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Mirror Neurons
Giacomo Rizzolatti has a longstanding interest in how the cognitive functions of the brain are connected to movement. When he and his colleagues were studying neurons that control hand and mouth actions in monkeys, they noticed that the neurons would not only activate when the animal picked up a piece of food, but the neurons would also switch on when the monkey saw a person pick up a piece of food. Many researchers believe that these neurons could be important for imitation, language acquisition, and various forms of perception.
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Navigating Diverse Environments
Living and working in a diverse community offers many opportunities, but also many challenges. Jennifer Richeson studies the challenges of navigating diverse environments for both members of dominant groups and members of socially-devalued, minority groups. Using techniques ranging from the examination of nonverbal behavior to the study of brain scans, Richeson and her team have found that most people find it difficult to interact with others across racial boundaries. Indeed, the effort individuals put forth during cross-race interactions, for instance, can leave them cognitively drained.
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Exploring Word and World Acquisition
How do we acquire language and what is the cognitive architecture involved in written or spoken language processing? What are the general learning mechanisms allowing us to extract the statistical regularities of the world? How do these mechanisms structure our conscious states? Through his research, Arnaud Rey addresses these questions by testing and refining computational models of cognition and language processing. But, beyond these easy problems (that humans will certainly solve sooner or later), he is interested in understanding how human language has emerged throughout evolution.
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Demystifying Memory
Suparna Rajaram's research focuses on memory and amnesia, particularly how we recall past experiences and acquire and retain new knowledge. She investigates the differences between implicit (unconscious) memory and explicit (conscious) recollection as well as the components of episodic (i.e. autobiographical details, times, places) and semantic (i.e. meanings, concepts) memory, and familiarity. Rajaram is also interested in how attentional demands in our environment lead us to ignore salient information, thus inhibiting expression of new memories. Rajaram's new line of research focuses on how collaboration with others may improve memory.
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Dieting and Self Image
Eating behavior is increasingly relevant in a world where many people are overweight or obese. Janet Polivy developed an interest in behaviors associated with dieting and eating in grad school when she showed that dieters will overeat if they think they have broken their diets, regardless of whether or not they ate a high-calorie food. Polivy has also studied “False Hope Syndrome,” a mindset that people develop when they have unrealistic ideas of how quickly and easily they can change themselves. She has investigated the impact these ideas have on behavior and self-image in people who are attempting to make changes in their lives.
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Understanding Harmful Behavior
After being assigned to an academic externship at a unit in a London psychiatric hospital where violent and self-injurious patients were treated, Matthew Nock became interested in the question of why people intentionally harm themselves. Ever since that experience, Nock has pursued research to deepen scientific understanding of suicide and self-injury. His studies have approached self-injury behaviors from multiple angles to better understand how such behaviors develop, can be predicted, and prevented. Nock collaborated with Mahzarin Banaji to adapt the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure suicidal thoughts in teenagers.
