-
Benjamin Storm
University of California, Santa Cruz http://people.ucsc.edu/~bcstorm/research.html What does your research focus on? My research focuses broadly on human memory with a special focus on the causes and consequences of forgetting. Although forgetting may seem like a failure of memory, in many instances it is essential for the efficient and adaptive functioning of memory. Some of my research has shown that forgetting is critical for resolving competition during retrieval, overcoming fixation in creative problem solving, updating autobiographical memory, and facilitating new learning. What drew you to this line of research and why is it exciting to you?
-
R. Nathan Spreng
Cornell University http://lbc.human.cornell.edu/ What does your research focus on? My research examines large-scale brain network dynamics and their role in cognition. I am actively involved in the development and implementation of multivariate and network-based statistical approaches to assess brain activity. In doing so, I hope to better understand the properties of the brain networks underlying complex cognitive processes as they change across the lifespan. Currently, I am investigating the link between autobiography and imagination, how we conceive of the future, and successful navigation of the social world.
-
Leah Somerville
Harvard University http://andl.wjh.harvard.edu What does your research focus on? My research focuses on the study of human emotion, especially factors that explain variability in emotional responding across people, in social and nonsocial contexts, and across the developmental course. In the last few years, I’ve focused on asking how brain development during the second decade of life relates to common changes in emotional processes and social cognition in adolescents. To inform these issues, my work combines behavioral, psychophysiological and brain imaging approaches. What drew you to this line of research and why is it exciting to you?
-
Christopher Olivola
Carnegie Mellon University https://sites.google.com/site/chrisolivola/ What does your research focus on? I am generally interested in (human) judgment and decision making. If I had to narrow it down a bit further, I would say I am particularly interested in understanding (e)valuation: How (and why) do we assign value to things? I’ve tried to tackle this question in several ways; for example, by identifying normatively puzzling patterns of valuation, by designing new value-elicitation methods, and by contributing to the ongoing development and testing of a new decision-making theory (Decision by Sampling). What drew you to this line of research and why is it exciting to you?
-
Understanding the Self With Schizophrenia
Individuals with schizophrenia may have some memory problems, but they are still able to accurately and reliably assess their own personality traits, clinical research shows.
-
Thomas Olino
University of Pittsburgh www.dascpitt.org/content/olino-thomas-phd What does your research focus on? My primary line of research examines the role of appetitive motivation in the development of unipolar mood disorders using multiple types of methodologies, including, self-reports, behavior, and functional neuroimaging. While there is well-established literature on appetitive motivational deficits in individuals with depression, it is less well known if this pattern of functioning is present before the onset of the disorder. Thus, my work focuses on children and adolescents without a personal history of depression, but who are at high risk for developing depression.
