Supervising Faculty: Dr. Mehrgol Tiv
Contact: Dr. Mehrgol Tiv, mehrgoltiv@pitt.edu
Area of Research: Cognitive Psychology, Social Cognition, Language, Network Analysis, Diversity
Description of Research: The Cognition in Context Laboratory researches how interactions between people and their social environments relate to adaptive cognitive behaviors, including reading and language. Currently, we are examining how social network experiences, such as diverse perspective bridging, relate to eye movement patterns while reading socially-nuanced language (e.g., non-literal language, social inferences). To do this, we work with egocentric social network data collected from participants who also completed a natural reading task in the lab with eyetracking. Future work may involve integration of large, population-level datasets such as data collected by the U.S. Census.
Interested students can read these papers to gain a better sense of this research project:
Hodgins, V., Tiv, M., El Mouslih, C. et al. Bilingual irony processing during natural reading: A within-participant look at L1 versus L2 effects using eye-movement measures. Mem Cogn (2025). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-025-01722-z
Tiv, M., Kutlu, E., O'Regan, E., & Titone, D. (2022). Bridging people and perspectives: General and language-specific social network structure predict mentalizing across diverse sociolinguistic contexts. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 76(4), 235–250. https://doi.org/10.1037/cep0000273
** for open access to these papers, please visit www.mehrgoltiv.com/papers
Duties of Students: We are seeking enthusiastic, curious, and creative undergraduate students interested in gaining interdisciplinary research experience. Duties will vary by semester. At this time, students will conduct literature reviews, analyze experimental and survey data, design data visualizations, present research findings, and develop scientific writing.
The lab uses R for all statistical and graphical analyses, and incoming students will be expected to know or learn how to use R. We prefer (but do not require) some experience working with social network and/or eyetracking data. If you do not have this experience but are interested in learning, please still apply. Students will meet with PI on a regular basis and should be available for scheduled lab meetings with other lab members. All accepted students must uphold a respectful, inclusive, and collaborative lab environment.
For more information on our lab, please visit www.mehrgoltiv.com
Requirements:
- Overall GPA of 3.0 or higher
- 12 credits of Psychology (including current term)
- STAT 0200/1000/1100 Statistics
- PSY 0036 Research Methods Lecture
- PSY 0037 Research Methods Lab
- Strong motivation to pursue interdisciplinary research
- Curious, dependable, and openly communicative
Terms offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026 (Prefer students who can stay both terms)
Number of Students: 2
Application: If you would like to apply, please complete our application form here: https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1Ch1NHPZPYVKI86 After you submit your application, please email Dr. Mehrgol Tiv at mehrgoltiv@pitt.edu to inform the lab that you have completed the application.