Adriana F. Chávez De la Peña

My journey into Cognitive Science began in Lab25.

In January 2015, I joined the Learning and Adaptive Behavior Laboratory (Lab25) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where I would spend the next three years working under the mentorship of Dr. Arturo Bouzas Riaño. This marked the beginning of my journey into cognitive science as an experimental psychologist.

Research Focus

During my time at Lab25, I was primarily interested in exploring and learning about mathematical models of perception and memory. I immediately became interested in Signal Detection Theory as a way to understand how people make decisions under uncertainty.

My undergraduate thesis explored the generalizability of the mirror effect —a pattern typically observed in recognition memory tasks analyzed through Signal Detection Theory— to visual perception tasks. Using the Ebbinghaus illusion, I designed and programmed experiments that compared performance across different difficulty levels (manipulated through the number of surrounding circles).

Teaching & Development

My involvement at Lab25 extended far beyond research:

• I served as a teaching assistant (and later, head teaching assistant) for the undergraduate course series “Aprendizaje y Conducta Adaptativa I, II & III” (Learning and Adaptive Behavior), as well as for the various Research Workshops and summer seminars that Lab25 organized.
• I also participated actively in grant writing to support our lab’s funding initiatives.
• I was also involved in the development of interactive educational tools. Using RShiny and Jupyter Notebook, I created applications that helped students understand complex mathematical models in psychology through hands-on exploration.
• As a senior lab member, I was involved in the development of the first Lab25 website.
• As a senior lab member, I was also in charge of supervising and mentoring the next generation of Lab25 members, an endeavour that gave me great joy and allowed me to form valuable friendships and professional relationships.

Lab25, 2017 edition