How to apply?

Apply to join the lab via the UCSD real portal (find posting under computational cognition lab)

Two tracks

Compared to some psychology labs, our research is rather technical, involving more computer programming, advanced data analysis, and computational/mathematical models than a typical lab. We are excited to teach you these things, but learning them does require an investment of time and effort that not everyone might find worthwhile. Consequently, we offer two tracks for undergraduate research assistants: the behavioral track, and the computational track.

Behavioral track

Required commitment: 2 quarters.

Who this is for: The behavioral track is right for you if you are not sure if you want to go into research/technology professionally. Perhaps you just want first hand experience to learn what behavioral research is all about, and are not willing to make a long-term commitment.

What you will do: You will participate in weekly lab meetings or journal clubs and you will be involved in ongoing behavioral research in the lab. This will likely involve running subjects, designing stimuli, and learning to do basic data analysis and visualization.

Computational track

Required commitment: 1 year or more

Who this is for: The computational track is right for you if you want to pursue a career in research (via a PhD) or technology. You will gain valuable technical training, but it will also require a greater commitment, as well as more motivation and effort on your part.

What you will do: You will participate in weekly lab meetings or journal clubs. You will learn to program online experiments, carry out data anlysis in R, to design computational models of human cognition/behavior, or to make inferences from large naturalistic data sets. In your second year, you will get your own research project.