We are a part of the Cognitive Science programme in the Dept. of Humanities & Social Studies, IIT Delhi
Our research studies the brain mechanisms that mediate self-control, i.e. how we control our movements, thoughts, and actions
We focus on one component of self-control - action-inhibition, i.e. our ability to rapidly control and stop contextually inappropriate actions
To do this we use behavioral, computational, and neuroscience methods
MFIRP grant from IIT Delhi and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Aug, 2024)
DBT Wellcome Trust India Alliance intermediate fellowship (Jan, 2024)
IIT Delhi Equipment Matching grant (Jan, 2023)
SERB startup research grant (Dec, 2022)
IIT Delhi (June, 2022)
New preprint by MSc student Lalchhandama in collaboration with Prof. Don Dcruz PsyArxiv
PhD scholars Debjani and Ujjawal have joined the lab
MSc Cognitive Science students Farah, Karthika, Neeraj, Nida, Rohit, and Shweta have joined the lab for their final year projects
Sumitash completed his PhD from Aditya Murthy's lab at IISc, Bangalore where he studied the computational mechanisms that allow the flexible nature of coordinated eye-hand movements. Then he moved to Adam R. Aron's lab at the Dept. of Psychology, University of California San Diego, CA where he studied the neural mechanisms underlying action-inhibition. His current research interests involve studying the intersection between action-inhibition, mind-wandering, and meditation in healthy and clinical populations.
Besides all that he enjoys watching TV shows, creative designing, and various outdoor activities.
Anukrati completed her Master's in Applied Psychology and Bachelor's in Arts from the University of Delhi during which she developed an interest in Cognitive Psychology. She completed her MA thesis on the relationship between Self-regulation and Executive Functions of children with low SES under the supervision of Dr SPK Jena. After her post-graduation, she worked as a Research Assistant at Skeide Lab (Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences). Her primary research interests lie in mind-wandering, self-control and cognitive functions.
In her free time, you will find her reading fiction, watching TV shows, trying to cook and of course, mind-wandering.
Menka completed her Bachelors and Masters in Psychology from the University of Allahabad and developed interest in neuroscience and cognition as she worked on Emotional aging during her masters and eventually joined the lab for her PhD.
She has a taste in finding rare hidden gems of songs, swimming and Kathak. You could find her laughing on lamest of jokes with tears gushing and watching Netflix like there's no tomorrow.
Sarthak completed his Bachelors in Computer Science and Engineering and Masters in Psychology where he did projects such as Psychological factors contributing to obesity, The relationship between life satisfaction and depression among college going students, and, Designing a secure online voting system using blockchain. This current research interests include the effect of different modalities of exercise on response inhibition and mind wandering and optimizing human cognition through nutrition, exercise and sleep.
Hobbies outside research: powerlifting and watching sports.
Debjani earned her BTech and MTech degrees in Biotechnology from KIIT University. She completed her Master’s thesis at the Cognitive Brain Dynamics Lab, IIT Jodhpur, focusing on emotion processing. Her PhD research focuses on gait and response inhibition, utilizing a virtual reality setup.
Outside of academics, she loves scrapbooking, reading, travelling, and watching F1.
Ujjawal completed his Master's in Signal Processing and Communication at DIAT, Pune, where he first became interested in using machine learning to understand the brain while working on EEG-based classification of ADHD. After graduating, he worked at ARDE, Pune, on computer vision applications before joining AIIMS, Delhi, where his interest naturally grew towards speech and neurophysiological biomarkers for ADHD. He is currently pursuing a PhD at IIT Delhi and is interested in exploring how AI and multimodal brain imaging can help us better understand mind-wandering, executive function, and adolescent depression.
Outside research, he enjoys watching documentaries, exploring new technologies, and spending time outdoors.
Working in a IIT-HUJI project
Sakshi has completed her Bachelor's in Psychology from Jai Hind College, Mumbai and Master's in Neuropsychology from National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar. She is interested in understanding individual differences in cognition through the lens of spontaneous neural dynamics. Currently, she is working on computational modeling of the neural mechanisms underlying failures to trigger movement inhibition.
Outside the lab, she enjoys her quiet downtime understanding different cultures, listening to music, and taking long walks to think through ideas.
