Research groups
Colleges
Tsvetomira Dumbalska
BA (Hons), MSc, DPhil
Postdoctoral Researcher
- Human Information Processing (Summerfield Lab)
Research Summary
My research focuses on human understanding. How can we characterize, measure and promote it? I am building new assessment tools that quantify the understanding of concepts, theories and problems. These assessments are fun, but complex games (e.g. this escape room inspired maze) allowing for prolonged user engagement. Using these tools, I plan to chart how understanding emerges and develops over time.
My background is an interdisciplinary blend of experimental psychology and economics. During my DPhil, I investigated how irrelevant information present in the context of a decision affects human choices across domains. I combined psychophysical experiments with computational modeling to chart the behavioral signatures of context dependence and arbitrate between different theoretical accounts of the mechanisms underlying context-dependent decision making.
Teaching & Supervision
Recent publications
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A community-sourced glossary of open scholarship terms.
Journal article
Parsons S. et al, (2022), Nat Hum Behav
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Orthogonal representations for robust context-dependent task performance in brains and neural networks.
Journal article
Flesch T. et al, (2022), Neuron
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A map of decoy influence in human multialternative choice.
Journal article
Dumbalska T. et al, (2020), Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 117, 25169 - 25178
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Green nudges: Applying behavioural economics to the fight against climate change
Journal article
Zaneva M. and Dumbalska T., (2020), PsyPAG the Quarterly, 27 - 31
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How does value distract?
Journal article
Summerfield C. and Dumbalska T., (2020), Nat Hum Behav, 4