Kang Lee has devoted his career to understanding the development of social cognition and behavior.

Why you should listen

With an international team based at the University of Toronto, Kang Lee investigates the neurological and social basis of emerging social behaviors in young children. His two­-pronged research focuses first on how and when children develop the capacity to lie, to detect liesand to feel guilty about it afterwards.

The second focus of Lee's research is facial recognition, which has led to revelations of when children develop the ability to distinguish races ­­and has helped explain why some people occasionally see Jesus' face on a piece of toast.

What others say

“Lee ... is masterful at tempting children to make morally dubious decisions. It’s an art he practises at his cheerful third­floor lab. He conducts experiments on how people lie in order to study the cognitive, social and cultural factors that help us learn how and when to be deceptive.” — The Globe and Mail, October 16, 2014

Kang Lee’s TED talk