Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100903
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$451,885.00
Summary
Charitable triad: How donors, beneficiaries, & fundraisers influence giving. This project aims to test a new model of charitable giving to examine how donors, beneficiaries, and fundraisers together influence donor decisions. Until now, no holistic model has existed to explain donor behaviour: past research has focused on donors but neglected beneficiaries and fundraisers. This project is expected to provide evidence for a new bedrock theory of philanthropy. Findings can also inform practitioner ....Charitable triad: How donors, beneficiaries, & fundraisers influence giving. This project aims to test a new model of charitable giving to examine how donors, beneficiaries, and fundraisers together influence donor decisions. Until now, no holistic model has existed to explain donor behaviour: past research has focused on donors but neglected beneficiaries and fundraisers. This project is expected to provide evidence for a new bedrock theory of philanthropy. Findings can also inform practitioner toolkits, offering advice to nonprofits on how to raise money effectively by understanding how the particular organisation and its beneficiaries can influence donor decisions. By helping ensure the survival of charities, this research will contribute to the delivery of essential social services that benefit many Australians.Read moreRead less
Spatiotemporal signatures of learning in brain reward systems. Learning to strengthen behaviours that secure resources and warrant survival is one of the primary functions of the brain. This Project seeks to establish the rules that govern the integration of learning in brain reward systems by studying how neuronal circuits change their molecular signatures as animals assimilate new knowledge. These studies will combine novel experimental designs to investigate learning with multidisciplinary me ....Spatiotemporal signatures of learning in brain reward systems. Learning to strengthen behaviours that secure resources and warrant survival is one of the primary functions of the brain. This Project seeks to establish the rules that govern the integration of learning in brain reward systems by studying how neuronal circuits change their molecular signatures as animals assimilate new knowledge. These studies will combine novel experimental designs to investigate learning with multidisciplinary methods for mapping, recording and functionalising teaching signals in behaving mice. The outcomes will create a significant shift in our understanding of the neural bases that underlie reward learning, and will critically expand the field by providing a new model of learning integration in brain systems.Read moreRead less
Mechanisms of memory integration in brain systems. Learning from our interactions with the environment is one of the brain’s most important functions, yet how and where this process takes place at the neural network level has proven difficult to establish. This Project seeks to investigate how major neuromodulatory signals in the brain coordinate the encoding of reward-based learning in large ensembles of neurons. These studies will combine novel behavioural paradigms with the most recent neuros ....Mechanisms of memory integration in brain systems. Learning from our interactions with the environment is one of the brain’s most important functions, yet how and where this process takes place at the neural network level has proven difficult to establish. This Project seeks to investigate how major neuromodulatory signals in the brain coordinate the encoding of reward-based learning in large ensembles of neurons. These studies will combine novel behavioural paradigms with the most recent neuroscience techniques for functional mapping and manipulation of specific neural circuits in behaving mice. The outcomes of this research will lead to a significant shift in our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the integration of learning in brain systems and its implications for behaviour.Read moreRead less
How satiation control reward value and cue-induced appetitive behaviours. This proposal aims to identify mechanisms that control environment-driven food-seeking behaviours. It seeks to do so by using modern virally-mediated and basic behavioural as well as histological techniques in a transgenic rat to characterise novel hindbrain circuits that control these feeding behaviours. This is significant as environment-driven overeating is problematic yet underlying mechanisms are unclear. This project ....How satiation control reward value and cue-induced appetitive behaviours. This proposal aims to identify mechanisms that control environment-driven food-seeking behaviours. It seeks to do so by using modern virally-mediated and basic behavioural as well as histological techniques in a transgenic rat to characterise novel hindbrain circuits that control these feeding behaviours. This is significant as environment-driven overeating is problematic yet underlying mechanisms are unclear. This project expects to provide new knowledge on when, where and how hindbrain neurons control environment-driven food-seeking behaviours. This should provide benefits to the advancement of knowledge on the neural mechanisms of food-seeking and provide a basic science platform for future research on the study of feeding behaviours.
