Affective and Deliberative Processes in Risky Decision Making and Risk Taking

Investigations of the components involved in metacognitive monitoring and control

Interactions of declarative and procedural memory systems during learning and performance

Issues of willpower & emotion regulation

Academic learning and studying. Metacognition and how it relates to one's learning.

Self-regulation of behavior change in dyads

I am interested in how early and adult experiences shape fundamental behavior in mammals and how the neural systems that regulate such behavior also change. I am also interested in the transmission of such changes in brain and behavior from generation to generation and in the evolutionary reasons for such adaptations to environment and experience. To investigate these areas subjects, we conduct behavioral tests across generations of rodents, and examine the responses and function of the brain areas that control such behaviors as reproduction, olfaction and maternal care.

Lab site

Our sensory systems translate physical stimuli into subjectively salient information. The salience of sensory stimuli is influenced by evolution/natural selection, development, physiological states, social context etc. I am interested in finding out how these factors individually and collectively influence auditory coding and behavioral salience of certain sounds. We use songbirds as our model system for studying these issues because they rely on learned songs to communicate