and rules. Lingua, 106, 219-242. Reprinted in A. Sorace, C. Heycock, and R.
Shillcock (Eds.), Generative approaches
to language acquisition.
Pinker, S. (1998) Out of the minds of babes. Science 283, 40-41.
Pinker, S. (1999) How the mind works. Annals of the
Berent,
Pinker, S. (2000) Survival of the clearest. Nature, 401, 442-443.
Pinker, S. (2001) Talk
of genetics and vice-versa. Nature, 413, 465-466.
Pinker, S. & Ullman, M. (2002) The past and future of the past tense.
Trends in Cognitive Science, 6, 456-463.
Pinker, S. & Ullman, M. (2002) Structure and combination, not
gradedness, is the issue (Reply to McClelland and Patterson). Trends in
Cognitive Science, 6, 472-474.
Berent,
Pinker, S. & Ullman, M. (2003) Beyond one model per phenomenon. Trends
in Cognitive Science, 7, 108-109.
Pinker, S. (2004) Author’s response: Review symposium on “The Blank
Slate.” Metascience, 13, 44-51.
Pinker, S. (2004) Clarifying the logical problem of language acquisition.
Journal of Child Language, 31, 949-953.
Pinker, S. (2004) Why nature and nurture won’t go away. Daedalus,
133, Fall, 5-17. Reprinted (2006) in
Portuguese in INTERthesis, 3, 1. Reprinted (2007) in Danish in Kognition & Pedagogik, 64, 22-39.
Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2005) What’s special about the human
language faculty? Cognition, 95, 201-236.
Pinker, S. (2005) So how does the mind work? Mind and Language,
20, 1-24.
Pinker, S. (2005) A reply to Jerry Fodor on
how the mind works. Mind and Language, 20, 33-38.
Jackendoff, R. &
Pinker, S. (2005) The nature of the
language faculty and its implications for the evolution of language. Cognition, 97, 211-225.
Berent,
Pinker, S.
(2006) Kidding ourselves. The
Pinker, S.
(2006) The blank slate. The General
Psychologist, 41, 1-8.
Sahin,
N., Pinker, & Halgren, E.. (2006) Abstract grammatical processing of nouns and
verbs in Broca's Area: Evidence from fMRI. Cortex, 42, 540-562.
Pinker, S. (2007) Toward a
consilient study of literature (review of J. Gottschall & D. Sloan Wilson,
“The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative”). Philosophy and Literature, 31, 161-177.
Berent,
Pinker, S. (2007) Language as an
adaptation by natural selection. Acta
Psychologica Sinica, 39, 431-438.
Pinker, S.
(2007) The evolutionary social psychology of off-record indirect speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(4), 437-461. Reprinted (2009) in International
Journal on Humanistic Ideology, 2, 59-89.
Pinker, S., Nowak, M., A. & Lee, J. J. (2008). The logic of
indirect speech. Proceedings of the
National
Berent, I. & Pinker, S. (2008) Compound formation is
constrained by morphology: A reply to Seidenberg, MacDonald, & Haskell. The Mental Lexicon, 3, 176-187.
Sahin, N. T., Pinker, S., Cash, S. S.,
Schomer, D., & Halgren, E. (2009) Sequential processing of lexical,
grammatical, and articulatory information within Broca’s area. Science, 326, 445-449.
Senghas,
A., Kim, J. J., & Pinker, S. (under review) The plurals-in-compounds
effect.
Ganger, J., Pinker, S., Chawla, S. & Birk, J. (under review) A twin study of
lexical and grammatical development: English past tense and past tense
overregularization.
Huang, Y.-T. & Pinker, S. (under
review) Lexical semantics and irregular inflection.
Lee, J. J., Kan, J. Y., Levin, A. R.,
& Pinker, S. (under review) Rationales for indirect speech.
Publications: Book
Chapters
Pinker, S. (1981). Comments on K. Wexler's "Some issues in
the theory of learnability." In
C.L. Baker and J. McCarthy (Eds.), The Logical Problem of Language
Acquisition (pp. 53-63).
Pinker, S. (1982). A theory of the acquisition of lexical
interpretive grammars. In J. Bresnan (Ed.), The Mental
Representation of Grammatical Relations.
Pinker, S. & Kosslyn, S. M. (1983). Theories of mental
imagery. In A. Sheikh (Ed.), Imagery: Current Theory, Research and Application
(pp. 43-71).
