CNS 2020 Guest Post by Anne Billot Being able to directly target specific areas of the brain is important both for cognitive neuroscientists seeking to establish direct causal links between neural signal and cognitive processes and for clinicians treating neurological disorders. The gold standard for approaching such tasks has been to directly manipulate the brain […]
TMS Provides a Window into Language Network Reorganization After a Stroke
CNS 2020 Guest Post by Natalie Gilmore In recent years, scientists have used neurostimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to help understand how various aspects of the brain work. By sending electrical currents to one part of the brain, they can help isolate functionality. Such studies are especially valuable in understanding how the […]
CNS 2020 Day 4 Highlights
The final day of CNS 2020 Virtual brought us a diverse set of symposia, in addition to the final poster sessions and an award lecture by Nancy Kanwisher. Her 26th Annual George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience Lecture was entitled Functional Imaging of the Human Brain: A Window into the Architecture of the Mind. […]
From Expressions to Mind Wandering: Using Computers to Illuminate Human Emotions
CNS 2020 Press Release May 5, 2020 – A common view of human emotions is that they are too idiosyncratic and subjective to be studied scientifically. But as being presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) virtual meeting today, cognitive neuroscientists are using contemporary, data-driven computational methods to overturn old ideas about the structure of […]
From Scaffolding to Screens: Understanding the Developing Brain for Reading
CNS 2020 Press Release May 4, 2020 – In the debate about nature versus nurture for developing reading skills, cognitive neuroscientists have a clear message: both matter. From infancy, children have a neural scaffolding in place upon which environmental factors refine and build reading skills. In new work being presented today at the Cognitive Neuroscience […]
CNS 2020 Day 2 Highlights
Day 2 of CNS 2020 Virtual started off strong with the first invited symposium, chaired by Christoph Kayser, and featuring a terrific panel of speakers on the role causal inference for perceptual decisions and adaptive behavior. Midday, Marlene Behrmann (Carnegie Melon University) delivered her Fred Kavli Distinguished Career Contributions in Cognitive Neuroscience award lecture on […]
CNS 2020 Virtual: Day 1, First Impressions
Today was the first day of a new type of scientific conference — an entirely virtual annual CNS meeting. We are excited to be able to pioneer this new format in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, to bring you all the great cognitive neuroscience originally planned for our meeting in Boston in March, but […]
Juggling the Early Years of a Cognitive Neuroscience Career
Shelby Smith remembers feeling inspired and humbled the first time she attended the professional development panel at an annual CNS meeting. “There is just something about being in a room filled to the brim with other students where the only purpose of being there is to show you that you’re not alone and that there […]
It’s All Relative: Cooperation Makes People A Special Type of Ape
Q&A with Michael Tomasello When Michael Tomasello was an undergraduate student at Duke University studying developmental psychology, he studied the theories of Jean Piaget, a psychologist who thought evolutionarily. “He was looking at children like they were a different species,” Tomasello recalls. “He would always emphasize that they have their own way and own logic, […]
Modeling Learning Across the Lifespan
Q&A with Catherine Hartley At a special session on the relation between psychology and neuroscience at last year’s CNS conference in San Francisco, Catherine Hartley said: “Even if we can predict behavior, if we don’t know how it works, we likely have not achieved our goals.” While computational algorithms and tools may help researchers predict […]
