Psychology

We know far more than what we can directly experience. We learn about the world by drawing rich, abstract inductive inferences that go beyond what we can observe, and much of these observations come from behaviors of others around us. By engaging in social learning in diverse contexts, humans learn from others, share their knowledge with others, and even accumulate a body of cultural knowledge over generations. 

My lab's research uses neuroimaging to understand the brain systems underlying decision making and executive function.  We are also engaged in the development of neuroinformatics tools to help improve the reproducibility and transparency of neuroscience, including the Openneuro.org and Neurovault.org data sharing projects and the Cognitive Atlas ontology.

Our lab uses the tools of cognitive neuroscience to understand how decision making, executive control, and learning and memory are implemented in the human brain.  We also develop neuroinformatics tools and resources to help researchers make better sense of data and to do research that is more transparent and reproducible.

Memory is central to who we are and how we behave, with knowledge about the past informing thoughts and decisions in the present. Learning and memory provide critical knowledge that guides everyday activities, from remembering to take medications or recognizing previously encountered people, places, and things, to representing our goals and navigating our worlds. The research objectives of the Stanford Memory Laboratory are to understand the psychological and neural mechanisms that build memories and enable their expression, as well as how these mechanisms change with age and disease.

How do we learn to communicate using language? I study children's language learning and how it interacts with their developing understanding of the social world. I am interested in bringing larger datasets to bear on these questions and use a wide variety of methods including eye-tracking, tablet experiments, and computational models. Recent work in my lab has focused on data-oriented approaches to development, including the creation of large datasets like Wordbank and MetaLab.

My research utilizes multimodal imaging (fMRI, dMRI, qMRI), computational modeling, and behavioral measurements to investigate human visual cortex. We seek to understand how the underlying neural mechanisms and their anatomical implementation enable rapid and efficient visual perception and recognition. Critically, we examine how the human brain and visual perception change across development to understand how the interplay between anatomical constraints and experience shapes visual cortex and ultimately behavior.