**We will hold a live Q&A session at 2:30-3:30 on the 7th of June (Tuesday). Please come and visit us if you have queries. The zoom link (to be announced)**
**Research Summary**
Factor analysis is widely applied to questionnaire data and complex test data, but less often to behavioural measures from human experimental testing. This project aims to identify the latent factors that underlie the ability to act autonomously, and independently of immediate environmental stimulation. Students will use a simple online video task to test how participants regulate their actions in different environments. The environments are designed to encourage participants to detach from habits, from reinforcement, and from impulsive responding. Participants' ability to adapt their behaviour to these constraints is analysed using factor-analytic techniques. The project aims to identify whether statistical, reward-guided and social-competitive aspects of human behaviour regulation depend on separate cognitive control models (i.e., load on independent factors), or all reflect a single common cognitive control model (i.e., load on a single factor). The students will meet regularly as a project group, will develop a methods pipeline suitable for factor analysis of experimental data, design an efficient online experiment with relevant associated variables, and then separately analyse the dataset, with support from the research team.
**Who we are**
- Patrick Haggard
- Keiji Ota
**Research Papers**
- https://www.routledge.com/A-Step-by-Step-Guide-to-Exploratory-Factor-Analysis-with-R-and-RStudio/Watkins/p/book/9780367634681
- The neurocognitive bases of human volition." Annual Review of Psychology 70 (2019): 9-28.
Longo, M. R., Schüür, F., Kammers, M. P., Tsakiris, M., & Haggard, P. (2008). What is embodiment? A psychometric approach. Cognition, 107(3), 978-998.
**Methods and Resource**
**Lab website**
**Student role**
- Conceptualization and planning experiments
- Data collection: coding and performing online experiments
- Data analysis: factor analysis and statistical modelling
- Writing a report
**Requirement checklist**
- Students will need to be familiar with multivariate analysis methods, and proficient in R. Project will suit students taking PSYC0034
**Research projects**
The students will meet regularly as a project group, will develop a methods pipeline suitable for factor analysis of experimental data, design an efficient online experiment with relevant associated variables, and then separately analyse the dataset, with support from the research team.
