“You do not know anything until you know why you know it”.
Ongoing projects
1) Gain, Loss and decision making; 2) Interaction of cognition and threat/reward
3) Attentional facilitation and inhibition; 4) Color processing and its reward property
Acquired emotion and motivation influence decision making (J. William and Katherine Asher Endowed Research Fund)
Video game playing shapes behavioral and cortical representations (Professional Development Fund)
Application of Bayesian Multilevel Model for fMRI Data Analysis
K.Hu. (PI), "Emotion-Cognition interaction in decision making," Sponsored by Howells Fund, through UALR, $350,000. (Aug 15, 2023 - July 30, 2024).
2024 UALR, Summer Research and Creative Activities Fellowship winner, $4,000
2024 Marie Wilson Howells Fund, Litter Rock, AR, $8, 301
2024 UALR Signature Experience grants, $3, 000
R01 Grant , NIMH, 5 years, PI - 5 years at ~$370,000/year, 07/01/2025 to 06/30/2030 (under revision, to be resubmitted)
Basic and applied perspectives
The aim of my laboratory is to pursue fundamental questions in emotion, motivation, cognition and perception: 1) dissect the mechanisms of the interaction and integration of positive and negative processes; and 2) investigate the brain mechanism of perceptual discrimination. I am also very interested in studying individual differences, including the effect of aging, gender, and personality difference on emotion and cognition.
Importantly, I hope that all my studies have clinical implications. For instance, can my cognition-emotion research findings provide models for investigating failures of cognitive control in clinical syndromes (e.g., affective disorders, addiction, obesity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder-ADHD)? Are perception and attention trainable? If so, how can one train perception and attention (e.g., video game playing, meditation)? These studies may be used to increase the effectiveness of currently available training to ameliorate cognitive deficits due to age or diseases (e.g. autism, schizophrenia).