Jacob Gerlofs

I constantly find myself drawn to the puzzles of the human experience. This curiosity led me from my hometown of Burlington, ON, to my B.Sc. in psychology and neuroscience with a minor in drama Studies at Bishop’s University in QC. I’m currently a PhD candidate in the neuroscience program at UBC under the supervision of Dr. Alan Kingstone. My current research interests lie in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, specifically the behavioural, cognitive, and attentional processes underlying social interactions. I’m also interested in real-world validity of neuroscience research methods, industry applications of psychology and neuroscience research, neuroscience of the arts, and knowledge mobilization.

Outside the lab I’m a free-lance photographer, avid skier, rock climber, traveller, film and theatre buff.

Research Interests

Social cognition, social attention, multi-agent interaction, social neuroscience.

Broadly speaking, there are two things people can do with their eyes in social environments: they can use them to see things but they can also use them to signal social information to others. Deploying these so-called dual functions of social gaze is important for successful social interaction but their cognitive-attentional mechanisms are not well understood. My primary line of research seeks to better understand this ability to balance processing and signalling with the eyes. 

In addition, I’m currently working on projects focused on attentional coupling during live dyadic interactions and the role seeing or being seen on social nodding behaviour during dyadic interactions.