Hi BIG Difference community! My name is Javier Dominguez Zamora, and I am thrilled to have recently joined the BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG) as a methods specialist. I wanted to introduce myself and share my research path with all of you.
Author Javier Dominguez Zamora hiking in Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada.
The “decision” to study decisions
Looking back, I realize that uncertainty has been a moving force in my life. Embracing uncertainty led me to live in different countries, explore different research areas, change careers, and experience those brief, amazing “Aha!” moments that happen when we discover something new (or at least new for us).
Even if we do not realize it, we are constantly dealing with uncertainty - from simple decisions like deciding if it is safe to cross the street to more complex decisions such as determining how to combat climate change. When we are uncertain, we try to look for information that will help us make more informed decisions. Sometimes we do this unconsciously and effortlessly, like quickly looking at a traffic light to decide if we should cross the street. Other times it is a more conscious and effortful process, such as reading research papers, articles, or books to learn about climate change. Uncertainty makes us curious about the world and motivates us to explore and learn.
I spent nearly 10 years of my life studying how uncertainty drives our attention and decisions. I would love to share a meaningful story about how reflecting on my own behaviour influenced my research path. The only reason I ended up in this research field was because I embraced uncertainty to explore the unknown.
Navigating uncertainty
A love for science and adventure led me to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver after I finished my master’s degree in neuroscience in my hometown Sevilla, Spain. Here is where my journey into navigating uncertainty truly began. During the early stages of my PhD, I was introduced to the concepts of eye movement control during everyday behaviours. Think about it - have you ever noticed how many times you move your eyes during a day? And do those eye movements depend on where you are at that moment? Picture yourself walking along a well-maintained city street versus hiking through a technical hiking trail. It won’t surprise you that we look down more frequently when we face uneven and uncertain terrain during a hike. This simple observation about behavioural adaptability piqued my interest and would dictate my focus for the next 5 years of my PhD.
Inspired by then-emerging research suggesting that our eye movements serve the purpose of gathering relevant information to guide our actions, I started investigating the relationship between eye movements, uncertainty, and decision-making. I designed lab experiments mimicking situations where people had to navigate through environments with different levels of uncertainty and used eye-trackers to record what people were looking at. I found that our eye movements are finely tuned to minimize uncertainty by focusing on key areas relevant to upcoming actions or decisions.
Whether navigating a technical path or simply crossing an intersection, we are constantly gathering crucial information to reduce the uncertainty of our next move. But how does the brain know which information is relevant? There are hundreds of thousands of possible sources of information we could choose to attend to, and yet we do not pay attention to all of them because, well, that would be exhausting. How does the brain know which piece of information to prioritize at a given time?
These questions about how the brain selects decision-relevant information took me this time to New York City where I worked as a postdoctoral research scientist at the Zuckerman Institute of Columbia University. I explored how the brain incorporates uncertainty into our attentional strategies to guide decisions. Again, think about the process of looking for information about how to fight climate change. When you come across a reliable source of data, like a reputable scientific study, your decision on how to act may be straightforward and you do not need to spend any more time looking for information. However, finding conflicting information, like mixed messages from various sources, can lead to uncertainty. In such cases, you may find yourself looking for additional information and weighing how reliable that information is.
I studied this process by designing neuroimaging experiments where we manipulated people’s uncertainty about an upcoming decision, allowing them to allocate their attention towards visual cues that vary in how well they predict a future outcome. We found that we flexibly allocate attention towards reliable sources of information based on how uncertain we are. The most interesting part, at least to me, is that the brain prioritizes stimuli based on how much information it expects to gain from those stimuli. This way, our brain makes sure we ignore unreliable or irrelevant information while prioritizing the important information. The story is a bit more complicated because not everyone's brain weighs uncertainty the same way; otherwise, we would all make the same decisions. I find studying the factors that make us different to be a fascinating and challenging topic, but I will leave that for another time.
While I have always wanted to see the direct impact of my research, working in basic science exploring the biological bases of behaviour means that my findings will take time to be applied. Don’t get me wrong; I love basic science. We cannot effectively design behavioural interventions without first understanding the fundamental cognitive and neurobiological processes underlying human behaviour. However, while working on more applied projects, such as understanding attention allocation during healthy aging, I experienced how rewarding it is to work on projects that directly impact others.
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
I love the above quote from The Lord of the Rings when Gandalf speaks to Frodo about facing challenging times. To me, it suggests that we cannot control the situations we encounter but we can control how we use our time to act and respond to them. We may not need to plan a trip to Mordor to destroy the One Ring and save Middle-earth, but we are called upon to find ways to respond to living in uncertain, challenging times facing climate change, the affordability crisis, and public health emergencies, among other issues.
One of the ways I would eventually find that control came while working at Columbia University, when I was introduced to the field of applied behavioural science. I’d found a path that would allow me to apply my research skills for more direct societal benefit. I looked for information about behavioural insights and after lots of inspiring reading and conversations – in other words, reducing my uncertainty - I decided to use the time that is given to me to use my research background in behavioural neuroscience to help address the challenges we are all facing.
That led me to BC BIG. I feel very fortunate to have landed here and I am excited to apply everything I have learned during the last 10 years (and keep learning) to help improve government policies and services. I feel extremely lucky to work with such an amazing team and I have enjoyed every second in my new role.