Research
Research Aims
I study how people make decisions in various contexts. Specifically, I am interested in how people process different types of (potentially faulty) information. I have investigated judgment and decision making in different domains, including health choices, psychology and law, and economics. In many decision contexts, individual differences relate to distinct decision making strategies. I consider individual differences in many of my research initiatives.
In addition to my research on decision making, an important focus of my research is on making advanced statistical and methodological tools accessible to other researchers. Many statistical and mathematical methods, such as translating verbal hypotheses into mathematical models, can be difficult to understand or apply to one’s own work. My efforts to bridge the gap between these methods and the needs of researchers include hosting workshops, writing tutorial papers, and helping to teach these methods in summer schools.
Some Current Projects
If you would like to know more about any of my ongoing research projects, please reach out and I can provide more information.
- Bayesian Persuasion — We consider various (rational and non-rational) decision strategies that a person might employ under persuasion contexts.
- Type M and S Errors in Developmental Psychology — We evaluate the prevalence of Type M and S errors in a field that faces challenges to obtain large samples.
- Courts Gatekeeping Evidence — Across three studies, we evaluate lawyers’ and judges’ abilities to recognize the quality of psychological assessment evidence. We also obtained survey data from attorneys, judges, and forensic mental health practitioners on their experiences in practice with admissibility challenges to psychological assessment evidence.
- Tutorial in Order-Constrained Inference for Psychology-Law — This tutorial geared towards researchers in the field of psychology and law demonstrates how to translate verbal hypotheses into mathematical models.
Methods & Tools
I use R (glmer, brms, caret), Python (Pandas, NumPy, SciPy), and Matlab for data analysis. I design experiments using jsPsych, which is a JavaScript framework that enables the creation of interactive studies directly in a web browser. I use open science practices through preregistration, sharing materials and stimuli, and providing deidentified data.
I help maintain and further develop the software QTEST, which can be found here.