Yuxue (Cher) Yang

Research

I joined Cognition and Cortical Dynamics Laboratory(CCDL) at the University of Washington Seattle in September 2018, primarily working with Dr. Andrea Stocco. My main research interests include cognitive computational modeling, human cognition, specifically, I would like to understand the nature of motivation in human cognition, and how does motivation affect people's behavior. The goal of my research is to uncover the distinct functional connectivity pattern of a highly motivated brain. I plan to use both bottom-up data-driven methods and top-down cognitive modeling approaches to distinguish not only good performers vs. bad performers(“traits” analysis) but also to identify the highly motivated vs. lowly motivated state within a single individual(“state” analysis).