Humans change their own behavior when training AI

A new cross-disciplinary study by Washington University in St. Louis researchers has uncovered an unexpected psychological phenomenon at the intersection of human behavior and artificial intelligence (AI): When told they were training AI to play a bargaining game, participants actively adjusted their own behavior to appear more fair and just, an impulse with potentially important […]

Unlocking the secrets of the human brain

Researchers in The Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences are using cutting-edge techniques to help us weather the challenges of everyday life. Human behaviors and emotions can be as complex as any force of nature. From our biggest life choices to the subtle thoughts we barely notice, our minds are always at work.  Inspired by […]

Mental maps offer peek inside everyday decision-making

A team of psychological and brain sciences researchers has come up with a new way to study the brain’s ability to navigate life — no brain scans required. Researchers in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences have developed a question-and-answer experiment to study how people build cognitive maps, mental models of the world that […]

Braver awarded MURI grant for attention control strategies research

A multi-institutional research project led by Todd Braver, PhD, a professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) award from the U.S. Department of Defense to study attention control and strategies to improve it. The project — “A computational cognitive neuroscience framework […]

Kool named a ‘Rising Star’ by psychological association

Wouter Kool, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was named a “Rising Star” by the Association for Psychological Science (APS), the leading international organization dedicated to advancing scientific psychology across disciplinary and geographic borders. Kool’s research explores the interaction between cognitive control, decision-making and reinforcement learning. […]