Avatar

Filip Melinscak

Post-doctoral researcher

MOPS lab

University of Vienna

About

I’m a post-doctoral researcher in the Methods of Psychology (MOPS) lab at the University of Vienna. My educational background is in engineering (signal processing) and computer science. Broadly speaking, I’m interested in how humans and machines learn and make decisions, and how they ought to do it. During my PhD, I investigated how machines can learn about our mental states (in particular, mind wandering) using brain-computer interfaces. Currently, I’m investigating how we can use machines to model how people learn from unpleasant experiences, with the goal of better understanding emotions of fear and anxiety, and the mental disorders related to these emotions. To pursue these questions, I employ psychological experiments (in the lab and online), physiological measurements (e.g., EEG, heart rate, pupil size), and computational modeling (e.g., Bayesian and reinforcement learning models).

In parallel, I have cultivated an interest in the question of how scientists ought to optimally learn and make decisions. I have contributed statistical methods for evaluating brain-computer interfaces, and methods for algorithmic optimization of psychological experiments. In the future, I hope to further pursue the questions about the role of automation in psychology (i.e., psychoinformatics), and questions about optimal approaches to scientific inquiry (i.e., meta-science).

Interests

  • Cognitive science
  • Research methods / meta-science
  • Brain-computer interfacing

Education

  • PhD in Biomedical Engineering, 2016

    University of Zaragoza, Spain

  • MSc in Information and Communication Technology, 2013

    University of Zagreb, Croatia

  • BSc in Computing, 2011

    University of Zagreb, Croatia