Joseph Kable | University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychology

Assistant Professor

Department:

Psychology

Education:

BS, Chemistry, Emory University; Ph.D., Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania

Address:

Solomon Labs, 3720 Walnut St, Room C5

Phone:

215-746-3873

Email:

kable@psych.upenn.edu

Lab Page

Research Themes:

Behavioral Neuroscience

Cognitive Neuroscience

Decision Processes

Individual Differences and Behavior Genetics

Specific Research Areas:

Psychological and neural mechanisms of choice behavior

Research Synopsis:

I am interested in understanding how people make decisions, and in tracing out the underlying psychological and neural mechanisms of choice. Research in my lab employs an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on methods and ideas from social and cognitive neuroscience, experimental economics, and personality psychology. Recently we have used fMRI to show how the subjective value people place on immediate and delayed rewards is represented in a common neural currency. Some broad questions motivating our current research include: How seriously do people’s choices deviate from rational choice theory, and what do the neural value signals in such situations help explain about these deviations? How does decision making differ across individuals, and what are the sources—psychological, genetic, neural—of such individual differences?

Dr. Kable will be accepting new graduate students for admission in fall 2012.

Representative Courses:

PSYC 160 Personality

PSYC 473 Neuroeconomics

Appointments:

Psychology Graduate Group; Neuroscience Graduate Group

Advisees:

Karin Cox [Post-doc]
Betty Kim [Psychology Graduate Student]
Joseph McGuire [Post-doc]
Nicole Senecal [Neuroscience Graduate Student]

Representative Publications:

Camille, N., Griffiths, C. A., Vo, K., Fellows, L. K., Kable, J. W. (2011). Ventromedial frontal lobe damage disrupts value maximization in humans. Journal of Neuroscience, 31: 7527-7532.

Kable, J. W. (2011). The cognitive neuroscience toolkit for the neuroeconomist: A functional overview. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology and Economics, 4: 63-84.

Kable, J. W., adn Glimcher, P. W. (2010). An "as soon as possible" effect in human intertemporal decision making: Behavioral evidence and neural mechanisms. Journal of Neurophysiology, 103:2513-2531.

Kable, J.W., and Glimcher, P.W. (2009). The neurobiology of decision: Consensus and Controversy, Neuron, 63(6):733-745.

Kable, J. W., and Glimcher, P. W. (2007). The neural correlates of subjective value during intertemporal choice. Nature Neuroscience, 10, 1625-1633.

Glimcher, P. W, Kable, J. W., and Louie, K. (2007). Neuroeconomic studies of impulsivity: Now or just as soon as possible? American Economic Review, 97, 142-147.