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Cognitive Search: Evolution Algorithms and the Brain. MIT Press.
email: t.t.hills (at) warwick.ac.uk
tel: (024) 765 23183
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Interests:
I study search behaviour and the trade-off between exploration and exploitation across domains as diverse as space, mind, and society. This work aims to understand how humans navigate complex information environments (e.g., memory, decision making, and creativity) and how these environments evolve and develop in response.
My research uses experiments, big data, network science, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and mathematical models, with applications to behavioural and cognitive science.
My book on with Cambridge University Press has a webpage, code, and teaching materials available .
I am the Director of the Behavioural and Data Science MSc.
My former PhD students Eugene Malthouse and Charlie Pilgrim help run the Collective Decision Making and Culture Lab with collaborators from over 30 nations.
Some fun articles for the casual reader:
, published in Aeon.
published in Aeon.
for exploring the historical structure of English
PUBLICATIONS and pdfs
Some recent Publications:
- Malthouse, E., Pilgrim, C., Sgroi, D., Accerenzi, M., Alfonso, A., Ashraf, R. U., ... & Hills, T. (2026). The private solution trap in collective action problems across 34 nations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123(12), e2504632123.
- Todd, P., & Hills, T. (2026). Should I stay or should I go with them? Social forces underpin human foraging. Science, 391, 442-443.
- Hills, T. (2026). Could you be wrong: Metacognitive prompts for improving human decision making help LLMs identify their own biases. AI, 7, 1-12.
- Ovando-Tellez, M., Vigreux, L., Kenett, Y. N., Benedek, M., Hills, T. T., Beranger, B., ... & Volle, E. (2025). Switching, fast and slow: Deciphering the dynamics of memory search, its brain connectivity patterns, and its role in creativity. Imaging Neuroscience, 3, IMAG-a.
- Hills, T. (2025). Cognitive network enrichment, not degradation, explains the aging mental lexicon and links fluid and crystallized intelligence. Psychological Review, Advance online publication.
- Hills, T. (2025). Cambridge University Press.
- Jeong, D., & Hills, T. (2024). Age-related diversi铿乧ation and specialization in the mental lexicon: Comparing aggregate and individual-level network approaches. Cognitive Science, 40, e70008.
- Hills, T. & Kenett, Y (2024). An entropy modulation theory of creative exploration. Psychological Review.
- Li, H. and Hills, T. (2024). Time, valence, and imagination: A comparative study of thoughts in restricted and unrestricted mind wandering. Psychological Research. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-024-01969-2
- Pilgrim, C., Sanborn, A., Malthouse, E., and Hills, T. (2024). Confirmation bias emerges from an approximation to Bayesian reasoning. Cognition.
- Pilgrim, C., Guo, W., & Hills, T. (2024). The rising entropy of english in the attention economy. Nature Communications Psychology.
Supervisor to:
Danyang Hu
Dasol Jeong
Halleyson Li
Charlie Pilgrim
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