Dr. Yael Niv

Biography

The Niv lab focuses on the neural computational processes underlying reinforcement learning and decision-making. It studies the ongoing day-to-day processes by which animals and humans learn through trial and error, explicit instructions, and predict future events to act in their environment to maximize reward and minimize punishment. The lab is particularly interested in how attention and memory processes interact with reinforcement learning to create representations that allow for efficient learning and solving of new tasks. A major emphasis is on model-based experimentation, utilizing computational models to define precise hypotheses, design experiments, and analyze results. The Niv lab also explores normative explanations of behavior, aiming to offer principled understanding of the brain mechanisms that use computational algorithms to sense optimality. A new focus of the lab is computational cognitive neuropsychiatry, utilizing computational tools developed to quantify dynamical behavioral processes for diagnosing, understanding, and treating psychiatric illnesses such as depression, OCD, schizophrenia, and addiction. This work is conducted under the auspices of the new Rutgers-Princeton Center for Computational Cognitive Neuropsychiatry.

Research Interests