Work

I investigate the internal rationality of supposedly irrational behavior and the computational logic of emotions and beliefs, whether it be in psychopathologies (my work on autism), in our emotional experiences (see my work on aesthetic experience), or in belief systems (such as conspiracy theories). I investigate the interplay and entanglement of cognition and emotion, for example in epistemic emotions such as curiosity and aha experiences (subjective sense of insight).

In most of my research, I’m inspired by the theory of the predictive mind/brain (also known as active inference), which holds that the brain continuously and proactively anticipates and constructs our experienced world.

Psychology is a pre-paradigmatic science, and while we might have at least some guardrails on how to develop and test good ideas, there is no principled ways of how to come up with good ideas in the first place.

“No one believes a theory, except the theorist. Everyone believes an experiment —except the experimenter.” (Faller, 1981)

I apply both quantitative, experimental (psychophysics, psychophysiology, and statistical learning paradigms), and qualitative methods, in both typical and clinical populations to address these questions.

penchant for theory

decentralization lifeblood of science (Roger’s bacon, Mastroianni)

gardener for the seeds of science experiment