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Hippocampal regulation of goal-directed decision-making. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that is central to learning and memory yet little is known about its role in decision-making. It is the aim of this application to provide the first detailed, causal evidence of hippocampal regulation of decision-making. This is significant because many mental health disorders and dementias that involve decision-making deficits are characterised by hippocampal dysfunction, but any direct link between ....Hippocampal regulation of goal-directed decision-making. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that is central to learning and memory yet little is known about its role in decision-making. It is the aim of this application to provide the first detailed, causal evidence of hippocampal regulation of decision-making. This is significant because many mental health disorders and dementias that involve decision-making deficits are characterised by hippocampal dysfunction, but any direct link between these factors is unknown. The outcomes of the current grant will provide the first evidence of that link, thus providing deeper understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms of these disorders, which could eventuate in the creation of more beneficial treatments. Read moreRead less
Everyday autism: bridging the gap between lab and life. Recent research demonstrates that autistic people, their families and professionals often feel that there remains a sharp divide between autism science and key aspects of everyday autistic life, despite significant public investment in that science. This proposed research investigates reasons for this divide and proposes ways in which it might be overcome. Expected outcomes include greater opportunities for autistic people to play active ro ....Everyday autism: bridging the gap between lab and life. Recent research demonstrates that autistic people, their families and professionals often feel that there remains a sharp divide between autism science and key aspects of everyday autistic life, despite significant public investment in that science. This proposed research investigates reasons for this divide and proposes ways in which it might be overcome. Expected outcomes include greater opportunities for autistic people to play active roles in the research process and more scientific experimentation that moves out of the laboratory and into more true-to-life settings. Bridging the gap between lab and life will result in better theory-building on autism, better translation of scientific discoveries and more robust policy recommendations.Read moreRead less
Fake News and Post-Truth Impacts: Responses to Conflictive Uncertainty. Attributions of fake news and post-truth are symptoms of uncertainty arising from conflicting information. Little is known about human responses to conflictive uncertainty other than that people find it aversive. This project aims to identify the determinants of human attitudes towards conflictive uncertainty. The aims will be achieved via the development of measures of attitudes toward conflictive uncertainty, and studies i ....Fake News and Post-Truth Impacts: Responses to Conflictive Uncertainty. Attributions of fake news and post-truth are symptoms of uncertainty arising from conflicting information. Little is known about human responses to conflictive uncertainty other than that people find it aversive. This project aims to identify the determinants of human attitudes towards conflictive uncertainty. The aims will be achieved via the development of measures of attitudes toward conflictive uncertainty, and studies identifying the major influences thereof. Expected outcomes include advances in knowledge of how conflictive uncertainty attitudes relate to risk orientations, personality, and situational factors. Anticipated benefits include improved strategies for decision makers and communicators faced with conflictive uncertainty.Read moreRead less
Emotions and Employee Turnover: New Methods for Complex Dynamic Systems. This project aims to vastly improve the data-analytic capabilities of social and health researchers, while increasing knowledge about emotion dynamics and their link to employee turnover. By drawing on and advancing methods from ecology and applied physics, this project plans to investigate the role that individual emotions play in employee turnover with new quantitative methods for characterising and testing causality in c ....Emotions and Employee Turnover: New Methods for Complex Dynamic Systems. This project aims to vastly improve the data-analytic capabilities of social and health researchers, while increasing knowledge about emotion dynamics and their link to employee turnover. By drawing on and advancing methods from ecology and applied physics, this project plans to investigate the role that individual emotions play in employee turnover with new quantitative methods for characterising and testing causality in complex dynamic systems. The expected outcomes include an improved capacity for researchers, managers, and policy makers to understand complex organisational, economic, and health systems. This will provide immediate societal benefits by informing the development and deployment of targeted interventions in such systems.Read moreRead less
Towards an integrated model of reasoning and reasoning development. This project aims to identify the core cognitive processes that underlie different forms of reasoning and how they develop. The project intends to use a signal detection framework to derive detailed computational models of reasoning which can then be tested through Bayesian computational modelling as well as the first systematic investigation of developmental change in reasoning processes. Expected outcomes include a more princi ....Towards an integrated model of reasoning and reasoning development. This project aims to identify the core cognitive processes that underlie different forms of reasoning and how they develop. The project intends to use a signal detection framework to derive detailed computational models of reasoning which can then be tested through Bayesian computational modelling as well as the first systematic investigation of developmental change in reasoning processes. Expected outcomes include a more principled and comprehensive computational model of reasoning in both adults and children. The project should provide significant benefits by helping to resolve long-standing debates about how humans reason complex arguments relevant to everyday lives and guide development of more effective methods for teaching reasoning.Read moreRead less
A paradigm shift in understanding cognitive flexibility. Aims: The project aims to model cognitive flexibility as a dynamic process within people that varies across situations and occasions using advanced data analytics.
Significance: The project intends to generate new knowledge in intelligence theory using recent advances that overcome known theory-testing limitations that have historically been ignored.
Expected Outcomes: An authentic account of cognitive flexibility and a new paradigm for ....A paradigm shift in understanding cognitive flexibility. Aims: The project aims to model cognitive flexibility as a dynamic process within people that varies across situations and occasions using advanced data analytics.
Significance: The project intends to generate new knowledge in intelligence theory using recent advances that overcome known theory-testing limitations that have historically been ignored.
Expected Outcomes: An authentic account of cognitive flexibility and a new paradigm for developing and testing models of dynamic change within people.
Benefits: Dynamic models are needed to understand authentic problem-solving and cognitive function. The advances benefit research and applied areas where dynamic processes are important, including education, work, and cognitive aging.Read moreRead less