Psychology 196B: Research in Cognitive Science
Research in Behavioral Science, Behavioral Economics, and Judgment & Decision Making
Faculty Sponsor: Fox, Craig
Department: Psychology & Business (Anderson)
Contact Name: Megan Weber
E-mail: meweber13@gmail.com
Description of Research Project:
In our lab, we are investigating several different projects related to judgment, decision making, and human behavior. We take on political psychology (e.g., how people think about inequality), persuasion (e.g., tactics to convince people to adopt new behaviors), basic psychology (e.g., perceptions of uncertainty), and response to incentives (e.g., pay-for-performance in the context of non-profit organizations). We use a variety of methods in our work, including online and in-lab survey-based experiments, field studies, natural language processing, and eye-tracking devices.
Description of Student Responsibilities:
Students will be doing a variety of research-related tasks, from literature reviews to study design to study administration. Students should be extremely reliable, fast, and clear communicators, eager to take on challenges and solve them independently. We want RAs who are not only talented and fastidious but also passionate and intrigued by the cognitive process underneath human decision making. Students who are exceptionally hard working, organized, detail-oriented, curious, and thoughtful should apply. Those with extensive coding skills (especially in JavaScript) will be given preference.
Neural mechanisms of decision making
Faculty Sponsor: Wikenheiser, Andrew
Department: Psychology
Contact Name: Wikenheiser, Andrew
E-mail: amwikenheiser@psych.ucla.edu
Room Number: LSB 5833
Website: https://wikenheiserlab.psych.ucla.edu/
Description of Research Project:
Our lab is interested in understanding how the brain controls behavior. We approach this question by recording the electrical activity of neurons as subjects perform carefully-designed behavioral tasks, and electrophysiological techniques are augmented with optogenetics and computational analyses. Specifically, much of our work focuses on decision making tasks inspired by a wide-ranging set of models from psychology, neuroscience, economics, and ethology. Our primary focus is on how interactions between the hippocampus and cortical regions mediate these behaviors.
Description of Student Responsibilities:
Research assistants can contribute to a variety of projects currently underway in the lab. We have a several projects that revolve around designing, fabricating, and testing custom behavioral equipment that allow us to ask new experimental questions. This work involves learning to use CAD software to design and fabricate behavioral devices using in-house 3D printers. These projects will give students hands on experience with 3D printing and electronic sensor design for data collection in experimental settings. Completed behavioral devices will be validated experimentally, and then incorporated into new experiments that research assistants will help design and execute. We also interested in applying novel computational analyses to previously-collected data. This work will give students experience with state of the art deep neural network methods for analyzing behavioral and neural data. The results of these analyses will serve as preliminary data to aid the design of new experiments. Research assistants can help in the design and execution of new experiments that result from these exploratory data analysis projects.
Motor cortex network dynamics during skilled motor behavior
Faculty Sponsor: Arac, Ahmet
Department: Neurology
Contact Name: Ahmet Arac
E-mail: aarac@mednet.ucla.edu
Description of Research Project:
The primary goal of this research is to understand the relationship between learned behaviors and neuron activity in the M1 region of the cerebral cortex. We are interested in capturing the changes in neuron activity as the mouse increases skill in the learned motor behavior. The lab measures learned behaviors and neuron activity simultaneously using two separate observations. The learned behavior is observed through deep learning computer vision applications and is used to calculate kinematic movements of paws of the mice. Neuronal activity is recorded in-vivo using two-photon calcium imaging.
Description of Student Responsibilities:
The student research assistance will be responsible in conducting experiments, handling the mice, and fine-tuning deep learning neural networks for optimized computer vision applications. The assistance will aid in the process of training subjects for the experiments. The assistance must be comfortable or be willing to learn how to handle rodents as well as gone through the necessary animal and safety training mandated by UCLA. It is preferred that the assistant is familiar with machine learning methods as well as python programming to aid in the behavioral analysis.
