Ondřej Zíka

Hi!

I am a postdoctoral scientist working at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. My research interests evolve around understanding how uncertainty impacts human decisions and how it interacts with different aspects of mental health (anxiety, eating disorders) and development. To study these topics I use range of experimental and computational methods (reinforcement learning, Bayesian models) together with physiology (eye-tracking, skin conductance) and neuroimaging (fMRI). Apart from academic research, I sometimes get involved in data science and coding projects, both for fun and as a consultant.

I strive to make science inclusive and supportive for everyone. I very much welcome anyone reaching out with any questions or comments about science, career or life in general. I can be found here.

P.S.: ř is a great sound, I know. And no, I don’t expect anyone to try to pronounce it :)

News

July 2024: Talk at BAP 2024!

I recently gave a short interview to Mental Elf about my talk at the British Association for Psychopharmacology Annual Meeting (BAP). We briefly discuss how uncertainty generates moments of ambiguity about the causal structure of the world and how perhaps anxious individuals tend to fill in information to reduce the uneasing sense of uncertainty. We also discuss how this can sometimes result in wrong interpretation of for example social cues in anxiety. This is largely based on our recent paper.