Psychology
& Neuroscience

Empirical work on moral cognition, memory, and the control of action.

Methods Behavioral experiments Cross-cultural fMRI Computational modeling

Research areas

Moral cognition

How people attribute responsibility and blame, and how those judgments vary across cultures. [placeholder — replace with your framing]

Memory & forgetting

The cognitive and neural basis of forgetting, intention, and prospective memory. [placeholder]

Self-regulation

Temporally-extended control of action and the dynamics of attention over time. [placeholder]

Selected work

'26

Mental control and effort differ across different kinds of mental action

Krasich, K., Murray, S., Ghelfi, A., De Brigard, F., & Shepherd, J. — Consciousness and Cognition (2026)

'26

Memories of forgiven wrongs: the role of interpersonal closeness and severity when remembering forgiven transgressions

Fernandez-Miranda, G., Faul, L., Murray, S., Amaya, S., & De Brigard, F. — Memory (2026)

'26

Varieties of negligence

Murray, S., Guzy, D., & Amaya, S. — Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (2026)

'25

Validation of the Moral Foundation Vignettes in Latin America

Jimenez-Leal, W., Carmona, G., Murray, S., & Amaya, S. — Collabra: Psychology (2025)

'25

The emotional impact of forgiveness on autobiographical memories of past wrongdoings

Fernandez-Miranda, G., Stanley, M., Murray, S., Faul, L., & De Brigard, F. — Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (2025)

'25

Vigilance and mind wandering

Murray, S. — Mind \& Language (2025)

'24

What are the benefits of mind wandering to creativity?

Murray, S., Liang, N., Brosowsky, N., & Seli, P. — Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (2024)

'24

Blame for Hum(e)an beings: The role of character information in judgments of blame

Murray, S., O'Neill, K., Bridges, J., Sytsma, J., & Irving, Z. — Social Psychological and Personality Science (2024)

'24

A Cross-Cultural Study of Everyday Moral Experiences

Murray, S., Jimenez-Leal, W., Amaya, S., & et al. — OSF (preprint) (2024)

'24

Loyalty from a personal point of view: A cross-cultural prototype study of loyalty

Murray, S., Carmona, G., Vega, L., Jimenez-Leal, W., & Amaya, S. — Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (2024)

'24

Within your rights: Dissociating wrongness and permissibility in moral judgement

Murray, S., Jimenez-Leal, W., & Amaya, S. — British Journal of Social Psychology (2024)

'24

Commonsense Morality and the Bearable Automaticity of Being

Murray, S., & Nadelhoffer, T. — Consciousness and Cognition (2024)

'24

The strategic allocation theory of vigilance

Murray, S., & Amaya, S. — Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science (2024)

'24

Believe in your self-control: Lay theories of self-control and their downstream effects

Bermudez, J.P., & Murray, S. — Current Opinion in Psychology (2024)

'24

A computational modeling approach to investigating mind wandering-related adjustments to gaze behavior during scene viewing

Krasich, K., O'Neill, K., Murray, S., Brockmole, J.R., De Brigard, F., & Nuthmann, A. — Cognition (2024)

'23

Intuitions about free will and the failure to comprehend determinism

Nadelhoffer, T., Murray, S., & Murry, E. — Erkenntnis (2023)

'23

What's inside is all that counts? The contours of everyday thinking about self-control

Bermudez, J.P., Murray, S., Chartrand, L., & Barbosa, S. — Review of Philosophy and Psychology (2023)

'23

Purity is linked to cooperation but not necessarily through self-control

Murray, S., Amaya, S., & Jimenez-Leal, W. — Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2023)

'23

Moralization and self-control strategy selection

Murray, S., Bermudez, J.P., & De Brigard, F. — Psychonomic Bulletin \& Review (2023)

'23

Not what I expected: Feeling of surprise differentially mediates effect of personal control on attributions of free will and responsibility

Murray, S., & Nadelhoffer, T. — Review of Philosophy and Psychology (2023)

'22

Can the mind wander intentionally?

Murray, S., & Krasich, K. — Mind \& Language (2022)

'22

Fixation, flexibility, and creativity: The dynamics of mind wandering

Smith, A.P., Brosowsky, N., Murray, S., Daniel, R., Meier, M.E., & Seli, P. — Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (2022)

'22

The scientific study of passive thinking: Methods of mind wandering research

Murray, S., Irving, Z.C., & Krasich, K. — Neuroscience and Philosophy (2022)

'22

Mental control and attributions of blame for negligent wrongdoing

Murray, S., Krasich, K., Irving, Z.C., Nadelhoffer, T., & De Brigard, F. — Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (2022)

'22

Times imagined and remembered

De Brigard, F., Khoudary, M., & Murray, S. — Temporal asymmetries in philosophy \& psychology (2022)

'22

Neural differences between internal and external episodic counterfactual thoughts

Khoudary, A., O'Neill, K., Faul, L., Murray, S., Smallman, R., & De Brigard, F. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2022)

'21

Attention need not always apply: Mind wandering impedes explicit but not implicit sequence learning

Brosowsky, N.P., Murray, S., Schooler, J.W., & Seli, P. — Cognition (2021)

'21

Piercing the smoke screen: Dualism, free will, and Christianity

Murray, S., Murray, E., & Nadelhoffer, T. — Journal of cognition and culture (2021)

'21

Thought dynamics under task demands: Evaluating the influence of task difficulty on unconstrained thought

Brosowsky, N.P., Murray, S., Schooler, J.W., & Seli, P. — Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (2021)

'21

The neurocognitive mechanisms of responsibility: a framework for normatively relevant neuroscience

Murray, S., & De Brigard, F. — Developments in Neuroethics and bioethics (2021)

'21

The impact of error-consequence severity on cue processing in importance-biased prospective memory

Krasich, K., Gjorgieva, E., Murray, S., Bhatia, S., Faber, M., De Brigard, F., & Woldorff, M.G. — Cerebral Cortex Communications (2021)

'20

What's in a task? Complications in the study of the task-unrelated-thought variety of mind wandering

Murray, S., Krasich, K., Schooler, J.W., & Seli, P. — Perspectives on Psychological Science (2020)

'20

I've said it before and I will say it again: Repeating statements made by Donald Trump increases perceived truthfulness

Murray, S., Stanley, M., McPhetres, J., Pennycook, G., & Seli, P. — OSF (preprint) (2020)

'20

The place of the trace: Negligence and responsibility

Murray, S. — Review of Philosophy and Psychology (2020)

'18

Why value values?

Samuel, M. — Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2018)

Department

Neuroscience Program, Providence College

Past

Imagination & Modal Cognition Lab, Duke University

Collaboration