Research in the lab combines behavioral and brain imaging approaches with an emphasis on reasonably naturalistic stimuli and contexts (e.g., movies, stories, virtual reality and natural scenes) to gain access to how individuals think and feel about friends and fictional characters as well the many temptations (e.g., food, e-cigarettes) that surround them.
Interpersonal Social Neuroscience
Research in the lab focuses on the cognitive and neural representation of the personality and mental states of interpersonal relations, be they real friends, fictional characters or the various forms of parasocial relationships. This work is aimed at understanding how our knowledge of other people (their likes and dislikes, their personalities, their quirks and habits) is organized into a coherent impression and, in turn, how this impression is encoded in the brain. Using a combination of functional neuroimaging, machine learning techniques and popular media (e.g., films, television), we are working towards developing methods to gain access to how individuals think and feel about the people (real, fictional or virtual) around them.
Self Regulation Failure
Another line of research in the lab involves understanding the role of motivation, self-control and desire in precipitating self-regulation failures. Using a combination of eye-tracking, functional neuroimaging and measures of structural and functional brain connectivity, this work examines how individual differences in the ability to regulate desire for appetitive stimuli (food, cigarettes, alcohol) can be used to predict real-world self control failures.