Pinker, S. (1984). Language learnability and children's language:
A multifaceted approach. In K. Nelson
(Ed.), Children's Language, Vol. 5.
Pinker, S. (1986). Productivity and conservatism in language
acquisition. In W. Demopoulos and A. Marras (Eds.), Language Learning and
Concept Acquisition.
Pinker, S. (1987). The bootstrapping problem in language
acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms
of language acquisition.
Pinker, S. (1988) A computational theory of the mental imagery
medium. In M. Denis, J. Engelkamp, & J. T. E. Richardson (Eds.), Cognitive and neuropsychological approaches
to mental imagery.
Pinker, S. (1988). Learnability theory and the acquisition of a
first language. In F. Kessel (Ed.), The
development of language and of language researchers: Papers presented to Roger
Brown.
Pinker, S. (1989). Language acquisition. In M. I. Posner (Ed.), Foundations of cognitive science.
Pinker, S. (1989) Resolving a learnability paradox in the
acquisition of the verb lexicon. In M. Rice & R. Schiefelbusch (Eds.), The teachability of
language.
Pinker, S. (1989). Markedness and children's language. In R.
Matthews & W. Demopoulos (Eds.), Learnability and linguistic theory.
Pinker, S. (1990). A theory of graph comprehension. In R. Friedle
(Ed.), Artificial intelligence and the future of testing.
Pinker, S. (1990) Language acquisition. In D. N. Osherson & H.
Lasnik (Eds.), An invitation to cognitive science. Vol. 1: Language.
Pinker, S. (1993) The acquisition of argument structure. In H.
Nakajima & Y.
Pinker, S. (1993) The central problem for the psycholinguist. In
G. Harman (Ed.), Conceptions of the human
mind: Papers in honor of George Miller.
Pinker, S. & Prince, A. (1994) Regular and irregular
morphology and the psychological status of rules of grammar. In S. D.
Pinker, S. (1994) Introduction to the section on Language. In M.
S. Gazzaniga (Ed.) The cognitive
neurosciences, 851-853.
Pinker, S. (1995) Language acquisition. In L. Gleitman, & M.
Liberman (Eds.), Invitation to Cognitive
Science, 2nd Edition. Volume 1: Language.
Pinker, S. (1995) Why the
child holded the baby rabbits: A case study in language acquisition. In L.
Gleitman, & M. Liberman (Eds.), Invitation
to Cognitive Science, 2nd Edition. Volume 1: Language.
Pinker, S. (1995) Facts about human language relevant to its
evolution. In J.-P. Changeux & J. Chavaillon (Eds.), Origins of the human brain (262-285).
Pinker, S. (1995). Language is instinct. In J. Brockman, The third culture: Beyond the
scientific revolution.
Pinker, S. (1996) Language learnability and language development
revisited. In S. Pinker, Language learnability and language development
(1996 reprint).
Pinker, S. (1997) Evolutionary biology and the evolution of
language. In
Pinker, S. (1997) The evolution of the human language faculty. In
G. Cardew (Ed.), Characterizing
psychological adaptations.
Pinker, S. (1997) Foreword to Diane McGuinness’s Why our children can’t read.
Pinker, S. (1998) Foreword to Judith Rich Harris’s The Nurture Assumption.
Pinker, S. (1998) The big bang. In M. Ridley (Ed.), Evolution.
Pinker, S. (1999) Increasing consilience. In
Dronkers, N. & Pinker, S., & Damasio, A. (2000) Language
and the aphasias. In E. R. Kandel, J. H. Schwartz, & T. M. Jessell (Eds.), Principles of Neural Science Fourth Edition.
Pinker, S. (2000) The blank slate, the noble savage, and the ghost
in the machine. In G. B. Peterson (Ed.), The Tanner Lectures on Human Values
21.
Pinker, S. (2001) Fools for love. In J. R. Levine & H. J. Markman (Eds.), Why
do fools fall in love?
Pinker, S. (2001) Four
decades of rules and associations, or whatever happened to the past tense
debate? In
Pinker, S. (2003)
Language as an adaptation to the cognitive niche. In M. Christiansen & S.
Kirby (Eds.), Language evolution: States of the Art.
Pinker, S. (2003) Whence religious belief? In P. Kurtz (Ed.), Science
and religion: Are they compatible?
Pinker, S. (2003) The semantic bootstrapping hypothesis. In B. C.
