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. S everal faculty and students focus on the use of computational modeling to the study of brain and behavior. These approaches emphasize that behavior can best be understood as resulting from information processing operations, and the brain can best be understood as a complex computer, albeit a very special type of computer.
Computational models can take many different forms.
At one extreme are models of neural phenomena that incorporate many known facts about the structures and organizations of biological systems. At another extreme are models of behavioral phenomena that incorporate many known facts about cognitive processes and operations. Between these two extremes are models that attempt to account for behavioral phenomena in terms of the underlying neural substrates. Models of all of these types are being developed by members of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, often in collaboration with members of the Department of Computer Science . 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.