The Translational Lab focuses on when and why decision-making goes awry in depression and anxiety disorders and on developing potent and scalable interventions to improve it. 

We leverage careful experimental design, reinforcement learning and sequential sampling computational models, and intervention analogues (and soon full self-guided interventions) toward these ends. Some topics of particular interest:

Training A Computational Lens on Rumination and Worry

Why do we ruminate? Why do we worry? What is shared and what is distinct between these thinking patterns in terms of their constituent computations? Once these thinking patterns become entrenched, how do they influence our behavior? [key papers]

Developing Clinical Principles and Translating them into Powerful Treatments

There is a rich history of translating behavioral science into effective and widely disseminated psychotherapies. How can we translate the recent remarkable advances in the decision sciences into clinical principles to develop potent, precise, scalable interventions? [key papers]

Understanding the Contexts in which Decision-making Goes Awry

Assessing information processing among someone prone to depression or anxiety is not like running a background diagnostic on your laptop. The individual's state, and the context in which they are embedded, fundamentally alters how they process information. We are interested in questions such as: How does information processing change when people experience the emotions that are characteristic of these mental health problems? How does it change after distressing life events? [key papers]

The Translational Lab, directed by Pete Hitchcock, is located in the Psychology Department at Emory University. We are looking for up to two graduate students in the next cycle (Prospective Graduate Student FAQ). Please see Join the lab for information about open positions.