معرفی
James Close is a Lecturer in Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University's Faculty of Science and Engineering, School of Psychology, Sport and Sensory Science. He holds a PhD in Psychology from Cardiff University (2010) and a BSc in Applied Psychology from the same institution. His career includes postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, English teaching in Thailand, and prior lectureships at Webster University Thailand.
His research examines cognitive mechanisms across species, with core interests in:
- Cognitive & Comparative Psychology: Evolution of cognition in humans/animals
- Prosociality Development: Factors driving beneficial social behaviors
- Concept Formation: Categorization, similarity, and unsupervised learning
- Religion-Psychology Interactions: Behavioral impacts of belief systems
Publications (2010-2023) demonstrate consistent focus on cross-species cognition, spanning primate visual transfer, rat stimulus generalization, human concept categorization, and comparative cognitive structures. Recent work emphasizes similarity-based representation in apes and humans.
Awards & Recognition:
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
- DAAD Scholarship (2010, €4,000)
Research Supervision includes: unsupervised categorization, prosocial behavior interventions, and pro-environmental behavior promotion. He coordinates the Psychology program and teaches courses: Becoming a Researcher, Brain, Body and Mind, and Research in Action. He leads projects at the ARU Centre for Mind and Behaviour.
