Research
Research Initiatives
CCSN Research Initiatives were designed to organize faculty into groups addressing similar "big questions." Faculty within each initiative strive to identify and employ complementary methodologies as well as intellectual opportunities for the creation of new programs of research. These initiatives, however, are necessarily overlapping, a fact that reflects the Center's committment to interdisciplinary inquiry as well as the fundamental interconnectedness of cognition.
Embodied CognitionAttention and MemoryNeuroeconomicsLanguage ProcessesSocial StructuresSocial IntelligenceComputation
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Embodied Cognition
Leader: Sian Beilock
Traditional views of cognitive psychology characterize the mind as an abstract information processor largely divorced from the body and the environment. However, more recent theories of embodied cognition suggest that our ability to represent objects and events is closely related to the sensorimotor systems that govern action. This embodied viewpoint has roots in ecological psychology’s refutation of a distinction between perception and action.
Sister Labs: Utrecht University (Semin)
Attention and Memory
Leader: Howard Nusbaum
Attention and memory work at CCSN tends to focus on the importance of contextual factors as opposed to those rooted solely in the brain. For example, Howard Nusbaum focuses on the cognitive mechanisms underlying attention, working memory and learning as they are practiced in behavioral contexts, as well as the intersections of these mechanisms in language processing, while David Gallo studies whether processes occurring outside our conscious awareness can produce false memories.
Neuroeconomics
Leader: John T. Cacioppo
The neuroeconomics initiative brings primarily behavioral economists and neuropsychologists together to investigate the biological bases of economic decision-making. While classical economic theory posits individuals to be rational decision-makers with purely self-regarding preferences, mounting evidence supports the idea that people make “irrational” decisions in systematic ways, and that these decisions depend upon both perceived individual utility and processes involved in social cognition. A neuroeconomics perspective assumes that the ability to make economic judgments and decisions depends upon the integrated functioning of the nervous system.
Sister Labs: Northwestern University (Gollan), Dartmouth (Norris), Michigan (Phan), Washington University (Raichle), Beijing Normal University (Yuejia Luo)
Language Processes
Leader: Steven L. Small
Language is a fundamentally social phenomenon. Research increasingly indicates that we can no longer study language and language use separately, attempting to isolate linguistic from putatively non-linguistic processes such as motor activity, working memory, or attention. This shift away from identifying processes “in” the brain entails corresponding methodological shifts towards examining cortical activity during language behavior.
Sister Labs: College de France (Dehaene)
Social Structures
Leader: Linda J. Waite
The social structures initiative seeks to integrate sociological knowledge with psychological perspectives. Psychological repercussions deriving from the disruption of, for example, social roles may have long-term health consequences, as in the case of loss of social connection in the context of divorce, family trauma, or change in economic status. The information processing architecture enabling us to engage in social behavior exists as a delicate feedback between cognitive mechanisms and the social structures found in our environments.
Sister Labs: Johns Hopkins (Hughs)
Social Intelligence
Leader: Jean Decety
Studies of social intelligence investigate the ability to perceive one’s own and others’ internal states, motives, and behaviors and to act towards them optimally on the basis of that information. Research suggests that the quality of social intelligence is distinct from that of cognitive intelligence, and that they are supported by separate neural substrates.
Sister Labs: Kansas (Batson), University of Vienna (Bauer), Ohio State University (Berntson), National University Singapore (Bishop), Free University Amsterdam (Boomsma), UCLA (Cole), Beijing University (Han), Tohoku University (Kawashima), National Yang Ming University (Lin), National Center of Mental Health (Moriguchi), UIC (Porges), University of Freiburg (Scheidt), University of Hong Kong (Tatia Lee), Laboratorio de Neurosciencias Cognitivas (Agustin Ibanez),Research Center for Innovative Oncology in Kashiwa, Japan (Yosuke Uchitomi)
Computation
Leader: Keith Worsley
CCSN researchers have access to the most cutting edge analysis tools, such as grid and supercomputing, which have been developed by colleagues in Computer Science and at Argonne National Laboratory (such as Ian Foster). Keith Worsley, a professor in statistics, works on random field theory in astrophysics and brain mapping, and has developed statistical methods for fMRI data analysis, suggesting optimal experimental designs.
Sister Labs: Chinese National Academy of Sciences (Chen), University of Hong Kong (Tan), Beijing University (Shiui)
