Redrawing the lines between language and graphics

Graphic and verbal communication are typically thought to work in very different ways. While speech uses a conventionalized vocabulary that is acquired from children’s environments, drawing is assumed to reflect the articulation of how people see and think, with learning based on “artistic talent.” Yet, research from linguistics and cognitive science upends these assumptions, suggesting that these domains are actually not so distinctive.

Contextual effects, image statistics, and deep learning

Neural responses and perception of visual inputs strongly depend on the spatial context, i.e., what surrounds a given object or feature. I will discuss our work on developing a visual cortical model based on the hypothesis that neurons represent inputs in a coordinate system that is matched to the statistical structure of images in the natural environment. The model generalizes a nonlinear computation known as normalization, that is ubiquitous in neural processing, and can capture some spatial context effects in cortical neurons.

Individual Differences in Lifespan Cognitive Development

This is an exciting time for scientists who are interested in cognitive development: there is now a wealth of easily-accessible data that can be used to ask interesting questions about how psychological, neural, and genetic factors affect changes in cognitive functions across the lifespan - and how they differ between individuals. In this talk, I'll describe several studies that apply individual-differences methods to large-scale, sometimes longitudinal datasets that include cognitive and biological information.

The links between spatial and social perspective-taking

Being able to place yourself “in someone else's shoes” requires two main perspective-taking abilities. First, perceiving another’s spatial point of view (spatial perspective-taking) and second, representing their thoughts and intentions (hereafter social perspective-taking). Recent findings point towards critical links between the processing of higher-order mental information and lower-level spatial abilities using behavioural methods in neurotypicals, in patients, and using neuro-imaging.

Traditional Supernatural Beliefs and Pro-Social Behavior

Abstract: In sub-Saharan Africa, traditional religious beliefs, including belief in witchcraft, black magic, or fetishism, are widespread. Some have hypothesized that these beliefs help to sustain cooperative behavior in a setting where the state is often absent. Others have documented that, at least at a macro-level such beliefs are negatively associated with prosocial behavior. We contribute to a better understanding of the causal effects of these traditional religious beliefs using lab-in-the-field experiments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The psychological origins of the first modern revolutions

The two researchers studied the content of about two thousand theatre plays from the early modern period in England and in France, over three hundred years, and tracked the dynamics of words related to cooperation and domination. Assuming that the content of these texts reflects the preferences of the authors and the audience, they assessed trends in preferences for cooperation over time, their relationship to democratic revolutions and how these trends coexisted with economic development.

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