[visionlist] Postdoctoral position in Decision Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin

[Redmond O'Connell]

Dear all,

Applications are invited for a 3-year Research Fellow position in the O'Connell lab at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin. Full details can be found here: https://oconnell-lab.com/home/opportunities/.

The successful candidate will join Professor Redmond O’Connell's team as they embark on an exciting research program funded by the European Research Council (Consolidator Grant, 2021-2026) which aims to develop and apply a neurally-informed behavioural modelling framework for examining individual and group difference in perceptual decision making. Pinpointing the mechanistic origins of inter-individual differences in decision making is a central goal of modern psychology and a considerable challenge because even elementary perceptual choices rely on a multitude of sensory, cognitive, motivational and motoric processes. For this reason, researchers have relied heavily on a set of mathematical ‘sequential sampling’ models that are designed to parse the latent psychological processes driving variations in choice behaviour. Although these models have been fruitfully employed in thousands of theoretical and neurophysiological investigations, they suffer from several limitations that particularly undermine their utility in inter-individual or -group comparisons including: A) parameter values are estimated on a relative, within-subject scale; B) the models come in many forms that can make identical behavioural predictions despite invoking fundamentally different mechanisms (‘model mimicry’); and C) they deal in abstract psychological constructs that are themselves dependent on multiple neural processes. The objective of this proposal is to address each of these issues by developing and applying a novel decision modelling framework in which models are constructed and evaluated based on their ability to explain key observable aspects of the neural implementation of the human decision process in addition to its behavioural output. This work will build on recent advances in non-invasive electrophysiology (EEG) which enable direct observation, measurement and manipulation of the decision process as it unfolds in the human brain. Across a series of empirical investigations that will use adult aging as a testbed for studying inter-individual and -group differences, this research will yield new methods for directly comparing model parameter values across subjects, resolve prominent theoretical debates regarding decision making algorithms (e.g. how they are adapted to take account of factors like prior knowledge and time pressure) and gain important new insights into their susceptibility to cognitive aging.


The position is funded for 3 years with the possibility of further extension. The ideal start date is 1st February 2021 but there is flexibility depending on the successful candidate’s circumstances. The candidate will join a team of PhD students and postdoctoral fellows and will participate in regular lab meetings, journal club discussions and have the opportunity to attend international conferences annually. The Application Deadline is 31st December 2020.


All the best


Redmond



 ____________________________

Redmond G. O'Connell, PhD


Professor in Decision Neuroscience

Director of Research, School of Psychology

Principal Investigator, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience

Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin
Dublin 2, Ireland.

+353 1 896 4543<tel:%2B353%201%20896%203909>

http://oconnell-lab.com


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