Author: mclabadmin@psych.ubc.ca
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Participatory Sense-making (PSM) Research Programs
One of our lab’s new research directions is theoretically framed by the notion of Participatory Sensemaking (PSM) as conceived by Hanne De Jaegher and Ezequiel Di Paolo. Traditionally, the investigation of social cognition has primarily focused on processes instantiated wholly within the individual mind/brain. In contrast, PSM focuses on emergence of social cognition out of…
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Translational Research Programs
Our collaborative translational research program aims to use cognitive neuroscience to bridge findings between rodent research and research with patient populations. Our goal is to build on rodent research outlining neural circuitry and neuropharmacology to identify distinct patterns of motivationally and affectively guided brain activation and behaviour that characterize specific aspects of mood disorders/addiction —…
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The cognitive effort of decision-making for reward
We often must make decisions about how much effort to deploy to obtain rewards. Sometimes, the cognitive effort of a task such as remembering a long string of numbers or words is perceived to be worth this effort for a reward; other times, it is not. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash This project is…
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Avoidance and reward seeking in mood disorders
Depression and anxiety are two common mood disorders that have been on the rise worldwide. Anxiety and depression can often occur together. It has been found that when anxiety is present alongside depression, the outcomes of treatment tend to be worse, suggesting that it may be a distinct and more severe subtype of depression. The…
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Functional cognitive disorder: Understanding neurocognitive processes
Concussions are a major cause of injury and disability in Canada. Following concussion, some people develop Functional Cognitive Disorder (FCD), which can make it harder to recover. FCD is a neuropsychiatric consequence of concussion that is characterized by subjective cognitive problems not explained by objective cognitive deficits or brain injury. For example, people often feel…
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The food we eat, the stories we tell: An embodied approach to understanding the role of affective history in sensemaking
Guided by the framework of participatory sense-making (PSM), which has traditionally focused on dynamic interactions in real-time, this project explores how meaning arising from personal interactions that are rich with emotional and cultural importance can be shared with others through everyday activities. In line with our own and others’ work on how emotional learning in…
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Participatory sensemaking in dance improvisation
Using participatory sense-making as a guiding framework, this project situates itself within a shift in the study of social cognition away from individuals’ mental processes and toward interactional processes. It asks, what are some of the dynamic interactive processes by which co-constructed social meaning emerges? And in what way do these dynamics reflect subjective experience?…
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About
The Motivated Cognition Lab is directed by Dr. Rebecca Todd. Our research interests lie at the interface between emotion and cognition. Specifically, we investigate neurocognitive processes that underlie the influence of emotion on what we attend to, learn, and later remember. Our questions focus on how people perceive some aspects of the world as more…
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Sense and timing: Localizing objects during emotional distraction.
A simple writer summary of: Kryklywy, J.H., Dudarev, V. & Todd, R.M. (2021). Sense and timing: Localizing objects during emotional distraction. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. Written by the first author’s mother Fire people, paid-to-play games people, and many others have to be good at finding things when they are in…
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Can nurses train surgical skills through tablet games?
A simple-writer summary of: Kryklywy, J.H., Roach, V.A. & Todd, M.R. (2021) Assessing the efficacy of tablet-based simulations for learning surgery-like instrumentation. PLOS-ONE, 16(1): e0245330. By the first Author’s mother This paper questioned if computers were as good to learn from as books or real life. The training was to learn things used by nurses…