Co-supervised by Prof Suman Das, Dept. of Physiology, AIIMS Delhi
Farah currently pursuing my M.Sc. in Cognitive Science at IIT Delhi after completing her B.A. (Hons.) in Psychology from Patna Women's College. Her research interests lie at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuroscience with a focus on understanding the mechanisms underlying human thought and behavior. Her current research explores the relationship between mind wandering, mental imagery, inhibitory control and depression. Using behavioral experiments, she is trying to investigate how failures in cognitive control influence thought processes and contribute to depressive symptoms. More broadly, she is interested in emotion, memory, executive functions and thought control. In the long term, she hopes to contribute to neurorehabilitation research by developing evidence-based interventions for neurological and psychiatric conditions. She is also interested in the intersection of psychology, cognition and fashion and hope to explore how cognitive science can inform our understanding of aesthetic perception, consumer behavior and decision-making in fashion contexts.
Co-supervised by Prof Aakash Johry, DoD, IITD
Karthika completed her Bachelor's in Applied Psychology (Honours), with her final year dissertation focusing on the development of a decision-making orientation model grounded in indigenous Indian psychological concepts. Her academic interests are driven by an interest in meaningful integration: bringing together conventional and indigenous perspectives, and bridging experimental, phenomenological, and computational approaches to the study of cognition, including through the use of VR- and AI-based methods.
Her non-academic alter ego is meanwhile a voracious bookworm, a trained classical dancer, and a lifelong rasika who particularly appreciates an artfully crafted dessert.
Co-supervised by Prof Samar Husain, HuSS & Prof. Sumeet Agarwal, ScAI, IITD
Neeraj completed his Bachelor's degree in Clinical Psychology during which he gained exposure to individuals with a broad range of neurodevelopmental, psychological, and behavioral conditions. During his undergraduate studies, he also developed a strong interest in Computer Science which prompted him to pursue a Master's degree in Cognitive Science to work at the intersection of technology and psychology. His current research interests include mind wandering, computational neuroscience, and ethology.
Outside of academics, Neeraj enjoys watching Anime, cooking shows, wildlife documentaries, and going down rabbit holes by following hyperlinks in nerdy articles.
Co-supervised by Prof. Marieke van Vugt, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Nida has completed her Bachelor's in English Literature from Jamia Millia Islamia and is currently pursuing her Master's in Cognitive Science at IIT Delhi. Her current project examines how the difficulty in disengaging from a thought ("stickiness" of thought) during mind wandering affects our ability to inhibit motor responses. She is broadly interested in attention and self-regulation.
Teaching is actually what first made her think about how people think, learn and behave, and in her free time you will also find her doing pen sketches
Co-supervised by Prof. Biswarup Mukerjee, CBME, IITD
Rohit completed his bachelors from Chinmaya Vishwa Vidyapeeth in B.Sc Applied Psycholgy (Hons). His interest in neuroscience and cognitive psychology led him to pursue his Masters in Cognitive Science at IIT Delhi. His current interest lies in the area of mind wandering, neuroimaging, and developmental neuroscience.
In his free time, he likes analysing movies, drawing, and listening to comic book podcasts.
Co-supervised by Prof. Aakash Johry, DoD, IITD
Shweta is an avid enthusiast of the social and behavioural sciences. She is particularly fascinated by the way humans interpret the world around them and construct their realities. Having completed a Bachelor’s degree in psychology, childhood curiosity about an intelligence test, the abstract workings of the mind, and the intriguing arena of perceptual illusions evolved into a deeper interest which led her to pursue a Master’s in Cognitive Science. Her interest areas broadly include experimental, developmental, cognitive and educational psychology along with design. Aspiring to contribute meaningfully at the intersection of cognition, education and design, she wishes to further her academic pursuits while continuing to sketch, paint and doodle along the way.
Our environment is constantly changing and full of distractions and temptations. So, to lead productive lives we must employ self-control. Self-control is our ability to manage our impulses, emotions, and behaviors so that we can achieve our goals. It allows us to focus on our tasks despite environmental interruptions (e.g., choosing to keep reading despite notifications on your phone) but also flexibly change our goals when the need arises (e.g. choosing to pick up the phone when there is an important call). Perhaps, the need for self-control is best illustrated in populations who suffer for its deficit, for e.g. obsessive-compulsive disorder patients who are unable to control their thoughts and behaviors, attention deficit hyperactive disorder who are unable to control their attention and impulses, Tourette’s syndrome patients who are unable to control unwanted movements, etc. One component of self-control is action-inhibition, i.e. our ability to rapidly stop contextually inappropriate movements. For e.g., while crossing the street if you suddenly see a vehicle approaching then you stop in your tracks. Our research focuses on understanding the neural and computational mechanisms that mediate action-inhibition.
