CNS 2023 Q&A: Anna Schapiro Machine learning and artificial intelligence continue to progress, with much focus lately on new innovations like ChatGP, a chatbot that can give, sometimes shockingly, detailed responses to a variety of questions. In the background of these developments, cognitive neuroscientists continue to work to understand what makes humans such elegant learners, […]
Looking Forward to Understand Working Memory
CNS 2023 Q&A: Freek van Ede When people think about memory, they often think about the past, about looking backward. But for Freek van Ede, memory, in particular working memory, is about looking forward. “Sometimes I think that the term ‘memory’ has lured us into studying working memory – and perhaps visual working memory in […]
From the Neurology Clinic to the Lab and Back Again: Addressing Frontal Lobe Syndromes
CNS 2023 Q&A: Mark D’Esposito Since becoming a neurologist more than 30 years ago, Mark D’Esposito has seen thousands of patients, many of whom have suffered frontal lobe syndromes, learning every day in his clinic. “Some of what I learn helps guide my research that strives to understand the function of the human brain. Some […]
When Philosophical Questions Turn to Neuroscience Experimentation
CNS 2023 Q&A with Sabine Kastner In high school and then into undergraduate school, Sabine Kastner was most interested in the humanities: literature, history, and philosophy. But she would have a formative experience attending a public “Christmas Lecture” by neurologist and neurophysiologist Otto Creutzfeldt in the mid-1980s about the connection between Kant’s philosophy and neuroscience. […]
Groups Decisions Less Burdensome to the Brain Than Solo Ones
Our daily lives are full of many decisions – from what to eat for breakfast to what tasks to prioritize in the day. While we make many of these decisions on our own, many are also made with others, such as deciding with your family where to go out to eat or in working on […]
The Extra Reward of Praise from Superiors
While pursuing her master’s degree in psychology, Ran Duan’s supervisor posed a question to her: “Would you feel happier receiving praise from a superior compared to receiving praises from a lower status person? How about receiving criticism?” “His words inspired me and my research,” recalls Duan, who is a graduate student at Shenzhen University working […]
Disentangling Overlapping Memories in Older Adults
Kyoungeun Lee’s research to understand memory in aging adults began in an unlikely place: robots. While working on a large-scale project to develop a compatible artificial intelligence-driven robot for older adults, she was struck by the number of participants who were concerned about their memory declining. “I was able to vividly observe their fears about […]
Guiding Trainees Through Ambiguity and Change
CNS 2022 Guest post by Alexandra (Lesya) Gaynor and Alexander (AJ) Simon (CNSTA) Two years into the pandemic, many of us are carefully re-evaluating what’s most important to us, and for cognitive neuroscience trainees thinking about the next steps in their careers, balancing priorities was at the forefront of their minds at this year’s CNS […]
Lessons About Learning
CNS 2022 Guest post by Teodora Stoica Similar to constructing a pyramid, learning a new skill requires building both dynamically and efficiently upon an already existing foundation. During this year’s Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting (CNS 2022), Jiefeng Jiang of the University of Iowa illustrated that learning a simple task can facilitate the learning of complex […]
Connecting Across the Ocean to Present on Tactile Empathy
CNS 2022 The annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society last month brought together more than 1,000 attendees from all over the world, but three young researchers were noticeably absent. Only one of the four recipients of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (JoCN) Travel Fellowship was able to make it to the meeting, due to […]