Lust & C. Foley (Eds.), First language acquisition: The essential
readings.
Pinker, S. (2003) Implications for the semantic bootstrapping
hypothesis. In B. C. Lust & C. Foley
(Eds.), First language acquisition: The essential readings.
Pinker, S. (2004) How we may have become who we are. In J.
Brockman (Ed.), Curious minds: How a child becomes a scientist.
Pinker, S. (2005). Foreword. In D. Buss (Ed.), Handbook of
Evolutionary Psychology.
Pinker, S. (2005) Evolutionary psychology and the blank slate. In
J. Stangroom (Ed.), What scientists think.
Pinker, S. (2005) Reverse-engineering the psyche. In A. P. Saleemi,
O.-S. Bohn, & A. Gjedde (Eds.), In
search of a language for the mind-brain: Can multiple perspectives be unified?
Pinker, S. (2005) Steven
Pinker. In J. Brockman (Ed.), What we
believe but cannot prove: Today’s leading thinkers on science in the age of
certainty.
Pinker, S. (2006) The biology of fiction. In R. Headlam-Wells
(Ed.), Human nature: Fact and fiction.
Pinker, S. (2006) Deep commonalities between life and mind. In A.
Grafen & M. Ridley (Eds.), Richard
Dawkins: How a scientist changed the way we think.
Pinker, S. & Spelke, E. (2006) The science of gender and
science: Pinker vs. Spelke. In J. White (Ed.), Taking sides: Clashing views in gender.
Pinker, S. (2006) Evolution and ethics. In J. Brockman (Ed.)., Intelligent thought.
Pinker, S. (2006) Whatever happened to the past-tense debate? In
E. Bakovic, J. Ito, & J. McCarthy (Eds.), Wondering at the natural fecundity of things: Essays in Honor of Alan
Prince.
Pinker, S. (2006) The evolutionary psychology of religion. The Humanist, Sept-Oct. Reprinted (2007)
in P. McNamara (Ed.), Where God and
science meet: How brain and evolutionary studies alter our understanding of
religion. Vol. 1. The evolutionary
psychology of religion. Praeger. Reprinted in PolarZeitschrift (2007). Reprinted
(2009) in J. S. Cullick (Ed.), Faith and
religion in the 21st century. Longman.
Pinker, S. (2006) Introduction. In J. Brockman (Ed.), What is your dangerous idea? Today’s leading
thinkers on the unthinkable.
Pinker, S. (2006) Groups of people may differ genetically in their
average talents and temperaments. In J. Brockman (Ed.), What is your dangerous idea? Today’s leading thinkers on the
unthinkable.
Sutherland, R. & Pinker, S. (2008) Historic Harvard faculty. http://www.isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k3007&pageid=icb.page19708&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent44003&view=view.do&viewParam_name=historicprofs.html#a_icb_pagecontent44003
Pinker, S. (2008). The fear of determinism. In J. Baer, J. C.
Kaufman, & R. Baumeister (Eds.), Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will.
Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2008) The
components of language: What’s specific to language, and what’s specific to
humans? In M. Christiansen, C. Collins, & S. Edelman (Eds)., Language universals.
Pinker, S. (2008) Excerpt from The
Language Instinct. In R. Dawkins (Ed.), The
Pinker, S. (2008) Excerpt from How
the Mind Works. In R. Dawkins (Ed.), The
Pinker, S. (2008) Yes, if by …. In Does
science make belief in God obsolete? Thirteen
views on the question. West
Pinker, S. (2008) Struggled with how the mind works. In Smith Magazine (Ed.), Not quite what I was planning: Six-word memoirs by famous & obscure
writers.
Pinker, S. (2008) Have humans stopped evolving? In J. Brockman (Ed.), What have You changed your mind about?
Pinker, S. (2008) How language works. In S. Blum (Ed.), Making sense of language:
Pinker, S. (2009) Strong response to terrorism not necessarily a symptom
of fallacious statistical reasoning or human cognitive limitations. In K.
Frazier (Ed.), Science under Siege:
Defending science, exposing pseudoscience. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Pinker, S. (2009) Ethics and the ethical brain. In P. Reuter-Lorenz, K.
Baynes, R. Mangun, and E. Phelps (Eds.), Festschrift
for Michael Gazzaniga.
Pinker, S. (2009) Sections on “Evolution and Humanity” and “The Riddle of
Art” in B. Boyd, J. Carroll, & J. Gottschall (Eds.), Evolutionary Approaches to Literature and Film: A Reader in Art and
Science.
