CATLAB

Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)

Posted on Feb 9, 2015

We are looking for outstanding students interested in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at the CatLab at Vanderbilt University this summer 2015. Our REU is part of an NSF-funded project entitled Perceptual Categorization in Real-World Expertise. This project uses online behavioral experiments to understand the temporal dynamics of perceptual expertise, measuring and manipulating the dynamics of object recognition and categorization at different levels of abstraction and assessing how those dynamics vary over measured levels of expertise, using computational models to test hypotheses about expertise mechanisms. Students have opportunities to work on projects ranging from the development of online experiments, development of analysis routines, and development and testing of computational models. This REU is especially appropriate for students interested in applying to graduate programs in psychology, vision science, cognitive science, or neuroscience. The REU provides a $5000 summer stipend, $500 per week for ten weeks; an additional $150 per week helps offsets the cost of housing and meals; a $250 travel allowance is also provided. REUs are restricted to undergraduate students currently enrolled in a degree program and must be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or permanent residents of the United States. Undergraduates who are students at Vanderbilt may have the opportunity to continue the REU into the 2015-16 academic year. Click on READ MORE for further details on the REU and how to apply.

Special Issue on Model-Based Cognitive Neuroscience

Posted on Dec 5, 2014

Thomas Palmeri from Vanderbilt, Brad Love from University College London, and Brandon Turner from The Ohio State University are co-editing a special issue of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology on Model-Based Cognitive Neuroscience. This special issue aims to explore the growing intersection between cognitive modeling and cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive modeling has a rich history of formalizing and testing hypotheses about cognitive mechanisms within a mathematical and computational language, making exquisite predictions of how people perceive, learn, remember, and decide. Cognitive neuroscience aims to identify neural mechanisms associated with key aspects of cognition, using techniques like neurophysiology, electrophysiology, and structural and functional brain imaging. These two come together in a powerful new approach called model-based cognitive neuroscience, which can both inform model selection and help interpret neural measures. Cognitive models decompose complex behavior into representations and processes and these latent model states are used to explain the modulation of brain states under different experimental conditions. Reciprocally, neural measures provide data that help constrain cognitive models and adjudicate between competing cognitive models that make similar predictions of behavior. For example, brain measures are related to cognitive model parameters fitted to individual participant data, measures of brain dynamics are related to measures of model dynamics, model parameters are constrained by neural measures, model parameters are used in statistical analyses of neural data, or neural and behavioral data are analyzed jointly within hierarchical modeling framework.

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PEN XXX Reunion Meeting

Posted on Dec 1, 2014

The Perceptual Expertise Network will be celebrating our 30th workshop by inviting current PEN members, previous PEN members, and PEN friends to join us for a day of talks as well as a reunion dinner following the talks. This will be held on May 14th, 2015 at the TradeWinds Island Grand Resort in St. Pete Beach, Florida, as a satellite to the annual VSS conference.