We are also interested in studying how different mental-states affect action-inhibition. Most research on action-inhibition implicitly assumes that our mental-state is unchanging. However, from daily experience we know that this is far from the truth. While sometimes we are focused on what we are doing but often we are thinking of something unrelated to the task at hand. Such periods of mind-wandering where our attentional focus is directed towards task-unrelated thoughts can have a detrimental impact on action-inhibition. This has a huge relevance to society where mind-wandering during driving and handling machinery (tasks that require action-inhibition) can have serious consequences. Hence, our research seeks to understanding the computational and neural mechanism by which mind-wandering affects action-inhibition in both healthy and clinical populations. Allied to this, we also want to study techniques that can reduce mind-wandering, e.g. meditation, and what might the neural mechanism of this effect.
Most of prior research on action-inhibition has focused on stopping of simple movements such as keypresses or button presses. These movements do not capture the rich multitude of movements we perform in our daily lives. Hence, we want to extend the study of action-inhibition to more complex movements starting with two-effector movements. One common type of two effector movements is coordinated eye-hand movements where the movements of the eyes and the hand/s are coupled. For e.g., when reaching for a cup, playing video games, playing an instrument, playing table tennis, writing and typing etc. We seek to action-inhibition of coordinated eye-hand movements as a natural extension of our understanding of action-inhibition of single effector movements. In the future, we plan to design more realistic scenarios for studying action-inhibition using virtual reality.
Our research uses a variety of techniques: behavioral studies, brain imaging (e.g., electroencephalography), electromyography, eye and hand movement tracking, computational modeling, and brain stimulation (e.g., transcranial magnetic stimulation). We also plan to study clinical populations who suffer from impulse-control disorders like OCD and ADHD.
Co-Instructor in JGL5001 The Biological basis of Brain and Cognitive Function
Integrates molecular, cellular, and systems neuroscience to provide a comprehensive biological framework for understanding cognition (with Prof. Aarat Kalra, CBME & Prof. Tapan Kumar Nayak, KSBS)
Co-Instructor in JGL5006 Behavioural research and data collection
Discusses qualitative and quantitative, experimental research methodologies (with Prof. Purnima Singh)
Instructor in HUL263 Introduction to Behavioural Neuroscience
Introduces basics of behavioural neuroscience
Instructor in HSL5066/HSL7911 Cognitive Neuroscience/Principles of Cognitive Neuroscience
Discusses the brain processes that mediate human thought and behavior
Co-Instructor in HSL721 Research Methods in Cognitive Science
Introduces basics of experimental and qualitative research (with Prof Yashpal Jogdand)
Instructor in HSP7OO Workshop in Scientific writing
Tutorials on how to write and present research
Instructor in HSS 521 Independent Study in Cognitive Science MSc course
Introduced the basics of protein chemistry, nucleic acids, replication, translation, transcription, and neuroanatomy
Co-Instructor in HSL661 Cognitive Processes MSc course
Introduced the core cognitive processes that mediate human thought and behavior (with Prof Yashpal Jogdand)
Co-Instructor in HUL261 Introduction to Psychology UG course
Introduces the basics of Psychology (with Prof Purnima Singh)
Instructor in HSL561 Cognitive Neuroscience MSc course
Introduces the brain processes that mediate human thought and behavior
Conducted tutorials in HSS 521 Independent Study in Cognitive Science MSc course
Introduced the basics of protein chemistry, nucleic acids, replication, translation, transcription, and neuroanatomy (with Prof Saurabh Gandhi conducting Maths tutorials)
Co-Instructor in HSL661 Cognitive Processes MSc course
Introduced the core cognitive processes that mediate human thought and behavior (with Prof Yashpal Jogdand)
Coordinator for HSL724 Advanced Experimental Methods course
Introduced some of the experimental methods used in the fields of psychology and neuroscience
Co-Instructor in HUL261 Introduction to Psychology UG course
Introduces the basics of Psychology (with Prof Purnima Singh)
Instructor in HSL561 Cognitive Neuroscience MSc course
Introduces the brain processes that mediate human thought and behavior
Coordinator for HSD623 Mini-project in Cognitive Science MSc course
Summer research course
Instructor in HUL370 Selected Topics in Psychology UG course
Introduces the basics of Cognitive Psychology
Instructor in HSL661 Cognitive Processes MSc course
Introduced the core cognitive processes that mediate human thought and behavior
One of the instructor in HSL724 Advanced experimental methods MSc course
Introduced EEG data analysis
Conducted tutorials in HSS 521 Independent Study in Cognitive Science (Bio track) MSc course
Introduced the basics of protein chemistry, enzyme kinetics, nucleic acids, replication, translation, transcription, and neuroanatomy
Sumitash Jana
Email: sjana [at] hss [dot] iitd [dot] ac [dot] in
Phone (O): 011 2654 8766
Office: MS 602B, Dept. of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016