Make up your mind! - Dissociating the roles of orbitofrontal cortex and striatum in human decision making. How we make everyday decisions is a crucial behaviour of humans but the underlying processes in the brain are still poorly understood. This project will investigate what the roles of specific brain regions are in human decision making, which enable us to gain a better understanding of how these brain structures contribute to our decisions.
A new training approach to address the novice driver problem. This project aims to develop a new approach to driver training. For the second consecutive year, road deaths in Australia have increased by 150 from 2014 to 2016. The increase in deaths was greatest for young drivers between the ages of 17-25 years, who remain over-represented in road deaths. The majority of these deaths occur in the first few months after licensing. This project expects to generate new knowledge, where the focus is o ....A new training approach to address the novice driver problem. This project aims to develop a new approach to driver training. For the second consecutive year, road deaths in Australia have increased by 150 from 2014 to 2016. The increase in deaths was greatest for young drivers between the ages of 17-25 years, who remain over-represented in road deaths. The majority of these deaths occur in the first few months after licensing. This project expects to generate new knowledge, where the focus is on developing young driver’s cognitive skills about speed choice through the provisions of a training program that focuses on feedback. The results will have the potential to be used by road authorities and driver training organisations to improve road safety.Read moreRead less
Risky Futures: Toward a Computational Process Model of Risky Inter-Temporal Choice. A lot is known about people’s preferences. People like their rewards now. Most would prefer $10 today than $20 in one month. Risk is also unattractive; a certain $10 is more attractive than a 50 per cent chance of receiving $25. Surprisingly, much less is known about the interaction between delay and risk. That is, relatively little is known about whether people prefer $10 now, or a 50 per cent chance of $50 in ....Risky Futures: Toward a Computational Process Model of Risky Inter-Temporal Choice. A lot is known about people’s preferences. People like their rewards now. Most would prefer $10 today than $20 in one month. Risk is also unattractive; a certain $10 is more attractive than a 50 per cent chance of receiving $25. Surprisingly, much less is known about the interaction between delay and risk. That is, relatively little is known about whether people prefer $10 now, or a 50 per cent chance of $50 in one month. This project will use a combination of experiments and cognitive modelling to examine all three types of choice. The outcome will be a novel computational model that will elucidate the complex interaction between delay and risk, thereby answering an enduring question in the literature: are risk and delay psychologically equivalent?Read moreRead less
Decoding change of mind decisions and errors from brain activity in humans. This project intends to provide new insights into how the brain changes a decision to achieve better outcomes. Decision-making is rarely optimal, and in a dynamic world people must often change their initial decisions in order to avoid consequential errors. This project aims to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying such change-of-mind decisions and decision errors in humans. To this end, it plans to use novel deco ....Decoding change of mind decisions and errors from brain activity in humans. This project intends to provide new insights into how the brain changes a decision to achieve better outcomes. Decision-making is rarely optimal, and in a dynamic world people must often change their initial decisions in order to avoid consequential errors. This project aims to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying such change-of-mind decisions and decision errors in humans. To this end, it plans to use novel decoding techniques to predict the evolution of change-of-mind decisions from brain activity while decisions unfold. This approach would clarify how quality of information, effort, and reward are integrated at a neural level to bias people towards changing their decisions. The expected results would provide an improved understanding of the neural dynamics of errors and how the brain corrects decisions online to achieve better outcomes.Read moreRead less
The benefits of sociality: understanding the relationship between cooperation, cognition and fitness. Cooperation may present unique cognitive challenges. Individuals perform behaviours that provide fitness benefits to others, exposing themselves to risk. The need to monitor the behaviour of group members, recognise suitable cooperative partners, and make corresponding behavioural adjustments to maximize the benefits of cooperation, may therefore be an important driver of social evolution. The r ....The benefits of sociality: understanding the relationship between cooperation, cognition and fitness. Cooperation may present unique cognitive challenges. Individuals perform behaviours that provide fitness benefits to others, exposing themselves to risk. The need to monitor the behaviour of group members, recognise suitable cooperative partners, and make corresponding behavioural adjustments to maximize the benefits of cooperation, may therefore be an important driver of social evolution. The relevance of understanding the relationship between cognition and cooperation is in how it affects the fitness of individuals and the stability of cooperation. This project aims to unveil this relationship by conducting one of the first comprehensive studies of the selective benefits of cognitive ability in a wild, cooperative bird species.Read moreRead less
