Omran Safi

About Me

I am a PhD student in Cognitive Psychology at the University of British Columbia . My research interests include time in memory, episodic recall and simulation, and more broadly the (re)constructive processes underlying these phenomena.

I enjoy exploring a number of topics in an interdisciplinary and diverse environment. I believe that diversity of thought and diversity of representation in unison with interdisciplinary work is a formula for success in any field. Some topics that interest me are Time, Memory, Imagination, Consciousness, and Artificial Intelligence. While my main area of research is Cognitive Psychology, I also love reading and learning about evolution, astrophysics, and ecology.

When I am not pursuing my academic goals, I enjoy spending time outdoors and can often be found cycling, hiking, or rock climbing.

My Research

I am currently conducting research at the Memory and Imagination lab located in the Department of Psychology at UBC. My work examines how we remember elapsed time for the varying events we experience in our lives. At present, my PhD research is focused on elucidating the threads which bind together our sense of subjective time. As such, my research focuses on what factors affect how we remember time for the disparate episodes within our lives. I use a combination of traditional labratory studies and virtual reality to study this.

During my master's I focused the effects of negative emotion on recalled duration, using virtual reality to provide emotional and neutral events in a naturally-unfolding and life-like way while retaining experimental control. Prior to this, my work spanned three labratories where I was involved in fMRI, virutal reality, and EEG research.

At the Motivated Cognition lab I explored a novel method of fMRI analysis seeking to compare and track connectivity pattern components across brain regions. At the Behavioral Sustainability lab my research focused on examining the consequences of affect generated from the overview effect on climate change attitudes and behaviors using virtual reality. Lastly, at the Behavioral Reward Affect & Impulsivity Neuroscience (BRAIN) lab my work focused on using a portable EEG headband called the Muse to assess implicit craving in clinical populations with concurrent stimulant use and mental disorders.

Publications

Safi, O. K., Shi, Y., Madan, C. R., Lin, T., & Palombo, D. J. (2023). The effects of emotion on retrospective duration memory using virtual reality. Psychological Research, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-023-01909-6

Ballance, B. C., Tuen, Y. J., Petrucci, A. S., Orwig, W., Safi, O. K., Palombo, D., & Madan, C. (2022). Imagining Emotional Events Benefits Future-Oriented Decisions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218221086637

Safi, O. K., Tommasi, M., Sun, B., Thornley, J., & Dodani, A. (2020). Carbon Footprint Information Promotes Sustainable Food Choices. https://bit.ly/2UVyGcm

Outdoors

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Beautiful BC

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Wind and Water

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Remember to look back

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Black Tusk

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Garibaldi Lake

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Nature's Colors

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Far over the misty mountains

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Up and Over

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Island

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Hello there

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Summit

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Lynn Headwaters

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Cypress Mountain

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"Not all those who wander are lost" - J. R. R. Tolkien

Elements

i = 0;

while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
    print 'Iteration ' + i;
    deck.shuffle();
    i++;
}

print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';