Developmental & Computational Affective Cognition Lab

Dr. Yang Wu

Lab Director

Yang is interested in how humans reason about emotion or affect, an interdisciplinary domain called Affective Cognition. Yang studies affective cognition in humans from infancy to adulthood and uses a variety of approaches, including behavioral experiments, exploratory play,  eye tracking, and computational modeling.

Yang is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She obtained her Ph.D. in Cognitive Science at MIT in 2018 and received her postdoctoral training at Stanford University from 2018 to 2022. 

Dr. Tiffany Doan

Post Doc

Tiffany’s research focuses on cognitive development in early childhood, specifically social cognitive development. She is interested in how children and adults use probability to infer other people's emotions and the relationship between close counterfactual reasoning and emotion inferences. She’s also interested in children's desire-based reasoning, self-directed learning, and exploration.

Tiffany received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Waterloo.

Sahej Gulati

Lab Manager 

Sahej completed her BSc degree in Psychology at UTSC. She is interested in exploring how children learn from and interpret emotions displayed by others and how it affects their understanding of the social world. She is also interested in learning how emotional cues influence the formation of children's social bonds. In her free time, she likes spending time with her friends and exploring new neighbourhoods and restaurants!

Hanqi Chen

Graduate Student

Hanqi completed her BSc degree in Psychology at UTSC. She is interested in investigating infant-directed emotion, how children perceive emotions, and how it would influence their behaviour. Outside of the lab, Hanqi enjoys cooking and travelling.

Grace Sun

Graduate Student 

Grace completed her BSc degree in Psychology at the University of Toronto, St. George. She is interested in how children use emotion as a source of information to guide their learning and reasoning about the world, and how this influences their motivation and persistence. Outside of the lab, she enjoys traveling, watching movies, and playing with her cat, Gyoza!

Marija Bolic 

Graduate Student 

Marija completed her BSc Degrees in Psychology and Computer Science at the University of Ottawa. She is interested in the intersection between developmental and computational methods, with her graduate research specifically focusing on how people integrate verbal and emotional cues in communication and how people use emotions to inform their learning. Outside of research, she also loves spending time with family and friends, playing outdoor sports, and reading.

Cheuk (Yannes) Yan-Lam 

Supervised Study Student

Yannes is an undergraduate student completing her HBSc specialising in psychology at UTSC. She is interested in how emotion from adults communicated through speech affects infant cognition. Outside academics, she likes to play the violin, bake desserts, and ice skate.

Gabriela Aguiar Monteiro

Research Assistant

I'm an undergraduate student specializing in psychology at UTSC. I'm interested in how emotional cues and children's perception of other's emotions shape their cognitive development and help them navigate the world. Outside of the lab, I love rock climbing, reading, and spending time with my friends!

Elrion Lee

Research Assistant

Elrion is completing his HBSc in the psychology specialist program at UTSC. He is interested in how the perception of emotion communicated in speech can affect cognition and behaviour in both children and parents. Outside of work, he likes to play music with friends, explore neighbourhoods and seek out good food. 

Cynthia Lin

Research Assistant

Cynthia Lin is a third-year undergraduate student completing her BSc in Psychology Research at UTSG. She is interested in exploring how contextual factors (e.g., familial, school, etc.) in childhood influence people's long-term well-being. Outside of the lab, she enjoys volunteering in non-traditional educational settings such as museums and galleries.

Peiyun (Sonia) Song

Research Volunteer

Sonia is completing her undergraduate at UTSC in the psychology specialist program. Her primary area of research interest lies in using games and behavioural experiments to engage youths in developmental and cognitive studies, particularly focusing on social influences and cross-cultural variability. Outside of the lab, you can find her enjoying food, chatting with friends, and playing with animals!

Ayanika Bhattacharjee

Research Volunteer

Ayanika is currently an undergraduate student at UTSC pursuing an HBSc specialist in Mental Health Studies. She is particularly interested in "Emotionese" and the idea that emotional communication might also be modified in a developmentally supportive way. Outside of work, Ayanika enjoys singing, dancing, and reading! She also loves taking care of animals.