Computation, Cognition, and the Brain
Several faculty and students focus on the use of mathematical analysis and computational modeling to study the brain and behavior. Significant progress in our field requires an emphasis on theoretical frameworks and findings which, we believe, can best be achieved through computational methods. Members of our department study the Brain & Cognitive Sciences from a wide variety of perspectives. Some researchers seek to understand information processing by individual neurons and groups of neurons organized into circuits. Other researchers seek to understand human behavior through computational frameworks constrained by what we know about people's mental abilities. And still other researchers seek to create artificial intelligence by developing new data structures and algorithms. An unusual aspect of BCS is the large number of members whose research interests reflect two or more of these perspectives. We often conduct our research in collaboration with colleagues in the Department of Computer Science and with other members of the Center for Computation and the Brain.
Primary Faculty
 Neural mechanisms of depth and motion perception |
 Neural basis of decision-making |
 Computational Cognition and Perception |
 Language production and comprehension |
 Visual perception and visuo-motor control; computational vision |
 Population coding; spatial representation in vision |
Secondary Faculty
 Computational linguistics and discourse processing |
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 Statistical approaches to natural language processing |
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 Theoretical statistical and condensed matter physics |
 Music perception and cognition |