Ecological Brain: Reframing the Study of Human Behaviour and Cognition
Gabriella Vigliocco, Laura Convertino, Sara De Felice, Lara Gregorians, Viktor Kewenig, Marie A. E. Mueller, Sebastijan Veselič, Mirco Musolesi, Andrew Hudson‐Smith, Nick Tyler, Eirini Flouri, Hugo J. Spiers
Abstract
The last decade has seen substantial advances in the capacity to record behaviour and neural activity in humans in real-world settings, to simulate real-world situations in laboratory settings and to apply sophisticated analyses to large-scale data. Along with these developments, the call for ecological validity (increased use of naturalistic materials and more real-world-like settings for experiments) has been renewed. Here we sketch a framework for real-world research where previous approaches are integrated into a cyclic process of “bringing the lab to the real world” (recording behavioural and neural responses in their real-world settings) and “bringing the real-world to the lab” (manipulating the environments in which behaviours occur in the lab) that allows for discovery and theory development.