Cognition at Stanford
Jay McClelland & Lera Boroditsky
Spring, 2009
the cognitive faculties
decision
making
perception
memory
executive
functions
learning &
development
language
semantic cognition
the cognitive faculty
decision
making
perception
executive
functions
memory
language
learning &
development
semantic cognition
some of the questions
•
How do we get so smart? How does neural tissue think?
•
How do we acquire, construct, store and use knowledge?
•
How do we make meaning out of sensory data?
•
How do we learn language and communicate?
•
How does your brain translate the strange series of hisses, tones, puffs, and
pops I am producing with my mouth into meaningful thoughts?
•
How do language, experience, and culture shape the way we think?
•
How do we remember, why do we forget?
•
What does it mean to imagine?
•
How do we reason and make decisions?
•
How does sophisticated behavior emerge out of simple building blocks?
the methods
• testing adults
– individually & in interactions
– in the lab and out in the world
– measuring all aspects & products of human behavior
the methods
• testing adults
– individually & in interactions
– in the lab and out in the world
• testing children
the methods
• testing adults
– individually & in interactions
– in the lab and out in the world
• testing children
• fMRI, EEG, MEG, TMS
the methods
• testing adults
– individually & in interactions
– in the lab and out in the world
• testing children
• fMRI, EEG, MEG, TMS
• patient populations
• J
• L
Semantic dementia
patient’s drawing of a
swan
the methods
• testing adults
– individually & in interactions
Hippocampus
– in the lab and out in the world
• testing children
• fMRI, EEG, MEG, TMS
• patient populations
• computational modeling
Context
Neo-Cortex
Relation
Cue
Response
the methods
• testing adults
– individually & in interactions
– in the lab and out in the world
• testing children
• fMRI, EEG, MEG, TMS
• patient populations
• computational modeling
• cross-cultural comparisons
the methods
• testing adults
– individually & in interactions
– in the lab and out in the world
• testing children
• fMRI, EEG, MEG, TMS
• patient populations
• computational/mathematical modeling
• cross-cultural comparisons
• linguistic analyses
Lera Boroditsky
How can we mentally represent things
we could never see or touch?
How do the languages we speak shape
the ways we think?
What does it mean to imagine?
Herb Clark
Cognitive and social processes
in language use and discourse.
What speakers mean in saying
what they say.
Pretense, deception, irony…
Special interest in conversation.
wife:
husband:
I’m leaving.
Who is he?
Jay McClelland*
•
•
•
•
•
•
computational modeling
cognitive development
context effects
critical periods
concepts
continuity in processing,
representation and learning
• causal reasoning
• comprehension
• convergent contributions
of collaborating brain areas
How does complex behavior emerge from simple processing and learning mechanisms?
*according to l.b.
Ewart Thomas
Statistical methods.
Mathematical and
experimental analyses of
information processing,
equity, and small-group
processes.
Life after Stanford
Steven Kosslyn
David Rumelhart
Larry Barsalou
Bob Sternberg
Keith Holyoak
Beth Loftus
Richard Shiffrin
John Anderson
Steve Sloman
Brian Ross
Mark Gluck
Larry Maloney
Greg Murphy
Lynn Cooper
Harvard
Stanford
Emory
Yale
UCLA
UC Irvine
Indiana
CMU
Brown
Illinois
Rutgers
NYU
NYU
Columbia
Life after Stanford
Danny Oppenheimer
Princeton
Tom Griffiths
Brown, Berkeley
Lera Boroditsky
MIT, Stanford
Alex Huk
UT Austin
Noam Sobel
Berkeley
Silvia Bunge
UC Davis, Berkeley
Beth Marsh
Duke
Jeff Zacks
Wash U
Jonathan Demb
Michigan
Anthony Wagner
MIT, Stanford
Sharon Thompson-Schill
UPenn