Name Marianne Simmel | ||
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Experimental study of apparent behavior fritz heider marianne simmel 1944
Marianne Leonore Simmel (3 January 1923 – 24 March 2010) was a psychologist with a special interest in cognitive neuropsychology. She received her Ph.D. in 1949 from Harvard University and later served on the faculty at the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at Brandeis University.
With Fritz Heider, Simmel co-authored 'An Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior,' which explored the experience of animacy. The study showed that subjects presented with a certain display of inanimate two-dimensional figures are inclined to ascribe intentions to those figures. This result has been taken to establish "the human instinct for storytelling" and to serve as important data in the study of theory of mind.
In addition to her early work with Heider, Simmel went on to make important contributions in cognitive neuropsychology, for instance in her work on the phenomenon of phantom limb.