My research aims to characterize human social behavior and the underlying neural computations that support it. As social creatures, interactions with other humans command much of our daily life, and are critically related to a number of psychiatric disorders.

Our research focuses on identifying the precise mechanisms of how cortical and subcortical brain networks interact to support our social behaviour. We also have a set of studies probing the role of unconscious processing in social decision-making. On the basis of this, we are now developing what we think are the core algorithmic principles that underlie social computations, and we are using this a common framework for a integrated program of research spanning behavioural studies, 3T and 7T fMRI neuroimaging experiments, non-human primate data, and gene analysis. This approach permits a quantitative analysis and prediction of social behavior, based on its underlying neural network activity.

Recently, we’ve been testing the predictions of our model in real-world social interactions, for instance by seeing to what extent we can understand social behaviour on the internet, such as through Twitter and Facebook.