MAC Lab News

We're excited to welcome Alissa Rivero to the team as a PhD student. Alissa is a first year Psychology and Neuroscience Ph.D. student in the MAC Lab, and she graduated from Duke in 2025 with a B.A. in Psychology. Alissa's research investigates sociocultural influences on exploration, motivation, and creativity across the lifespan. She is particularly interested in the developmental consequences of prioritizing efficiency over exploration in childhood (i.e., how this can under

"Playful Innovators: New Study Reveals Children’s Key Role in Shaping Human Culture" Trinity Communications highlighted Dr. Dorsa Amir and Dr. Sheina Lew-Levy's newest publication, "Children as agents of cultural adaptation," in a recent press release. In this paper, the authors explore how children are active producers of culture, and how they generate knowledge and norms independent of adults. Dr. Amir shares with the reporter that children's peer cultures (knowledge produc

Dr. Sheina Lew-Levy and Dr. Dorsa Amir write about children's role in creating and transmitting knowledge (known as peer culture) in this paper published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. This target article, combined with open peer commentary from over 50 fellow researchers, has now been released. Read here! Dr. Lew-Levy and Dr. Amir respond to peer commentary by discussing the integration of these interdisciplinary contributions and by situating peer cultures within the bro