Research Areas
Duke faculty examine the neuroscience behind how people make decisions, why people make different kinds of decisions, the strategies they use to make choices, and how decision-making can be improved.
This research area includes faculty members from across campus, including the Fuqua School of Business, the Duke Law School, and the departments of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy. By studying nonconscious processes, cognition, social dynamics, and biological mechanisms, Duke researchers are gaining a greater understanding of risky behaviors, economic and consumer choices, and decisions made by juries, adolescents, retirees, relationship partners, and employees.
The Duke Center for Interdisciplinary Decision Science (D-CIDES), a collaboration between the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences (DIBS) and the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI), builds collaborative networks between researchers interested in the decision sciences across campus. The Center catalyzes programs and research on the biological, social, and societal mechanisms of decisionmaking, and its faculty and students study the choices people make and how they make those choices.
Participating Faculty
- Greg Appelbaum, PhD (Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences (SOM), DIBS)
- Roberto Cabeza, PhD (Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology & Neuroscience)
- Felipe De Brigard, PhD (Philosophy, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, DIBS)
- P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D. (Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences)
- Tobias Egner, PhD (Psychology and Neuroscience)
- Katherine Heller, PhD (Cognitive Neuroscience, Statistical Sciences)
- Scott Huettel, PhD (Duke Center for Interdisciplinary Decision Science, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience; Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, Psychology & Neuroscience)
- Aaron Kay, PhD (Fuqua School of Businesss)
- Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, PhD (Practical Ethics, Philosophy)
- Pate Skene, PhD (Neurobiology)
- Neil Vidmar, PhD (Law)
- Kevin Weinfurt, PhD (Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology and Neuroscience)
- Keith Whitfield, PhD (Psychology and Neuroscience)
Representative Courses
- Advanced Machine Learning (Statistical Science)
- Behavior Decision Theory (Statistical Science)
- Cognitive Disorders and Smart Drugs (Neuroscience)
- Decision Behavior (Business Administration)
- Decision Neuroscience (Neuroscience)
- Decision Theory (Statistical Science, Business Administration)
- Exploring the Prefrontal Cortex (Psychology, Neuroscience)
- Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience (Psychology, Neuroscience)
- Pharmaceutical Marketing (Business Administration)
- Seminar in Consumer Behavior (Business Administration)
- Social Behavior and Personality (Psychology)
- Social Development (Psychology)