We study the social, neuroscientific, and computational basis of value-based decision-making, with a particular focus on aesthetic values.
Our Mission
Our lab wants to understand how the brain acquires and uses human values, especially those leading to aesthetic experiences.
Our Vision
Our lab believes that one day, all people will respect the different values and cultures of others by appreciating that these distinctions are inexorable consequences of how the human brain works.
Our Team
We believe that to understand a subject as complex as human values, one needs highly interdisciplinary teams to allow multiple perspectives. Appropriately, our team has included scientists, engineers, mathematicians, psychologists, sociologists, visual artists, musicians, and architects.
Our Values
The principal value of LaNeNa is to handle others’ values with deference.
We are a lab that examines the value system of the brain. One of the most perplexing observations about this system is that its product, that is, the values, are singular across individuals. However, this singularity does not imply that each individual’s values are arbitrary. Our explorations and those of others are establishing that human values are exceptionally well-tailored to each person’s distinctive circumstance. Therefore, no values are superior to others because all circumstances are dissimilar, and thus, only standards that disrespect those of others are less worthy.
An extension of this attitude that we deem indispensable is that to wrestle with complex problems we require people with a diverse set of values. For example, we have been concentrating on the complex problem of aesthetic values. To examine them, we have added to our team researchers from a comprehensive set of backgrounds, both cultural and disciplinary. Cultural diversity has been fundamental in a field where values diverge with social conditions. In turn, disciplinary diversity has been indispensable to exploring the depths of what aesthetic values are. Accordingly, in our team, we have scientists, engineers, and mathematicians working side by side with artists, musicians, psychologists, and sociologists.