UChicago Psychology Labs

All of the Psychology Labs on campus and a brief description of their research. 

Attention, Perception, and EXperience Lab (Nusbaum Lab)

The Attention, Perception, & EXperience Lab, or APEX Lab for short, is directed by Dr. Howard C. Nusbaum. We aim to develop our scientific understanding of how our experiences direct and shape our attention and, ultimately, determine how we perceive and understand the world. Language is one main area of focus, but we also study the processes by which we make decisions and the role of experience and attention in such processes.

Awh/Vogel Lab

We study the interactions between visual working memory and selective attention using a combination of psychophysical and electrophysiological methods.

The Child Neurosuite (Jean Decety)

We study the development of morality, sensitivity to fairness, distributive justice, empathy, and prosocial behavior in infants and children, by combining social neuroscience, psychology, genetics and behavioral economics games.

Cognition, Attention, and Brain Lab (Rosenberg Lab)

The CAB Lab explores how we pay attention, and how insights from attention research can help improve focus. We also use functional MRI, behavioral experiments, and machine learning methods to investigate how attention fluctuates over time, changes across development, and interacts with the rest of the mind. A primary goal of our research is using functional MRI to discover what we can learn about individuals from their unique patterns of brain activity, and what this can tell us about the nature of the brain and mind.

Cognitive Development Lab (Levine Lab)

Our lab studies language and cognitive development in typically developing children and children with pre- or perinatal brain injury. We are particularly interested in how the early experiences of children relate to their developmental trajectories

Chronobiology and Neuroimmunology Lab (Prendergast Lab)

We study bidirectional interactions between biological clocks and the immune system, neural mechanisms of sickness behavior, motivational changes, and depression, chronic disease and brain function, and neuroendocrine, molecular and epigenetic mechanisms of biological timing.
 

The Development of Social Cognition Lab (Kinzler Lab)

At the Development of Social Cognition Laboratory, our research is broadly concerned with the development of social cognition. We place particular emphasis on the emergence of social group preferences and attitudes, often investigating children’s attention to language or accent as a marker of group membership.

Developmental Investigations of Behavior and Strategy Lab (Shaw Lab)

Research in the DIBS Lab is focused on children’s developing understanding of reputation. We are interested in how children track other people’s reputations and how children modify their own behavior to improve their own reputation. We have three main lines of work investigating three related topics: fairness, alliance formation, and intellectual property.

Environmental Neuroscience Lab (Berman Lab)

The Environmental Neuroscience Lab (ENL) is interested in how the physical environment affects the brain and behavior. We hope that our research will influence the designing of physical environments in ways that will optimize human mental health, physical health, and overall well-being.

Goldin-Meadow Lab

The Goldin-Meadow Laboratory is a research lab at the University of Chicago in the Department of Psychology headed by Susan Goldin-Meadow. The lab is composed of graduate students and researchers pursuing independent topics related to cognition, development, education, linguistics, and various other fields, but interrelated by the lab's main focus - the study of non-verbal communication, specifically gestures.

Human Nature and Potentials Lab (Yang Lab)

Our lab studies what human being’s social and moral nature is, and what psychological factors (e.g., cognitive, motivational, experiential) help us transcend our natural tendencies. We explore these broad questions in terms of how individuals perceive and pursue the fundamental questions in life, such as moral transcendence, happiness and meaning.

Human Performance Lab (Beilock Lab)

Work in our lab sits at the intersection of cognitive science and education. We explore the cognitive and neural substrates driving learning as well as the mechanisms by which performance breaks down in high-stress or high-pressure situations. 

Infant Learning and Development Lab (Woodward Lab)

Human social life requires understanding the intentions, perceptions and emotions that organize and motivate others’ actions. At the Infant Learning and Development Laboratory we investigate infants’ and young children’s understanding of these aspects of the social world.

Kay Lab

How does an animal perceive a sensory stimulus?  To address this question, our research focuses on the neural basis of olfactory perception and how context and experience influence it.  Experiments involve both psychophysics and electrophysiology and concentrate on the olfactory and limbic systems. 

London Lab

Why does the same experience have different effects on brain and behavior depending on how old the animal is? This is the fundamental question we attempt to answer. We study how and why young animals can learn complex behavior during a restricted period, a sensitive period, in development.

Margoliash Lab

Neuroethology investigates nervous system function by relating it to innate and learned natural behaviors. It is distinguished from much of traditional neurobiology and psychology by being fundamentally centered in evolutionary biology, and by examining behavioral specialization across the breadth of the animal kingdom.

The Memory and Perceptual Cognition Lab (Bainbridge "Brain Bridge" Lab)

We study the interaction of perception and memory in both behavior and the brain (functional MRI). Key topics include: 1) Why do we remember certain images over others (and what happens in the brain)? and 2) What are the mental representations of visual memories?

Memory Research Lab (Gallo Lab)

Our research is aimed at the scientific understanding of human memory and its relationship to other psychological processes.  Memory is a critical ingredient for mental functions, including our understanding of the personal past, our current goals and actions, and our plans for the future.  It is the foundation for our body of knowledge about the world and our selves.

The Multilingualism and Decision-Making Lab (Keysar Lab)

The Multilingualism and Decision-Making Lab is dedicated to understanding the relationship between thinking, decision making, negotiation, and communication. Predominantly, our most recent research has focused on how bilingualism affects how we think and make decisions.  

Neurophysiology of Memory and Knowledge Lab (Yu Lab)

How does the brain capture experiences, create memories and distill knowledge? We investigate these processes at the level of activity patterns in neural circuits. Our approach combines electrophysiology recording across multiple brain regions, ethologically inspired behavior tasks, genetic tools, and computational modeling.

Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab (Decety Lab)

The University of Chicago Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab is headed by Dr. Jean Decety. We study the neurobiological and psychological mechanisms underlying affective and social interpersonal processes and their expressions in behavior. 

Social Psychophysiology & Neuroendocrinology Lab(Norman Lab)

Our lab examines the reciprocal interactions between social, psychological, neural, and physiological processes using methodologies ranging from molecular biology to experimental psychology.

Visual Sciences Lab (Shevell Lab)

We investigate processes of the eye and brain that serve vision. Most of the research focuses on visual pathways that mediate color and brightness perception.