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Understanding Cognition Through Mathematical Models
In order to improve our understanding of the human mind it is essential to collect data by measuring brain and behavior. Proper interpretation of such data, however, requires coherent data analysis and the development of formal process models. Eric-Jan Wagenmakers advocates Bayesian analysis tools and instantiates cognitive mechanisms in specific mathematical models. Such models stimulate the development of new theory and allow a more effective interaction between psychology and neuroscience.
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Modeling the Brain and Mind
Cognitive neuroscientists study people at two explanatory levels: the brain and behavior. Using psychometric models and brain imaging tools, Rogier Kievit explores how theoretical psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind can be used to understand the links between the brain and behavior. His current research relates brain function and structure (using MRI) and cognition in aging populations using structural equation models and network analysis. With the goal of increasing health in older populations, Kievit’s particular interests are in models that effectively capture how cognitive changes across lifetime relate to brain reorganization, adaptation and compensation.
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Insiders and Outsiders
When social groups interact, notions of “insiders” and “outsiders” develop. Using a variety of approaches – psychological, physiological, and neurobiological – Valerie Purdie-Vaughns seeks to understand relationships between social groups and reduce intergroup bias and conflict. In particular, she investigates how minority and majority groups interact, focusing on experiments that closely mirror real-world scenarios. For instance, several recent studies have examined how the anxiety of feeling stigmatized can lead to dysregulated eating and psychological distress.
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The Link Between Perceiving and Doing
Common coding theory holds that seeing, hearing, or thinking about an action triggers the same cognitive processes that are activated when we actually perform the action. Experimental psychological scientist Wolfgang Prinz is the founder of that theory, which provided a critical foundation for advances in cognitive neuroscience. The discovery of mirror neurons in macaque monkeys (neurons that fire both when the monkeys perceived another performing an action, such as grabbing a piece of food, and when they actually grasp the food themselves) provided some of the first neurophysiological evidence for common coding.
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The Nature of Empathy and Compassion
Tania Singer is recognized as a world expert on empathy and compassion, and takes an interdisciplinary approach to study social and moral emotions such as fairness, envy, compassion, and revenge. In addition to brain imaging, her research methods include also game theoretical and psychological tasks, virtual reality environments and measuring biological markers such as the stress hormone cortisol. In a landmark 2004 study, she discovered that some of the same brain regions that are active when we feel pain also react to the knowledge that a loved one is being hurt. Those findings provided evidence that empathy on some level is an automatic, physiological response.
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Improving the Science and Practice of Youth Mental Health Care
John Weisz uses psychological science to help children and adolescents overcome emotional and behavioral problems—including depression, anxiety, and misconduct. Following his Deployment-Focused Model of intervention development and testing, Weisz uses randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses to identify interventions that will succeed in the community clinic and school settings where young people most often receive mental health care.
