Ali Mahmoodi

I studied electrical engineering followed by an MSc in control engineering at university of Tehran, Iran. During my master project I studied computational modeling of Humans’ social decision-making. In 2019, I obtained my PhD at Bernstein Centre Freiburg. For my PhD, I investigated neural basis of change of mind in social decision-making.
I am interested in the neural mechanism underlying humans’ change of mind. In particular, using psychophysics, computational modeling, and functional neuroimaging, I study the process in which humans change their opinion after observing others’ opinions. Our confidence about our own judgments affects the extent to which we change our mind after observing others’ conflicting views. I am also interested in neural basis of how confidence mediates change of mind. 

Another key factor in social decision-making is our ability to learn others’ expertise. Using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), I investigate how we learn about others’ expertise across different domains and how we compare different individuals when it comes to taking their advice.