Pinker, S. (2010) My daily routine. In M. Currey (Ed.), Daily Routines. New York: Knopf.
Pinker, S. & Goldstein, R. (2010) Dialogue. In A. Bly (Ed.), Science is Culture: Conversations from the
Seed Salon. New York: HarperCollins.
Pinker, S. (2010) Language acquisition: How do they do it? In P.
Griffiths, A. J. Merrison, & A. Bloomer (Eds.), Language in use: A reader. New York: Routledge.
Publications: Articles
in the Press
Pinker, S. (1993) The language instinct. The Times
HigherEducation Supplement,
Pinker, S. (1994) Grammar puss. The New Republic, 210, 19-26.
Pinker, S. (1994) The game of the name.
Op-Ed page, New York Times, April 5.
Pinker, S. (1995) Chasing the jargon jitters.
TIME, November 13, TD30-TD31.
Pinker, S. (1997) The brain’s versatile
toolbox. Natural History, 106, 42-45.
Pinker, S. (1997) Can a computer be conscious? US News and World Report, August 18
& 25, 63-65.
Pinker, S. (1997) Against nature. Discover, October, 92-95.
Pinker, S. (1997) Evolutionary psychology: An exchange (with
Stephen Jay Gould).
Pinker, S. (1997) Why they kill their newborns. New York Times Magazine, November 2.
Pinker, S. (1998) Boys will be boys: An evolutionary explanation
for presidents behaving badly. The New
Yorker, February 9.
Pinker, S. (1998) Listening between the
lines. Op-Ed page, New York Times,
October 7.
Pinker, S. (1999) Silicon souls. The Sunday Times (
Pinker, S. (1999) How much art can the brain take? The
Independent on Sunday, February 7.
Pinker, S. (1999) Racist Language, Real and Imagined. Op-Ed page, New York Times, February 2.
Pinker, S. (1999) Whence religious belief? Skeptical Inquirer 23(4), p. 53.
Pinker, S. (1999) His brain measured up.
Op-Ed page, New York Times, June 24.
Pinker, S. (1999) Regular habits. Times Literary Supplement, October 29.
Pinker, S. (1999) Horton Heared a Who! Time, November 1. Reprinted (2009) in G. Goshgarian (Ed.), Exploring Language 12th ed.
Pinker, S. (1999) There will always be an English. Op-Ed page, New
York Times, December 24. Reprinted (2000) in
Pinker, S. (2000) Mind, morality, and evolution: An interview with
Steven Pinker. Free Inquiry, Spring 2000.
Pinker, S. (2000) The irregular verbs. Landfall,
Autumn, 83-85.
Pinker, S. (2000) Will the mind understand
the brain? Time,
Pinker, S. (2000) Life in the Fourth Millennium. Technology
Review, May. Reprinted as “Familiar Future,” Prospect, June 2000.
Pinker, S. (2000) Decoding the candidates. Op-Ed page, New York
Times, October 31.
Pinker, S. (2001) Baby monitor: Elizabeth Spelke. Time,
Pinker, S. (2001)
Words and rules. Eye on Psi Chi, Spring, 12-17.
Pinker, S. (2002) Eulogy for Stephen Jay Gould. Time,
Pinker, S. (2002) The killer instinct. The Times,
Pinker, S. (2002) What really shapes a child’s life? The Times,
Pinker, S. (2002) The blank slate. Discover, October, 2002.
Pinker, S. (2002) Sibling rivalry: Why the nature-nurture debate
won’t go away.
Pinker, S. & Seligman, M. (2002) Debating human happiness. Slate,
Oct. 15-18.
Pinker, S. (2003) Are your genes to blame? Time, January
20. Reprinted (2008) in Patio (
Pinker, S. (2003) How to get inside a student’s head. Op-Ed page, New
York Times, January 31. Reprinted in
Pinker, S. (2003) Strong response to terrorism not a symptom of
fallacious statistical reasoning or human cognitive limitations. Skeptical
Inquirer, May/June.
Pinker, S.
(2003) Pinker, S. (2003) Better
babies? Why genetic enhancement is too unlikely to worry about.
Pinker, S. & Goldstein, R. (2004) The Seed Salon. Seed,
Summer 2004.
Pinker, S. (2004) Dangerous minds, lethal machines. Science Fiction Issue, The
Guardian, August 26.
