The research activities of our lab have an interest in how individuals regulate their behaviour over time under varied conditions of constraint (e.g., cognitive, informational, physical, environmental, mechanical etc.). Our goal is to observe and document how systems define the structure of human action and shape the way which individuals allocate effort, interpret information, make decisions and adapt to changing demands in search of optimal outcomes. We work to develop explanatory data-based models that account for variability in outcomes among individuals operating within the same system. We view learning environments, communication and media contexts and human–machine interactions as comparable for analysing behavioural regulation, allowing shared principles of adaptation, constraint and performance to be examined across each area within a similar analytical framework.