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
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140101181
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$384,183.00
Summary
How Do Our Past Decisions Affect Our Present Decisions? – An Innovative Model. Decisions under time pressure made in the past have a tendency to affect our current decisions. This phenomenon is often termed ‘sequential effects’. Typically, sequential effects are explained by positing the existence of a psychological mechanism that is specifically aimed at resolving conflicting information. The aim of this project is to develop a computational model that produces sequential effects naturally. Inn ....How Do Our Past Decisions Affect Our Present Decisions? – An Innovative Model. Decisions under time pressure made in the past have a tendency to affect our current decisions. This phenomenon is often termed ‘sequential effects’. Typically, sequential effects are explained by positing the existence of a psychological mechanism that is specifically aimed at resolving conflicting information. The aim of this project is to develop a computational model that produces sequential effects naturally. Innovatively, this model would remove the need for an explicit conflict monitoring mechanism. This project is significant because it progresses our understanding of how humans deal with conflict. The expected outcome is a comprehensive, quantitative account of sequential effects in human decision making.Read moreRead less
How strong inference has failed psychology, and an updated approach. There are so many quantitative theories of cognition that it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees. This project will contend that this is caused by suboptimal model selection. Comprehensive data sets and modern statistical techniques will be used to evaluate competing accounts in five paradigms, thinning the trees to reveal the forest.
Rapid decisions: from neuroscience to complex cognitions. A succession of rapid decisions supports our daily life - run or walk? Fish or steak? This project will integrate three different approaches to understanding these decisions, from neuroscience, mathematical psychology and experimental psychology. This research will provide insights about normal human functioning, and problems such as occur in healthy ageing.
The psychology of not wanting to know. This project aims to deliver insights into paradoxical decision-making behaviours of humans who pursue either useless information or deliberate ignorance. The project intends to shed new light on why these conflicting states of information preference exist by building on significant recent advances in understanding how reinforcement learning, anticipation and discounting combine to determine when people do and do not want to know. Intended benefits include ....The psychology of not wanting to know. This project aims to deliver insights into paradoxical decision-making behaviours of humans who pursue either useless information or deliberate ignorance. The project intends to shed new light on why these conflicting states of information preference exist by building on significant recent advances in understanding how reinforcement learning, anticipation and discounting combine to determine when people do and do not want to know. Intended benefits include maintaining and enhancing the excellent status of Australian psychological and cognitive science. The downstream benefits include elucidating the development of anxiety disorders and problem gambling.Read moreRead less
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
Improving performance in high risk environments using guided distraction and iconic cues. This project tests a novel strategy to assist operators in high-risk automated environments, in order to maintain their performance in low workload situations. Using guided distraction, this project will be able to show improvements in attention to critical tasks and in overall system performance, thereby reducing the potential for error.
Improving young drivers' speed management behaviour. This project incorporates proven educational and training techniques employed within the aviation industry to improve young drivers' speed management skills. Ultimately the results of this project will aid road safety authorities in redesigning training programmes to achieve this goal.
Choice models for learning and memory. Life is filled with familiar choices that often require quick decisions about objects in the environment and the contents of memory. This project examines how we learn to make rapid and accurate choices and how we quickly asses the level of confidence we have in recognition decisions based on our memories.
Neuronal and behavioural correlates of sensory adaptation. Sensory systems adapt to the statistics of their environment, and the consequences of this adaptation are evident in neuronal activity and in animal’s behaviour. This project will employ a novel paradigm to characterise how adaptation changes the response properties of individual sensory neurons to improve efficiency of information transmission.