Pinker, S. (2004) How to think about
the mind. Newsweek, Sept. 27. Reprinted (2005) as “You are what you
think” in Cosmos (
Pinker, S. (2005) Morality arises from
shared perspectives, not faith. The Independent, March 23.
Pinker, S. (2005) The science of
difference. The New Republic, Feb. 14.
Pinker, S. (2005) Sniffing out the gay gene. Op-Ed, New York
Times, May 17.
Pinker, S.,(2005) Can you believe in God and evolution? Time,
Pinker, S. (2005) College makeover: The Matrix Revisited. Slate,
Pinker, S. (2006) Yes, genes can
be selfish. The Times,
Pinker, S. (2006) Groups and genes: The lessons of the Ashkenazim.
The New Republic,
Pinker, S. (2006) The blank slate: The modern denial of human
nature. Futures Forum, 69-72.
Pinker, S. (2006) Of chicks and frogs (“On My Mind”). Forbes, August.
Pinker, S. (2006) Block that metaphor! The New Republic,
Pinker, S. (2006) Review of “A Flock of Dodos.” 02138, December, 2006. Reprinted in Reports of the
Pinker, S. (2007) The mystery of consciousness. Time,
Pinker, S. (2007) A history of violence. The New Republic,
Pinker, S. (2007) In defense of dangerous ideas.
Pinker, S. (2007) Strangled by roots: The genealogy craze in
Pinker, S. (2007). How do we come up with Words? The
Pinker, S. (2007) Words don't mean what they mean, Time,
Grossman, D., Mandel, D.,
Hoffman, L., & Pinker, S. (2007) Why we love sunsets (and other clichés). Popular Photography, Aug 2007.
Pinker, S. (2007) What the F***? Why we curse. New Republic,
Pinker, S. (2008) The moral instinct. The New York Times Sunday Magazine,
Pinker, S. (2008) Crazy Love. Time,
Pinker, S. (2008) The stupidity of dignity. The New Republic,
Pinker, S. (2008) On swearing and violence. Seed, Sept/Oct
2008.
Pinker, S. (2008) Everything You Heard Is Wrong
(Op-Ed on Sarah Palin's debate language). New York Times,
Pinker, S. (2008) Freedom's curse: Why Washington's crusade
against swearing on the airwaves is f*cked up. The
Pinker, S. (2009) My genome, myself. New York Times Sunday Magazine, Jan. 11.
Pinker, S. (2009) Oaf of office. Op-ed, New York Times, Jan. 22.
Pinker, S. (2009) Why is there peace? Greater Good, April.
Pinker, S. (2009) What of human nature in the art of the deal? Global Brief, May.
Publications: Book
Reviews
Kenneth Wexler and Peter Culicover, “Formal principles of language
acquisition.” Journal of Mathematical
Psychology, 23, 90-97.
John Haugeland (Ed.), “Mind design: Philosophy, Psychology, and
Artificial Intelligence.” Contemporary
Psychology, 27, 720-721.
Kendrick Frazier (Ed.), “Science Confronts the Paranormal.” Contemporary Psychology, 32, 806-807.
Dan Slobin, “Crosslinguistic Evidence for the Language-Making
Capacity” and Melissa Bowerman’s “What Shapes Children’s Grammars?” Journal of Child Language, 16, 456-463.
Derek Bickerton, “Language and species,” Language, 68, 375-382.
David Freedman, “Brainmakers,” and David Gelernter, “The Muse in
the Machine.” The New York Times Book
Review, June 19, 13-14, 1994.
Robert Wright, “The Moral Animal,” New York Times Book Review, Sept. 25, 3, 34-35, 1994.
Jerry Fodor, “The Elm and the Expert.” Nature, 373, 205, 1995.
Deborah Blum, “Sex on the Brain.” Slate,
E. O. Wilson, “Consilience.” Slate,
April, 1997.
Charles Darwin, “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals.” Third edition edited by Paul Ekman. Science, 281, 522-523, 1998.
John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, “The Origins of Life: From the
Birth of Life to the Origin of
Language.” Trends in Evolution and Ecology, 15, 127-128, 2000.
Robert Wright, “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny,” Slate, Jan. 31—
Jonathan Glover, “Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth
Century,” New York Times Book Review,
Jerry Fodor, “The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way,” Mind and
Language, 20, 1-24.
