Faculty of Arts
Research project description
Boredom has been cast as a push to action — to find something more engaging. We recently theorized that this signal arises when our cognitive and neural resources are under (or over) utilized. In other words, a basic drive (in both humans and animals) is the drive to optimally deploy our cognitive and neural resources. Our lab is now in the process of designing tasks to test this novel hypothesis, one that we think extends beyond boredom. What makes us (and some other non-human species) play? What makes us curious? These domains (and potentially others like novelty seeking) could be explained by resorting to a kind of cognitive homeostatic mechanism. What signals that we are out of our "Goldilocks'" zone of engagement, and what helps keep us engaged within that zone?
We use a range of techniques spanning survey work, behavioural tasks, psychophysiology (heart rate variability and skin conductance), and EEG to tackle these questions.
Fields of research
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Neuroimaging
- Psychophysiology
- Social Psychology
Qualifications and ideal student profile
Prospective graduate student researchers must meet or exceed the minimum admission requirements for the programs connected to this opportunity. Visit the program pages using the links on this page to learn more about minimum admission requirements. In addition to minimum requirements, the research supervisor is looking for the following qualifications and student profile.
- Students must be Canadian citizens
- Ideal (but not absolutely necessary) qualifications include competency in R or other statistical programming, competency in coding experiments (e.g., with Python, Psychopy)
Faculty researcher and supervisor
- James Danckert
Professor
View faculty profile →
View James Danckert and The Danckert Lab website →
Graduate programs connected to this project
Important dates
Exploring cognitive and neural factors involved in boredom, play, and curiosity is an open and ongoing research opportunity. Expressions of interest can be submitted for any term.