Overview of Research Programs
Our research spans a large domain and straddles several disciplines in the behavioral, neural and computational sciences. All of it is connected by the idea that to understand behavior we must study the processes—both neural and computational—that underlie it. While the faculty have active research programs on many topics, in several areas the department, in conjunction with the surrounding University community, has notable concentrations of strength. Some of these concentrations of expertise are in specific perceptual or cognitive systems; others cover broader theoretical issues that cut across systems and species.
One large group of faculty and students focus their research on understanding the organization and function of the visual system. Members of this group use a range of perceptual, physiological, anatomical and computational methods to investigate the optics of the eye, signal processing in the retina and at higher levels in the visual pathway, and the mechanisms underlying the perception of color, motion, shape, and other attributes of visual images. Many investigators also study the integration of visual perception with memory and motor organization. The Center for Visual Science, an interdisciplinary research unit to which many faculty, fellows and students in the department belong, provides the focus for research on vision, drawing us together with scientists from the departments of Computer Science, Ophthalmology, Neurobiology and Anatomy, Neurology, and the Institute of Optics.
A second constellation of faculty and students studies the nature of language processing and acquisition. This research spans a broad set of topics, ranging from the perception of speech sounds and words, the production and comprehension of spoken and written language, and the acquisition of spoken languages by young children and adults, to investigations of the structure, processing, and acquisition of signed languages. The Center for Language Sciences, an interdisciplinary research unit associated with the department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, brings together our own faculty, fellows and students with language scientists from the departments of Linguistics, Computer Science, and Philosophy.
The study of learning and plasticity during development cuts across domains and links those who study perception, language, and neurobiology. Faculty and students working on a variety of different systems share an interest in the mechanisms that underlie learning and plasticity, and explore these mechanisms using behavioral, computational, and neuroscientific methods. The research ranges from investigating the development of perception and language in human infants and adults, and the acquisition of bird song in finches and sparrows, to the measurement and modeling of the neural and computational mechanisms that underlie developmental plasticity, Hebbian learning, and critical periods in the development of the brain and behavior.
Research programs in the broad domain of cognitive neuroscience offer students in the department an opportunity to stress neurobiological approaches to cognition in their research, while developing a perspective strongly shaped by the department's emphasis on combining behavioral, computational, and neural investigations. Faculty in this area seek to understand complex cognitive processes in terms of their underlying neural mechanisms. Their investigations employ a variety of complementary tools to understand the neural bases of visual perception, sensory integration and motor planning, language acquisition, and learning and memory. Behavioral and psychophysical studies identify the tasks and functions performed by the brain during cognition. Brain-imaging (fMRI) studies identify regions of the brain engaged in cognitive processes, and neurobiological studies explore how their cellular and molecular properties relate to behavioral measures of cognition.
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 and 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.
The Schmitt Program on Integrative Brain Research brings together our own faculty, fellows and students with scientists in the department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and the Center for Aging and Developmental Biology who share an interest in learning, plasticity, and memory.