George Lakoff, “Whose Freedom?” The New Republic,
Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson (Eds.), “The Literary
Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative,” Philosophy and Literature, 31,
161-177.
Natalie Angier, “The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful
Basics of Science,” New York Times Book
Review,
Keynote Addresses and
Honorary Lectures
Nijmegen Lectures, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics,
1984
Keynote, Stanford Child Language Research Forum, 1985
Keynote, Language Acquisition Research Symposium,
Keynote, NATO European Workshop on Imagery and Cognition, 1986
Keynote, Wisconsin Symposium for Research on Child Language
Disorders, 1990
Keynote, Fourth Conference on the Neurobiology of Learning and
Memory, UC Irvine, 1990
D. O. Hebb Lecture,
Keynote,
Keynote, Society for Philosophy and Psychology, 1991
Keynote,
Keynote, English Linguistics Society of
Elizabeth McNab Lecture,
Plenary, Society for Neuroscience, 1993
Keynote, Society for Cognitive Neuroscience, 1994
Gordon Tomkins Lecture,
Keynote,
Keynote, Society for Literature and Science, 1995
Whidden Lectures,
Wechsler Lecture,
Mason Library Lecture,
Annual Postdoctoral Fellows’ Lecture, Whitehead Institute, 1997
Keynote, Society for Music Perception and Cognition, 1997
Symbolic Systems Distinguished Lecture,
Neuroscience Distinguished Lecture,
Steel Lecture, Pediatric Orthopedics Society of
Keynote, “Brain and Psyche” Press Seminar, Whitehead Institute,
1998.
Plenary,
Distinguished Lecture, National Science Foundation, November 1999.
Director’s Cultural Lecture, National Institutes of Health,
November, 1999.
President’s Lecture,
University Lecture,
President’s Lecture,
Colin Cherry Memorial Lecture,
Tanner Lectures on Human Values,
Santagata Memorial Lecture,
IHF Distinguished Lecture on Brain, Learning, and Memory, UC
Irvine, May 11, 1999.
Earl Grey Memorial Lecture,
Littleton-Franklin Lecture,
Psi Chi / Frederick Howell Lewis Distinguished Lecture, American
Psychological Association,
Herzberg Memorial Lecture,
Caroline P. & Charles W. Ireland Distinguished Visiting
Scholar,
Master Lecture, Society for Research on Cognitive Development,
Robb Lectures,
President’s Lecture,
David and James Orr Memorial Lecture,
Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture,
Donald & Margaret Freeman Lecture,
Keynote, Society for the Evolutionary Analysis of Law, April 2002.
475th-Anniversary Lecture, Philipps-University Marburg,
Leibniz Lecture,
Plenary Lecture, American Psychological Association, August 2002
Charles Simonyi Lecture,
William Hamilton Memorial Lecture, The New England Institute,
Dawson-Scott Memorial Lecture, PEN International Writers’ Day,
Keynote, American Society for Surgeons of the Hand,
Robert G. Crowder Memorial Lecture,
Bradley Lecture, American Enterprise Institute,
Lindemann Lecture in Human Development,
Ida Beam Distinguished Lectureship,
Hearst Lecture,
University Convocation,
Keynote Address, Conference on Content and Concepts, UC
Keynote Address, Annual Reason Foundation Weekend,
Frontiers in Science Lecture,
Seventy-fourth James Arthur Lecture on the Evolution of the Human
Brain, American Museum of Natural History, March 2004.
Keynote Lecture, Toward a Science of Consciousness,
Keynote Address, VI International Ontology
Congress "From Gene to Logos,” Museum Chilida-leku,
Keynote Address,
Annual meeting of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Madison WI, Oct. 2004.
Keynote Address,
“Liberal Education: Dead or Alive?” conference,
Keynote Address, “Story/Metaphor/Vision" Conference,
Tanner Lecture in Human Values,
Southern
President’s Distinguished Lecture,
Keynote Address, “Literary Lights
Dinner,” Friends of
Keynote Address, Annual Meeting of the American
Psychological Society,
Keynote Address, Bradley Conference on “The Medicalization of
Morality,” American Enterprise Institute, June 2005.