QRClab: Open Science Practices
Faculty Sponsor: Montoya, Amanda
Department: Psychology
Contact Name: Kathleen Lamarque-Navarrete
E-mail: kathleenlama@g.ucla.edu
Room Number: LSB 5324
Phone: 3107945069
Website: http://akmontoya.com/QRClab
Description of Research Project:
We are looking for students to help with a large literature review examining sample size for specific types of statistical models, moderated mediation models. We hope to evaluate whether the samples sizes researchers are currently collecting are sufficient to be well-powered to detect the effects they're looking for. In particular, students will work in a team to pull information from publications and meet weekly with the team and discuss difficult cases. Students will gain experience with reading scientific articles, understanding statistical models, data entry in Excel, and articulating the role of sample size in statistical modeling.
Description of Student Responsibilities:
Research assistants will help with tasks to help examine how specific statistical methods are being used in psychology and other social science fields. Expansion of the research assistant’s tasks will be based on both commitment and interest. There may be opportunities to analyze data, ask your own research question, and/or assist with computer programming tasks. Because of the training involved, we prefer candidates who can commit to working in the lab for at least three quarters. You can read more about the current research projects on the lab webpage: akmontoya.com Day to day tasks will involve coding journal policy pages, working with data in Excel, literature searches, and reading/editing manuscript drafts. Students often come to the lab from a wide range of backgrounds, but the most important qualifications are an eagerness to learn, interest in quantitative psychology, and confidence in your analytical and mathematical skills.
Adaptive Learning: Teaching with Computers
Faculty Sponsor: Kellman, Philip
Department: Psychology
Contact Name: Everett Mettler
E-mail: mettler@ucla.edu
Room Number: 7574 and 2349
Phone: (310) 825-4202
Website: http://kellmanlab.psych.ucla.edu
Description of Research Project:
Computer-based learning activities offer great potential to adapt the flow of learning events to optimize progress for each individual. Can adaptive learning algorithms that dynamically sequence learning items result in improved efficiency for factual learning and pattern recognition? The current study is concerned with basic research in adaptive learning and will examine if adaptive sequencing based on accuracy, speed, and retirement criteria, produce learning outcomes superior to traditional classroom methods.
Description of Student Responsibilities:
Research assistants would help in the collection of data by grading assessments, data entry, and general office work for at least 7 hours per week and will have the opportunity to participate in all aspects of research, including literature search, study design, experimental design, and data analysis. Experience with programming is a plus, but not required. Psych 120A&B are highly recommended.
Human action perception
Faculty Sponsor: Lu, Hongjing
Department: Psychology
Contact Name: Lu, Hongjing
E-mail: hongjing@ucla.edu
Room Number: 6552 Franz Hall
Phone: (310) 206-2587
Description of Research Project:
We are interested in how the visual system represents and identifies human action in a motion sequence. It is crucial to perceive and interpret human body movements to be able to interact with other people well. This research explores the underlying information use of visual input in a series of psychophysical experiments.
Description of Student Responsibilities:
Students will be involved in conducting experiments, data collection and organization. Students also have the opportunity to aid in the design of new experiments and the development of computational modeling. Students are encouraged to be involved in the new experiments for the preparation for the Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC) at UCLA.
Prior knowledge in high-level cognition
Faculty Sponsor: Lu, Hongjing
Department: Psychology
Contact Name: Lu, Hongjing
E-mail: hongjing@ucla.edu
Room Number: 6552 Franz Hall
Phone: (310) 2062587
Description of Research Project:
We study predictive, diagnostic and analogical reasoning from a computational perspective. We are especially interested in what prior knowledge humans assume in making an inference from few examples. Our research aims to develop computational models for a range of reasoning experiments, and assess the validity of computational models by comparing their predictions with human performance in controlled experiments.
Description of Student Responsibilities:
Students will be involved in conducting experiments, data collection and organization. Students also have the opportunity to aid in the design of new experiments and the development of computational modeling. Students are encouraged to be involved in the new experiments for the preparation for the Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC) at UCLA.
Visual Object Recognition
Faculty Sponsor: Liu, Zili
Department: Psychology-Cognitive
Contact Name: Dr. Zili Liu
E-mail: zili@psych.ucla.edu
Room Number: 7619 Franz
Phone: 310-267-4683
Description of Research Project:
This National Science Foundation sponsored research investigates how the brain encodes into memory visually perceived scenes and objects (e.g., faces). Counter-intuitive predictions, with promising pilot data, will be tested.
Description of Student Responsibilities:
Responsibilities include scheduling experiments on experimentrix, conducting the experiments, and debriefing the participant after each experiment.