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Postdoctoral Fellowship in Model-based Cognitive Neuroscience at Vanderbilt

Posted on Aug 1, 2020

We eagerly seek postdoctoral fellows to join an ongoing collaboration between Thomas Palmeri, Jeffrey Schall, and Gordon Logan at Vanderbilt University using cognitive and neural models to understand visual cognition in humans and monkeys. Successful models predict details of observed behavior and are constrained by and predict neurophysiological, electrophysiological, or brain imaging data. 

Research facilities include several high-end laboratory workstations, computerized behavioral testing stations, a web-based server infrastructure for online experiments, two eye trackers, a shared 10,000+ core CPU cluster and large-scale GPU cluster at Vanderbilt’s ACCRE, state-of-the art facilities for neurophysiology, electrophysiology, and brain imaging, as well as ample office and research space. Postdoctoral fellows will also take advantage of the collaborative environment, facilities, and support in the Department of Psychology (www.vanderbilt.edu/psychological_sciences/) and the Vanderbilt Vision Research Center (vvrc.vanderbilt.edu). And as Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters said, “Everybody now thinks that Nashville is the coolest city in America”.

Candidates can hold a Ph.D. in psychology, neuroscience, computer science, mathematics, engineering, or related disciplines. Candidates should have demonstrated skills in computer programming and statistical analyses. Some demonstrated experience with computational modeling is required. Some knowledge of vision science and neuroscience is desired but not required. Start date is negotiable, but preference will be given to candidates who can begin this fall or winter. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis as they arrive. Salary will be based on the NIH postdoctoral scale. 

Please forward to potential interested applicants.

Applicants should send a cover letter with a brief research statement, a current CV, and names and email addresses of three references to:
Thomas Palmeri
Department of Psychology
Vanderbilt Vision Research Center
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37240
thomas.j.palmeri@vanderbilt.edu  
catlab.psy.vanderbilt.edu  

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Recent Papers

Posted on Jul 14, 2020

Middlebrooks, P.G., Zandbelt, B.B., Logan, G.D., Palmeri, T.J., Schall, J.D. (in press). Unification of countermanding and perceptual decision-making. iScience.

Mack, M.L., & Palmeri, T.J. (in press). Discrimination, recognition, and classification. To appear in M.J. Kahana & A. Wagner (Eds.), Handbook on Human Memory, Oxford University Press.

Benear, S., Sunday, M.A., Palmeri, T.J., & Gauthier, I. (in press). Can art change the way we see? Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

Palmeri, T.J. (2019). On developing and testing cognitive models. Computational Brain & Behavioral.

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Data Science Institute Welcomes DSI-SRP 2020 Fellows

Posted on Jun 2, 2020

The Vanderbilt Data Science Institute welcomed its second cohort of summer research fellows on June 1. The DSI Summer Research Program engages students who are interested in carrying out data science-related research with a Vanderbilt faculty member and integrates them into the institute’s community of data science scholars. This year the program is expanding its mission, as students will be required to dedicate at least 30 percent of their time working on COVID-19 related projects.

As Director of Undergraduate Research for the Data Science Institute, Thomas Palmeri oversees the DSI-SRP program.

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National Endowment for the Arts Grant funded

Posted on May 19, 2019

Palmeri and Gauthier are collaborating with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, on a two-year project that recently earned a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Research: Art Works program award. The project is a scientific study testing whether visual art training can enhance visual perception and visual cognition skills. The Albright-Knox’s Innovation Lab has played a key role in bringing together leading experts in visual arts education, visual perception and visual cognition, and vision, and other collaborators include the Ontario College of Art and Design University and the State University of New York at Buffalo. The team of interdisciplinary partners seeks to combine an art-historical approach to understanding images with a scientific understanding of high-level vision. An arts training program, developed in consultation with OCAD U, will draw from existing museum programs and workshops, as well as basic principles taught in introductory visual studies and visual arts courses, in a series of lessons featuring artworks from the collection of the Albright-Knox. In collaboration with the museum, Vanderbilt will test the impact of the training program on visual perception and visual cognition. The team hopes to use the results of these tests to help shape a curriculum for enhancing high-level visual skills for people from all walks of life, establishing an even more vital role for the visual arts and arts organizations.

Vanderbilt neuroscientists, art museum collaborate on NEA-funded visual cognition research

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Recent Papers

Posted on Feb 2, 2019

Servant, M., Tillman, G., Logan, G.D., Schall, J.D., & Palmeri, T.J. (in press). Neurally-constrained modeling of speed-accuracy tradeoff during visual search: Gated accumulation of modulated evidence. Journal of Neurophysiology.

Annis, J., Evans, N.J., Miller, B.J., & Palmeri, T.J. (in press). Thermodynamic integration and steppingstone sampling methods for estimating Bayes factors: A tutorial for psychologists. Journal of Mathematical Psychology.

Boehm, U., Annis, J., Frank, M.J., Hawkins, G.E., Heathcote, A., Kellen, D., Krypotos, A.-M., Lerche, V., Logan, G.D., Palmeri, T.J., Servant, M., Singmann, H., van Ravenzwaaij, D., Starns, J.J., Wiecki, T.V., Voss, A., Matzke, D., Wagenmakers, E.-J. (in press). Estimating between-trial variability parameters of the drift diffusion model: Expert advice and recommendations. Journal of Mathematical Psychology.

Annis, J., & Palmeri, T.J. (2018). Modeling memory dynamics in visual expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

Ross, D.A., Tamber-Rosenau, B.J., Palmeri, T.J., Zhang, J.D., Xu, Y. & Gauthier, I. (2018). High resolution fMRI reveals configural processing of cars in right anterior Fusiform Face Area of car experts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

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