Writing Samples

How much do the nervous systems of insects, octopi, and humans have in common? How can the answer inform ethical debates? 

How far do people tend to think into the future? How does this influence the goals they select and pursue? How does this relate to moment-to-moment self-control? This paper examines how time perspective -- the attitude that people have toward past, present, and future events -- influences behavior in the present moment.

Bayesian inference refers to the updating probabilities based on experience. Could this be fundamental in explaining how young human brains build models of the world based on experience? This is a paper I wrote for a dynamic systems/developmental psychology course in graduate school. I was also working through a book on Bayesian analysis at the time, Statistical rethinking: A Bayesian course with examples in R and Stan by Richard McElreath. Many of the examples I give were performed using code from this book.

Could organic matter be used to control a robotic body? Yes, and it's already being done. Multielectrode array technology might change the way we study consciousness. This is a paper I wrote in my first year of graduate school as an assignment for the Advanced Behavioral Neuroscience course.

​The Stroop task has often been used as a measure of inhibitory control. Because of this, it has been though that Stroop scores should be able to predict outcomes associated with poor inhibitory control, such as alcohol related problems. The goal of this meta-analysis is to examine this claim and determine the relationship between Stroop scores and alcohol use. In addition, the classic Stroop is compared to the alcohol Stroop – a modified version of the Stroop that includes alcohol-related terms and is thought to assess attentional biases for alcohol.

Have you ever been struggling with a difficult problem or puzzle, and then you suddenly realize the solution? Psychologists refer to this "aha!" moment as an insight experience. However, the nature of insight experiences makes them difficult to observe. How might psychologists measure these?