Research Labs | Department of Psychology

Students who are looking for research experience are encouraged to review this document of the labs within the Department of Psychology. Note that this list is not comprehensive. Some faculty members do not have a website for their lab. In that case, information on all faculty members in the Department of Psychology can be found at the end of this document. We also strongly encourage you to browse our Faculty Research Interests.

Psychology Links

Psychology Research Labs by Area

Biomotion Lab

Visual perception, biological motion, virtual reality, people perception, communication
Principal Investigator: Nikolaus Troje

3D Perception & Laboratory

Psychophysical methods, neural mechanisms, stereoscopic depth perception
Principal Investigator: Laurie Wilcox

Cognitive Neurophysiology Lab

Systems and cognitive neuroscience, flexible decision making, cognitive control, neurons to cognition
Principal Investigator: Liya Ma

Comparative Cognition Lab (This lab is not accepting new students)

Animal behaviour, comparative cognition, learning and memory
Principal Investigator: Suzanne MacDonald

Elder Laboratory

Psychophysics, computational and neural modelling, visual perception, computer vision.
Principal Investigator: James Elder

Freud Lab

Cognitive and neural processes, object recognition, visuomotor control
Principal Investigator: Erez Freud

Goel Reason Lab

Prefrontal cortex, rational decision making, cognitive and affective precessing, real world problem solving
Principal Investigator: Vinod Goel

joeLAB

Motion processing, attentional mechanisms, sensory information processing, motor movement, systems neuroscience
Principal Investigator: Joseph De Souza

Kohler Visual Neuroscience Lab

Mid-level visual processing, visual psychophysics, visual scene representation
Principal Investigator: Peter J. Kohler

Murray Lab

Visual perception, psychophysics, computational and mathematical modelling, signal detection theory
Principal Investigator: Richard Murray

Murtha Lab

Cognitive neuroscience, attention, memory
Principal Investigator: Susan Murtha

Ono Lab (This lab is not accepting new students)

Pychology, perception, psychophysics, vision, visual direction and stability
Principal Investigator: Hiroshi Ono

Perceptual Neuroscience Lab

Scene and face processing, psychophysics, neuroimaging
Principal Investigator: Jennifer Steeves

The Visuomotor Neuroscience Lab

Systems, cognitive, and computational neuroscience; visual-motor transformations,
3-D perception
Principal Investigator: Doug Crawford

Zoidl Lab

Electrical synapses in vision and neuronal plasticity, genes to function
Principal Investigator: Georg Zoidl

Behavioural Alcohol and Cannabis Research (BAC) Lab

Alcohol use, cannabis use, addiction, impulsivity, health psychology
Principal Investigator: Jeffrey Wardell

Boredom Lab

boredom, self control, emotion, environment, and attention, clinical psychology
Principal Investigator: John Eastwood

Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuro-Intervention (CNN) Lab

Neurorehabilitation interventions, normal aging and neurological populations, higher cognitive control, neuroimaging
Principal Investigator: Gary Turner

CRAVE Lab

Addictive behaviour risk, depression and anxiety, young adults
Principal Investigator: Matthew Keough

Goldberg Lab

CBT, shyness and emotion, functional outcomes and ‘recovery’ for schizophrenia
Principal Investigator: Joel Goldberg

Human Pain Mechanisms Lab

Pain memories, phantom limb, infants, gender, trauma, psychological, emotional, and biomedical factors involved in acute and chronic pain
Principal Investigator: Joel Katz

Eating, Affect, and Self-Evaluation (EASE) Lab

Eating and its disorders, body image, social media, and social comparison
Principal Investigator: Jennifer Mills

Myriam Mongrain’s Positive Psychology Lab (This lab is not accepting new students)

Compassion, nihilism, existentialism, transcendence, meaning, subjective well-being.
Principal Investigator: Myriam Mongrain

Psychosocial Oncology Lab

Cancer and critical illness, intimate relationship adaptation, supports development of psychotherapeutic and psychoeducational interventions
Principal Investigator: Karen Fergus

Psychotherapy Research Lab

Psychotherapy process and outcome, psychotherapy training, borderline personality disorder, complex trauma
Principal Investigator: Tali Boritz

Rosenbaum Memory Lab

Hippocampus, memory organization, fMRI, theory of mind, post neurological insult and healthy
Principal Investigator: Shayna Rosenbaum

Sex And Violence Evaluation (SAVE) Lab

Risk assessment, sexual offending, violence, pedophilia, sadism, paraphilias, penile plethysmograph/phallometry, psychopathy, treatment, taxometric methods, meta-analysis, scale development
Principle Investigator: Andrew Brankley

TULiP Lab

Borderline personality disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, dialectical behaviour therapy, intervention with relationships
Principal Investigator: Skye Fitzpatrick

Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health Lab

Autism spectrum disorders, developmental disability, families/health and social service systems.
Principal Investigator: Jonathan Weiss

Desrocher Lab

Cognitive, behavioural, and emotional functioning, children with diabetes and epilepsy, fetal alcohol spectrum, congenital hypothyroidism
Principal Investigator: Mary Desrocher

The Infant and Child Mental Health Lab

Cognitive-behavioural interventions for children, attachment and parenting practices, diverse cultural contexts, prevention and interventions
Principal Investigator: Yvonne Bohr

