Computational Cognition Lab
Department of Psychology
Department of Cognitive & Brain Sciences
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
How do we process information from the environment, learn from it, and use it to make decisions?
Our lab studies the diverse algorithms humans use to process information, learn and make decisions. We are interested in how differences in these algorithms shape people's perceptions, beliefs, goals, thoughts, decisions, emotions, and moods. We combine computational modeling with in-lab, online, and smartphone-based behavioral experiments, physiological monitoring, and brain imaging.
How we learn and make decisions
We study how and what information we learn, how our learning is shaped by the structure and diversity of our environment, what goals we tend to pursue, how and why our judgments may be biased, how we form decisions, and how a decision process may determine our free thoughts.
Image: In a converging environment, it is more efficient to plan using forward prediction (successor representation), whereas in a diverging environment it is more efficient to use backward prediction (predecessor representation; article).
How emotions and moods guide the way we learn and make decisions
We study what learning and planning computations are performed for us by our emotions and moods, how these computations may give rise to psychopathologies involving emotional instability (e.g., bipolar disorder) or anxiety, in both adults and adolescents, and how these psychopathologies may be treated.
Image: Three classes of learning and planning computations are mediated by three classes of emotions and moods (article).