Learning and Memory Laboratory

Goals

Object Value Learning and Memory

Recent evidence shows that different structures are involved in different time-scales of value learning and memory. We are focusing on cortico-striatal mechanisms of value learning and memory using fMRI and EEG in humans and single unit recording in macaque monkeys to reveal the neural mechanism of value learning and memory [1,2].

Dimensions of object salience

Previous experience with objects can change their intrinsic visual salience. These experiences include dimensions such as reward, risk, aversiveness and novelty (3]. We aim to find the common and dissociable neural mechanisms underlying the above mentioned dimensions in comparison to the reward dimension [4].

Model of decision making

Decision making has many manifestations. We are interested in the decisions that are guided by past reward memory [5]. In particular, we are interested in simultaneous decisions about objects with respect to their values and how they can be modelled with simple drift diffusion processes with various degrees of shared noise [6].

Tools for neural analysis

We are interested in developing better methods for neuroscience data analysis and visualization. Previously a deconvolution technique for parsing components of neural activity to closely spaced events was developed []. Currently, we are working on methods with applications in neural electrophysiology, EEG and fMRI [8].