Adaptive Behaviour & Cognition

Prof. Dejan Draschkow

THEMES AND QUESTIONS

At the Adaptive Behaviour & Cognition (AB&C) Lab, we explore the adaptive capabilities of our cognitive system.

Our research programme focuses on understanding how cognition unfolds during naturalistic behaviour in real-world contexts. In particular, we interested in how memories of different timescales form during natural tasks and, in turn, how these memories ultimately guide a wide variety of behaviours. We want to understand how our goals, expectation, and experiences proactively and dynamically shape our actions. We are further interested in how we select and prioritise information within memory in service of adaptive behaviour.

The lines of scientific enquiry covered by the lab include attention and perception, working and long-term memory, action and motor control. Critically, we are interested in how these cognitive mechanisms interact to support adaptive behaviour in natural settings.

We collaborate closely with Sage Boettchers' Dynamic Cognition Lab.

Photo of the members of the AB&C and DCL Lab

METHODS

An important part of advancing our research has been the development and utilisation of methods necessary to measure cognitive processes during unconstrained behaviour. We use behavioural testing, including eyetracking and VR. We also utilise neuroscientific methods, such as EEG and MEG.

Our published work has covered topics such as open and reproducible research practices, Virtual Reality, analysis approaches for MEG/EEG data, online screen-based and VR-based studies, and mixed-effects/multilevel models.

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AND INVOLVEMENT

We are committed to communicating and discussing our scientific activities and ideas, and participate in many public engagement activities.

Below you can see a selection of videos that showcase some of our themes and studies.

Our team

Dejan Draschkow

Associate Professor
Levi Kumle

DPhil Candidate
Rhianna Watt

DPhil Candidate
Amelia Rock

DPhil Candidate
Diana Wei

DPhil Candidate

Using XR (Extended Reality) for Behavioral, Clinical, and Learning Sciences Requires Updates in Infrastructure and Funding.

Draschkow D. et al, (2023), Policy Insights Behav Brain Sci, 10, 317 - 323

Heading Direction Tracks Internally Directed Selective Attention in Visual Working Memory.

Thom JL. et al, (2023), J Cogn Neurosci, 35, 856 - 868

Auxiliary Scene-Context Information Provided by Anchor Objects Guides Attention and Locomotion in Natural Search Behavior.

Helbing J. et al, (2022), Psychol Sci, 33, 1463 - 1476

Search superiority: Goal-directed attentional allocation creates more reliable incidental identity and location memory than explicit encoding in naturalistic virtual environments.

Helbing J. et al, (2020), Cognition, 196

Reading scenes: how scene grammar guides attention and aids perception in real-world environments.

Võ ML-H. et al, (2019), Curr Opin Psychol, 29, 205 - 210

For anyone who missed our @BBCNews piece on stammering from yesterday here it is. It’s great to see all the research happening and I hope one day we’ll get some answers. Huge thanks to everyone we spoke to and top team of Sophie Tall & @realGHodson pic.twitter.com/RQCZFJ2oAc
— Felicity Baker (@Felicity_Baker) February 9, 2024