Junqiang (Jacob) Dai
Assistant Professor Neuroscience, Psychology- Education
Ph.D. Penn State University, 2021
- Specializations
Adolescent Development, Developmental Neuroscience, Social Development, Puberty Development, Face Recognition and Perception, Social Reward and Sensitivity, Risk Taking, Peer Influence and Relationships, Social Network, Ethnic-racial Socialization and Identity Development, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Representational Similarity Analysis
- Biography
Dr. Junqiang (Jacob) Dai earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Penn State University in 2021 (advisor: Dr. Suzy Scherf) and worked as a post-doc at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (mentors: Drs. Eva Telzer and Kristen Lindquist) before he joined Georgia State in 2024. Dr. Dai’s past research mainly focuses on the complex relationship between adolescent brain development, social behaviors and perception, pubertal development (hormones/stage), peer influence susceptibility, and individual differences in health-related developmental outcomes (e.g., risky behaviors, susceptibility), using interdisciplinary approaches such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), behavioral paradigms, sociometric network analysis, and survey measures. His future research interests include:
- The prolonged developmental trajectories of face processing behaviors (e.g., identity, emotion, trait, race) during adolescence and emerging adulthood, and how this neurodevelopment supports social navigations and influences health-related outcomes.
- How individuals use social information perceived from human faces to guide their social behaviors, change their behaviors (social influences) in various social contexts (e.g., decision-making), and potentially influence their developmental outcomes.
- Given the significant change in the demographics of the U.S. and other Western countries., another line of his research will focus on how adolescents develop in interracial contexts, particularly how adolescents perceive own- and other-race groups, and its developmental implications (e.g., social behaviors towards others and mental health disorders)
- Holistically understand how adolescent brains intersect with social contexts (peers, families, school, neighborhood) to contribute to individual differences in development, leveraging computational neuroscience, machine learning approaches, and large ABCD (Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development) dataset.
Upload Publications
- Publications
Dai, J., * Kwon, S., Lindquist A. K., Prinstein J. M., Telzer, H. E., (2023). Neural Similarity in Nucleus Accumbens during Decision-making for the Self and A Best Friend: Links to Adolescents’ Self-reported Susceptibility to Peer Influence and Risk Taking. Human Brain Mapping, 44(10), 3972-3985.
Dai, J., Jorgensen, A. N., Duell., Capella, J., Maza, M., Kwon, S., Prinstein J. M., Telzer, H. E., * (2023). Neural Tracking of Social Hierarchies in Adolescents’ Real-World Social Networks. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 18(1), 1-16.
Dai, J., Scherf, K.S * (2023). The Privileged Status of Peer Faces: Subordinate-Level Neural Representations of Faces in Emerging Adults; Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 35(4), 715-735.
Dai, J., Griffin J., Scherf, K.S * (2024). How is Race Perceived during Adolescence? A Meta-analysis of the Own-race Bias. Developmental Psychology
Dai, J., Scherf, K.S * (2023). The Privileged Status of Peer Faces: Subordinate-Level Neural Representations of Faces in Emerging Adults; Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 35(4), 715-735.
Telzer, H. E., * Dai, J., Capella, J. J., Sobrino, M., Garrett, L. S (2022). Challenging Stereotypes of Teens: Reframing Adolescence as Window of Opportunity. American Psychologist 77(9), 1067.
Feldman, M., * Capella, J., * Dai, J., Bonar, A., Field, N., Lewis, K., Prinstein, M., Telzer, E., Lindquist, K (2024). Proximity within Real-World Adolescent Peer Networks Predict Neural Similarity during Affective Experience. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
Arrington, M., Elbich, D., Dai, J., Duchaine B., Scherf, K.S * (2022). Introducing the Female Cambridge Face Memory Test – Long Form (F-CFMT+). Behavior Research Methods 54(6), 3071-3084.
Dai, J., Scherf, K.S * (2019). Puberty and Functional Brain Development in Humans: Convergence in Findings? Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 39, 100690.