"“With our new [modeling] techniques, we’ll be able to record and diagram the [neurological] processes as they unfold," says Joachim Vandekerckhove, UCI associate professor of cognitive sciences.

Joachim Vandekerckhove, associate professor of cognitive sciences, and Ramesh Srinivasan, professor and chair of cognitive sciences, have received a $337,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop new methods of statistically modeling the relationship between brain activity and behavior. Using electroencephalogram technology, they’ll measure neurological signals on very short time scales to map the changes that occur during decision-making. “Brain performance can fluctuate in relationship to the speed of a behavioral response, but these variations are difficult to gauge systematically,” Vandekerckhove said. “With our new techniques, we’ll be able to record and diagram the processes as they unfold. This project will also allow us to conduct critical tests of a few scientific theories that make predictions about the sequence of functions as well as the contribution of different regions of the brain.”