Dylan received his B.A. in Psychology from McGill University and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Dartmouth College. Research in his lab focuses on two separate domains. One is aimed at understanding how our knowledge of other people (their likes and dislikes, their personalities, their quirks and habits) is organized into a coherent impression and, in turn, how this impression is encoded in the brain. Using a combination of functional neuroimaging, machine learning techniques and popular media (e.g., films, television), this line of work aims at developing methods to gain access to how individuals think and feel about the people around them.
Another line of research in his laboratory involves understanding the role of motivation, self-control and desire in precipitating self-regulation failures. Using a combination of eye-tracking, functional neuroimaging and measures of structural and functional brain connectivity, this work examines how individual differences in the ability to regulate desire for appetitive stimuli (food, cigarettes, alcohol) can be used to predict real-world self control failures.
Visit the Wagner Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory to learn more.
