Introducing the Prediction and Decision-Making Lab: Our CNH April Feature Story

The Prediction and Decision-Making Lab within The Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences is run by Dr Daniel Feuerriegel. Current PhD, honours, and placement students within the lab include Violet Chae, Lauren Fong, Vinay Mepani, Jasmin Stariolo, Zoe Zou, Amber Jepsen, Bianca Mauice, Sienna Qu, Aiden Taghinia and Hoang Nguyen. Read all about their research below.

Can you describe your research interests?

"Our lab uses a combination of neuroimaging, psychophysics, machine learning, and computational modelling techniques to investigate how decisions and visual percepts are formed in the human brain. The lab studies a wide range of decision types, including perceptual (Aiden, Amber, Zoe, Vinay), personal preference-based (Lauren), dietary (Violet), metacognitive (Vinay), social (Jasmin), and recognition memory judgments (Bianca, Sienna). We also study how structural and functional properties of our brains are shaped by the spatiotemporal dynamics of our everyday sensory environments, and how these properties can be studied using perceptual illusions (Aiden, Amber, Zoe)."

What inspired you to pursue this research topic?

Jasmin: "My personal interest into understanding why people behave the way they do and how that affects them emotionally."

Violet: "I love food!"

Bianca: "I was fascinated that people could falsely recognise non-presented words sometimes at rates exceeding true recognition, and EEG allows us to examine these memory errors in real time!"

Zoe: "Visual illusions (and illusions in other sensory/perceptual systems) are fun!"

Lauren: "Being annoyed that philosophers and neuroscientists could not agree on matters of volition and agency."

Amber: "I find it fascinating how the brain constructs our perception of reality, and how these representations can be fallible."

Sienna: "I was interested in how we can measure what’s happening in the brain, especially for recognising things that never happened."

Aiden: "I am fascinated by the way that the cortex learns a model of the world at many levels of abstraction, and how they come together to form a coherent conscious experience."

What do you like most about your work?

Daniel: "The chance to work with talented and insightful people and experts from both inside and outside of the Hub, and to learn from them during research projects."

Violet: "Learning EEG techniques from experts who are passionate about conducting research rigorously."

Jasmin: "Using interdisciplinary approaches connecting knowledge from different fields."

Bianca: "Being able to learn from and work alongside leading researchers in EEG and false memory is one of the most rewarding aspects!"

Lauren: "Testing philosophical ideas and theories of volition and agency through a decision-making lens using neuroimaging and behavioural methods and working with experts from various fields."

Zoe: "I find the research paradigms to investigate perceptual illusions very inspiring, always a mind-blowing experience to learn creative use of existing methods and analyses! And being able to directly communicate with and learn from some of the leading experts in the field has been a privilege."

Amber: "I love being able to learn from such experienced and successful individuals, who are really great role models for demonstrating what is possible in research."

Sienna: "Exploring theories of how the brain works and working with EEG techniques."

Do you have any exciting projects or news upcoming?

Lauren and Violet: "We will submitting our PhD theses very soon, and have had fun discussing our work through interviews and podcasts."

Zoe:  "We will be using the cutting-edge OPM-MEG for my first PhD project!"