The brain in real time: a neural model of rhythmic action and perception. This project aims to study a fundamental function of the human brain: its temporal architecture. It will provide an innovative perspective on the neural mechanisms underlying and relating perception, intention, and voluntary action in real time, though a combination of eye-tracking, behaviour, and neural recordings. By providing a common language with which to relate perception, cognition, volition and action, this will ....The brain in real time: a neural model of rhythmic action and perception. This project aims to study a fundamental function of the human brain: its temporal architecture. It will provide an innovative perspective on the neural mechanisms underlying and relating perception, intention, and voluntary action in real time, though a combination of eye-tracking, behaviour, and neural recordings. By providing a common language with which to relate perception, cognition, volition and action, this will provide significant benefits that will transform the way we think about brain function.Read moreRead less
I like you and I just can't help it: Explaining automatic affective responses. Our automatic affective responses are crucial in determining how we behave particularly in situations where there is little conscious deliberation. These automatic responses have been implicated in dysfunctional behaviours such as unhealthy food choices and racial bias. However very little research has investigated the psychological processes responsible for the formation of these automatic affective responses. The ai ....I like you and I just can't help it: Explaining automatic affective responses. Our automatic affective responses are crucial in determining how we behave particularly in situations where there is little conscious deliberation. These automatic responses have been implicated in dysfunctional behaviours such as unhealthy food choices and racial bias. However very little research has investigated the psychological processes responsible for the formation of these automatic affective responses. The aim of this project is to investigate the role of conditioning and cognitive processes in the formation and expression of automatic affective responses. This will allow for the development of novel interventions targeting automatic responses which contribute to dysfunctional behaviour. Read moreRead less
Cognitive models of decision making in clinical populations. This cognitive science project aims to develop new methods for mathematical modelling of decision making, and to apply these methods to study decision making in people with problem drug use. Precise measures of the thought processes underlying decision making in drug users will help to direct efforts to prevent and treat drug problems.
The Neural Bases of Decision-Making. The smooth integration of cognitive and emotional processes is necessary for everyday decisions. Dysfunction in this integrative capacity accompanies dementia, neurodegenerative conditions and major psychiatric disorders. This project seeks to understand the neural bases of this integration in normal decision-making using cutting edge behavioural, cellular, molecular and genetic tools to map the neural system, circuit and cellular processes controlling the se ....The Neural Bases of Decision-Making. The smooth integration of cognitive and emotional processes is necessary for everyday decisions. Dysfunction in this integrative capacity accompanies dementia, neurodegenerative conditions and major psychiatric disorders. This project seeks to understand the neural bases of this integration in normal decision-making using cutting edge behavioural, cellular, molecular and genetic tools to map the neural system, circuit and cellular processes controlling the selection, evaluation and choice of goal-directed actions. Such actions can, with continued practice, transition into relatively inflexible habits. Thus, this project aims to investigate the neural processes that mediate this transition and how actions and habits interact in normal decision-making.Read moreRead less
Predicting Behaviour from Brain Representations. This project aims to advance our understanding of how perceptual information is represented in the human brain and to link the structure of perceptual brain representations to human behaviour. The project plans to use complementary methods for recording brain activity (human neuroimaging and primate single-cell neurophysiology) and cutting-edge analytic techniques to generate a predictive model of behaviour based on the structure of perceptual bra ....Predicting Behaviour from Brain Representations. This project aims to advance our understanding of how perceptual information is represented in the human brain and to link the structure of perceptual brain representations to human behaviour. The project plans to use complementary methods for recording brain activity (human neuroimaging and primate single-cell neurophysiology) and cutting-edge analytic techniques to generate a predictive model of behaviour based on the structure of perceptual brain representations. It is anticipated that the results will significantly advance the field of cognitive neuroscience by providing a novel empirical framework for understanding how brain representations are predictive of behaviour.Read moreRead less