King-Casas Lab

Led by principal investigator Brooks King-Casas, Ph.D.,  the King-Casas Lab addresses two broad areas of inquiry: neural underpinnings of valuation and learning in social settings, and how social and economic preferences influence valuation and learning. The lab seeks insight into the neural computations underlying normative social behavior using methods of decision neuroscience, behavioral economics, and social psychology. These approaches, when jointly brought to bear on complex social phenomena, provide tractable and clear answers about how humans make decisions about, among, and for one another.

The lab is conducting a research study to understand how people with and without a range of interpersonal difficulties process different kinds of information. By looking at a person’s brain while they play games, researchers can begin to understand how poeple make decisions. The decisions that a person makes while playing games can tell us about how a person might make interpersonal decisions in real life and what brain functions are used in the process. Study participants continue to be needed.