Keynote Address, Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and
Evolution Society,
Keynote Address, Annual Meeting of the Humanist Society of
Steinberg Lecture,
Calvaruso Lecture,
Chandaria Lecture,
Visiting Professor Lecture,
Lamar Conerly Lecture,
Gordon Gray Lecture on
the Craft of Scholarly Writing,
Keynote Address, World
Congress of Science and Factual Producers,
Keynote Address, Conference on Linguistics and Culture, 3rd International
Symposium on Intercultural Communication and Pragmatics, January 2008.
Keynote Address, Joint Conference of the Linguistics Society
of South Africa, the South Africa Association of Language Acquisition, and the
South Africa Association of Language Therapists, January 2008
Douglas Adams Memorial
Lecture, Royal Geographical Society,
Keynote Address,
Heller Lecture,
Enlightenment Lecture,
Presidential Lecture,
Canadian Psychological Association,
Robert C. Cobb
Memorial Lecture and Convocation Address, Harvard Institute for Learning in
Retirement, September 2008.
J. V. Clyne Lecture,
Convocation Lecture,
James S. Plant Distinguished
Scientist Lecture, Hamilton College, September 2009.
Keynote Address,
Society for Judgment and Decision Making, November 2009.
George A. Miller
Lecture, Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Montreal, April 2010.
Psi Chi Distinguished
Lecture, Psi Chi: International Honors Program in Psychology, Annual Meeting of
the Association for Psychological Science, Boston, May 2010.
Recent Public Lectures
at Libraries, Museums, and Societies
CultureTalk Dialogue with Chancellor Nancy Cantor, Colwell
Playhouse,
Royal Institution of
IdeaFestival,
Biblioteca de Bidebarrieta,
Center of Contemporary Culture,
UK National Jewish Book Week (debate with
Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks), March 2005.
Coolidge Corner Theater (lecture on 3-D
movies), June 2005.
Center for Jewish Culture,
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research,
Scofinamente, Codice Ideas for Culture,
Lyric Stage Theater,
Mostly Mozart Festival (lecture on music
and genius),
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research,
January 2007.
Smithsonian Associates,
Mechanics’ Institute,
Serpentine Gallery,
J. Leo Dowd & Catherine Mellon Dowd
Lecture, Great
Conversation with Ian McEwan, PEN World
Voices,
Royal Society for the Encouragement of
Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce,
The Vancouver Institute, September 2008.
Boston College High School, December 2008.
92nd St. Y, New York, Oct. 19,
2009.
Recent Papers
Presented to Professional Meetings
Sahin, N. T., Halgren,
E., Ulbert,
Sahin,
N. T. Halgren, E., Schomer, D., Wu, J. Dale, A. & Pinker, S. (2004)
Convergent in-vivo electrophysiology and fMRI in Broca's Area: Profiling
abstract grammar computation. Society for Neuroscience, November.
Sahin, N.,
Pinker, S., Dale, A. M., Ulbert,
Pinker, S.
(2005) Neuroscience and nihilism. American Association for the Advancement of
Science Meeting “Our Brains and Us,” MIT,
Huang,
Y.-T., & Pinker, S. (2005) Semantic, phonological, and lexical influences
on regular and irregular inflection. Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science
Society,
Pinker, S.
(2005) The Blank Slate. Annual meeting of the Forum for the Future of Higher
Education, Aspen Institute, September.
Sahin, N.
T., Pinker, S., Ulbert, L., Dehghani, N., Wang, C., Papavassiliou, E., Schomer,
D., & Halgren, E. (2005) Single unit recordings in human anterior cingulated
during a language task. Society for Neuroscience, November.
Pinker, S.
(2006) Language and human nature. “The Edges of the Mind,” Codice Ideas for
Culture,
Sahin, N.
T., Pinker, S., Cash, S., Wang, C., Devinsky, O., Kuzniecky, R., Doyle, W.,
& Halgren, E. (2006) Coherent activitiy in Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas in
Delta and Theta bands during noun and verb inflection, as revealed through
human intracranial EEG. International Conference on Cognitive and Neural
Systems,
Pinker, S.
(2006) Language as an adaptation to the cognitive niche.
Ganger, J., Pinker,
S., Chawla, S., & Birk, J. (2007) Heritability
of past-tense marking and the grammar-vocabulary distinction: A twin study. Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child
Development, March 29-April 1,
Pinker, S.
(2007) The decline of violence. “Technology, Entertainment, Design,”
Pinker, S.
(2007) Religion and black men in
Pinker, S.
(2007) Comments on the paper by Ronald Dworkin. “Re-Engineering Human Biology: What
should be the ethical and legal limits?”
