Awardee: Dora Matzke, PhD
Quote: “Imagine experimental psychology getting a mathematical foundation.”
Main takeaways:
- When it comes to psychological research, methodology (e.g., measures and models used to test research questions) matters!
- Even when testing simple research questions, there will always be many factors that influence outcomes.
- Interdisciplinarity is critical for generating innovative scientific solutions.
Future implications:
- The mathematical models can be used to understand how people move through physical space, which can be applied in policy decisions about maximum capacity and emergency evacuation protocols.
- Well-designed mathematical models can help contextualize previous research findings, improving the efficacy of both past and current science.
- Understanding the factors that contribute to human decision making (in particular, cognitive control) can have important implications for public policy and mental health interventions.
Irrespective of discipline, scientists rely on theory to test their research questions. In scientific contexts, “theory” describes the conceptual frameworks that help researchers understand how a given process may occur, or how constructs may be related to one another. To use an analogy, theory offers the blueprint that guides the construction of studies within the field of psychological science; theories aim to understand how complicated facets of human thought, emotion, and behavior arise. The creation of sound science relies on the work of mathematical psychologists like Dr. Dora Matzke, whose work acts as a bridge between the theory and data. Dr. Matzke uses complex mathematical models to help us understand how people make decisions, turning theories on human cognition into practical, observable results. For her extensive contributions to scientific understanding, FABBS is delighted to award Dr. Matzke with the Early Career Impact Award, as nominated by the Society for Mathematical Psychology.
Dr. Matzke is an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, where she also received her PhD. She has collaborated with public health agencies, including the Public Health Service of Amsterdam and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. Additionally, Dr. Matzke has published nearly seventy highly cited peer-reviewed articles and has solidified herself as an international authority on the mathematical modelling of cognitive processes. In a recent interview with FABBS, she shared some details on her work and journey thus far as a mathematical psychologist.
“I liked psychology, but I also knew I liked statistics and mathematics,” Dr. Matzke recalls, “and so Mathematical Psychology seemed like a fit.” Though the name may conjure images of algebra and geometry, in practice mathematical psychology describes a methods-forward discipline of psychology that aims to bring theory to life. “Imagine experimental psychology getting a mathematical foundation—we try to formalize verbal models of cognitive processes.” Specifically, Dr. Matzke’s work applies advanced mathematical foundations to understand how people make decisions. This involves conducting studies that use widely known research tasks (like a Stroop task) but that apply new, more robust mathematical models to test performance on said tasks, thus extending existing knowledge. “For example, these models allow us to answer questions more directly—so not just that someone is ‘slower’ [at making a decision], for example, but how much slower”, and she explains, why.
Dr. Matzke first began to study decision making while pursuing her master’s degree. However, her focus shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic to understanding movement through physical spaces. “With social distancing and whatnot, we obviously wanted to understand how people move in crowds.” Many of the existing models, Dr. Matzke explains, failed to consider that people may have individual differences that influence the way they move in crowds. “From a psychological perspective, these models were all inadequate, because they treated people as particles—many of their methods came from physics and engineering.” Using mathematical psychology, Dr. Matzke generated person-centered agent models that can account for the fact that, for example, a grandmother may move through space in a different way than a six-year-old grandchild.
“For me, the first thing is always to think about what you measure…you have to think about how people approach a task and do your best to build models that give a faithful representation of that,” Dr. Matzke states. “Even in very simple tasks, there will always be many, many contributors to performance.” Collectively, Dr. Matzke’s work provides psychologists with innovative methodological tools to enrich the ways that research questions are approached.
Regardless of specific research topic, one key feature of Dr. Matzke’s approach is a focus on interdisciplinarity. She collaborates with researchers across a wide range of disciplines and has team members located across the globe. In addition to her impressive contributions to the scientific community, Dr. Matzke has been involved in many efforts which aim to bridge the gap between scientists and the general public. She has contributed to an outreach program that focuses on facilitating conversations between scientists and civilians in the Netherlands and has collaborated with the Dutch NEMO Science Museum to bring science to children in the community. It is clear from her collected contributions to both research and the public that Dr. Matzke is an invaluable member of the scientific community, and FABBS is thrilled to honor her achievements.