NORTH Lab

Mild traumatic brain, sport-related concussion, risk and recovery, long-term consequences, neuroimaging
Principal Investigator: Magdalena Wojtowicz

O.U.C.H. Lab

Painful situations, child and parents interactions, negative affect regulation.
Principal Investigator: Rebecca Pillai Riddell

Perry Lab

Autism and developmental disabilities, assessment/diagnosis, intervention, family impact, stress, coping
Principal Investigator: Adrienne Perry

Prime Family Lab

Clinical child psychology, family stress and resilience, family-based intervention

Principal Investigator: Heather Prime

REACh Lab

Emotion regulation and well-being among emerging adults, mental health and resilience, student success, brief interventions
Principal Investigator: Jennine Rawana

Teen Relationships Lab

Risk and resilience; adolescents, child welfare involved youth, tracking and intervening with trafficked youth

Principal Investigator: Jennifer Connolly

Till Lab

Children’s environmental health, neurodegenerative disease, cognitive rehabilitation.
Principal Investigator: Christine Till

Toplak Research Lab

Children and adolescents, attention and learning, cognitive and affective processes, reasoning
Principal Investigator: Maggie Toplak

Trauma and Attachment Lab

Treatment of psychological trauma, child and adult attachments, interventions, social support
Principal Investigator: Robert T. Muller

Youth Outcomes of Therapy Lab

Child and adolescent psychotherapy, intervention development and outcomes, measurement, anxiety, depression, disruptive behaviour
Principal Investigator: Madison Aitken

Visual and Cognitive Development Project

Infant neuroscience, attention and memory, object recognition, visual search, visual expectation.
Principal Investigator: Scott Adler

Cognitive Aging Neuroscience (CAN) Lab

Cognitive neuroscience, fMRI, neurocognitive development and aging, conceptual processing
Principal Investigator: Dale Stevens

Cognitive Flexibility Lab

Cognitive flexibility, educational outcomes, spacing effect, socio-economic status scale, task switching
Principal Investigator: Melody Wiseheart

Lifespan Cognition and Development Lab (This lab is not accepting new students)

Cognitive development, literacy, monolingual and bilingual children, cognitive aging
Principal Investigator: Ellen Bialystok

Memory Development Laboratory

Developmental cognitive neuroscience, learning and memory, time and space memory, naturalistic settings
Principal Investigator: Thanujeni Pathman

Pierce Experience & Development Lab

Developmental cognitive neuroscience, language, SES, stress, EEG.
Principal Investigator: Lara Pierce

Feminist Voices

Feminist epistemology and historiography, history of women in psychology, science and culture
Principal Investigator: Alexandra Rutherford

MaCH: Migration and Crit ical Health Psychology

Community-based, social integration, social conflict, social inclusion, health and well-being
Principal Investigator: Michaela Hynie

GreenLab

History of psychology, digital research techniques. Statistics and Methods.
Principal Investigator: Christopher Green

Psychological Humanities

German philosophical psychology, postcolonial psychology, race and racism, ontology, epistemology, ethics
Principal Investigator: Thomas Teo

Cathy’s Quant Psych Lab

Psychometrics, Psychological Scale Formats, Structural Equation Modelling, Factor Analysis, Missing Data, Model Fit Indices.
Principal Investigator: Cathy (Xijuan) Zhang

Chalmers Lab

Latent variable modeling, item response theory, measurement invariance, computational statistics
Principal Investigator: Robert P. Chalmers

DataVis Lab

Statistical graphics, multivariate statistical methods and the history of data visualization
Principal Investigator: Michael Friendly

Flora Quantitative Lab

Psychometric methods and longitudinal data analysis; particularly item factor analysis, structural equation modeling, item response theory, and growth curve modeling.
Principal Investigator: David Flora

Latent Variable Modeling Lab

Technical development, quantitative methods, Bayesian statistics, analysis of functional data analysis, structural equation modeling
Principal Investigator: Ji Yeh Choi

Robust Statistics Lab

Robust ANOVA methods, multiplicity control, equivalence testing, measurement of change
Principal Investigator: Robert Cribbie

Culture and Belief Lab

Cultural, cognitive, and evolutionary foundations of religion and morality
Principal Investigator: Cindel White

Flett Lab

Perfectionism, psychosocial functioning, health problems
Principal Investigator: Gordon L. Flett

Greenglass Lab

Psychosocial factors and rehabilitation, coping, The Proactive Coping Inventory
Principal Investigator: Esther Greenglass

Interpersonal Perception and Social Cognition Lab

Gender/racial stereotypes, intergroup relations and social development, social cognitive perspective
Principal Investigator: Jennifer Steele

Leadership, Competition, Collaboration Lab

Social hierarchy, overconfidence, competition
Principal Investigator: Joey Cheng

The MAR Lab

Empathy, social understanding, imagination, neural processes
Principal Investigator: Raymond A. Mar

Sexual Health and Relationships (SHaRe) Lab

Romantic relationships, sexuality, relationship satisfaction, motivation, perception, behaviour
Principal Investigator: Amy Muise

Social Cognition Lab

The Social Cognition Laboratory at York University investigates a variety of social categorization processes using a diversity of methods. Some of the main issues examined are how we perceive people from different social groups, how we react to intergroup bias, and strategies to reduce prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination.

Principle Investigator: Kerry Kawakami