The Brain Institute
Uri Maoz- maoz@chapman.edu
Aaron Schurger- schurger@chapman.edu
Amir Raz- raz@chapman.edu
Website: https://braininstitute.us/
College: Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences
Department: Psychology
Overview of scholarly research/creative activity: The Brain Institute comprises a network of interdisciplinary researchers and specialists spanning the fields of psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, neurology, anesthesiology, neurobiology, behavioral economics, computation and information processing in the brain, engineering, physics, anthropology, and cognitive science.
Specific projects working on: A partial list of ongoing projects at the Brain Institute includes:
* Virtual Reality Driving Simulator for Ethical and Moral Dilemmas
* Brain Stimulation and Neural Activity Patterns: A TMS-EEG-Pupillometry Study
* Investigation of Intention and Agency Using TMS
* Free Will Survey
* Investigating the Psycho-Physiological Effects of Flotation
* Neural Markers of Deliberate and Random Decisions
* EEG Bio/Neurofeedback
* Covert/Causal Import of Attention
* Pupillary Response and Brain Activity During Decision Making—Eye Decide
* Exploring Cognitive Aspects of Body Ownership
* Temporal Binding and Visual Masking
* Clever Hans—the Pupil as a Gateway to the Unconscious
* Decoding Intentions: an EEG Study
* Social Cognition and Visual Perception in Autism
* Real-time Intention Decoding
Number of students looking to work with: 5 or more
Time commitment for students: 8h a week including a weekly lab meeting
When students are needed: Fall 2020, Interterm 2021, Spring 2021, Summer 2021
Requirements for students who work with you: Be willing to invest time and energy in learning the skills to carry out behavioral and neuroscientific experiments, be willing to commit to joining us for 2 years.
What would students be expected to do: literature search, summary, and presentation; design, test, and lab experiments; prepare surveys; participate in lab meetings.
Additional Information: Undergraduate students at the Brain Institute are mentored by faculty and co-mentored by graduate students and postdocs, which provides them with more personal time with more experienced researchers.