Sahin, N.
T., Pinker, S., Ulbert,
Sahin, N.
T., Pinker, S., Ulbert,
Sahin, N.
T., Pinker, S., Cash, S., Meng, N., Papavassiliou, E., Schomer, Don, and
Halgren, E. (2007) Inflecting Nouns and
Verbs May Be More Similar than Different: Evidence from fMRI and Intracranial
Electrophysiology. [Citation: NeuroImage 36(S1): S75]. Human
Brain Mapping Conference, 2007,
Sahin, N. T., Pinker, S., and Halgren, E. (2007) Beware the Baseline: Right-Hemisphere Activation Restricted to the
Baseline Condition of a Language Paradigm Challenges this Task and May Suggest
a Default-Mode Pathway. [Citation: NeuroImage 36(S1): S63]. Human Brain Mapping
Conference, 2007,
Sahin, N.
T., Pinker, S., Cash, S., Thesen, T., Wang, C., Devinsky, O., Kuzniecky, R.,
Doyle, W., and Halgren, E. (2007) Communication
Between Broca's and Wernicke's Areas Detected with Intracranial
Electrophysiology in Awake Humans. [Citation: NeuroImage 36(S1):
S74]. Human Brain Mapping Conference, 2007,
Pinker, S.
(2007) Generalization and representation in language acquisition:
Syntactic, semantic, morphological, and affective. Society for Language
Development,
Pinker, S.
(2007) Literature, language, and the sciences of human nature. Conference on
“The Humanities and the Human,”
Pinker, S.
(2008) The moral instinct. Conference on Secular Humanist Ethics—Planetary
Ethics, Center for Inquiry,
Pinker, S.
(2009) A history of violence. MacArthur Initiative on Neuroscience and Law,
Santa Monica, CA, Jan. 9.
Pinker, S.
(2009) The decline of violence. Conference on “The Evolution of Human Aggression: Lessons for Today’s Conflicts: The
3rd
Pinker, S. (2009) The cognitive niche. Conference on
“Evolution—The Molecular Landscape,” Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, May 30.
Pinker, S. (2009) Language and human nature. Conference on
“Darwin’s Intellectual Legacy to the XXI Century,” Fundación Ciencia y
Evolución, Santiago, Chile, Sept. 7, 2009.
Pinker, S. (2009) The cognitive niche. Sackler colloquium, “In the Light of Evolution IV: the Human Condition,”
National Academy of Sciences, Irvine, CA, Dec. 10-12.
Recent University
Colloquia
Beckman Institute,
Robarts Research Institute,
Columbia University Medical School, Psychiatry Grand Rounds, New
York State Institute of Psychiatry, March 2006.
Harvard University, Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and
Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, November 2007.
Stevens Institute of Technology,
The
Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group,
University of California, Santa Barbara, Sage Center for the Study
of Mind, January 2009.
Hamilton College, September 2009.
University of Richmond, October 2009.
University of Wisconsin, Madison, November 2009.
University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, November 2009.
Tufts University Center for the Humanities, November 2009.
University of Alabama at Birmingham, November 2009.
Major Film Appearances
The
Me & Isaac Newton (1 of 7 featured scientists), Clear Blue Sky Productions, 2000.
How the Mind Works with Steven Pinker, Into the Classroom Media, 2000.
The Ingredients of Language, www.boxmind.com, 2001
Profile: Nature Boy, BBC,
September, 2002.
In-Depth: Steven Pinker, C-SPAN2,
www.booktv.org, 2008.
Exhibits Curated
Pinker, S., Cohen-Cole, J., & Schechner, S. (2007) The
Rediscovery of the Mind: Harvard and the Cognitive Revolution. Permanent
exhibit, Depts. of Psychology and History of Science, William James Hall,
Doctoral Students
Jess Gropen
Karin Stromswold
Michael Tarr
Paul Bloom (co-advisor)
Gary Marcus
John J. Kim
Sandeep Prasada (co-advisor)
Fei Xu (co-advisor)
Michael Ullman
Anne Senghas
Jennifer Ganger
Jaemin Rhee
Ned Sahin
Yi-Ting Huang (co-advisor)
James Lee
Kyle Thomas
Josh Hartshorne (co-advisor)
Postdoctoral Students
Martha Farah
Michael van Kleeck
Karin Stromswold
Greg Hickok
Ronen Basri
Michael Ullman
Jaemin Rhee
Ned Sahin