CNRS researcher
Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse
1 Esplanade de l’Université
31080 Toulouse Cedex 06
France
maxime.derex_at_iast.fr
@MaximeDerex

My work is situated at the intersection of several disciplines including evolutionary anthropology and psychology and focuses on understanding how culture evolves. My central research theme concerns understanding the psychological and social processes involved in the production of increasingly complex technologies.

Some of the questions I am currently interested in are:

• How do humans manage to transmit and build upon accumulated cultural information?
• What types of population structures promote the process of collective search?  
• To what extent do pre-existing solutions constrain the evolution of future technologies?

To answer those questions, I mostly use lab experiments in which groups of participants are asked to improve a piece of technology.