Cognition

Title: The Visual Brain: From Lines to Memory

Carmen Pons, MD, PhD, Resident, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Chicago Medicine

Abstract: Artists have long observed that humans perceive dark features more easily than light ones, but the neural mechanisms behind this asymmetry remained unclear. My research investigates how the ON and OFF visual pathways contribute to this phenomenon. The ON pathway, responsible for processing light stimuli, shows luminance/response saturation that diminishes the salience of light targets—especially under optical blur—whereas the OFF pathway processes dark stimuli more reliably. These ON/OFF asymmetries help explain why darks are more perceptually salient and may underlie visual disorders such as myopia. The ON and OFF cortical organization that I have investigated serves as the foundation for higher-order visual maps, including orientation and face detection. Building on this work, I now aim to explore a new level of visual complexity: the neural basis of memorability.

Time: 04/30/25 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: Synchronization of cortico-hippocampal networks supports flexible memory-guided behaviors

James Kragel, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology

Abstract: Memory-guided cognition emerges from the dynamic coordination of specialized brain networks. Theta oscillations play a critical role in synchronizing the hippocampus with distributed cortical and subcortical regions, shaping how past experiences inform present and future behavior. In this talk, I will present a series of studies examining how theta oscillations facilitate communication between the hippocampus and other brain networks to support different memory-guided behaviors. Using intracranial electrophysiology, direct electrical stimulation, and behavioral paradigms, I will highlight how theta-driven network interactions contribute to visual exploration and flexible memory retrieval. By linking these oscillatory mechanisms to cognitive function, this work provides insight into how the hippocampus orchestrates adaptive behavior through network-wide synchronization.

Time: 04/09/25 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: Convolutional Neural Networks as a Model of Human Intuitive Physical Judgments

Ren Calabro, doctoral student in the Leong Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago

Abstract: Humans reliably infer the physical stability of objects in everyday scenes, yet the cognitive mechanisms underlying these judgments remain unclear. Here, we test whether convolutional neural networks (CNNs), which capture statistical regularities in visual experience without explicit knowledge of physics, can provide a framework for understanding intuitive physical reasoning. We evaluated whether a CNN- specifically, a custom-trained Inception-v4 model trained on the same stimuli presented to human observers, using labels from physics simulations- could predict human stability judgments (N = 500) and the visual features humans attend to when making these judgments. The CNN’s predictions aligned closely with human choices, outperforming ground-truth predictions from physics simulations. Additionally, human eye-gaze patterns correlated with CNN-derived importance maps, suggesting that visual attention is directed toward features statistically predictive of physical outcomes. These findings support the idea that intuitive physics is shaped in part by experience-based visual heuristics and that CNNs can serve as a computational framework for uncovering the attentional and feature-based strategies underlying human judgments.

Time: 03/26/25 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: Exploring Just Enough? An Origin Story of Stereotypes

Xuechunzi Bai, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Abstract: Traditional explanations for stereotypes suggest they arise from human deficits (ingroup-favoring motives, cognitive biases) or environmental factors (majority advantages, real group differences). I propose an alternative explanation: stereotypes can emerge when exploration is costly. Even optimal decision-makers in ideal environments can inadvertently form incorrect impressions from arbitrary encounters. This talk builds on my prior research (Bai et al., 2022 & 2024) to explore how individual incorrect beliefs can evolve into collective misperceptions, simply through information compression, establishing a new microfoundation for statistical discrimination. Preliminary evidence comes from a computational cognitive model (multi-agent multi-armed bandit), an LLM multi-agent simulation (GPT-4o), and a multiplayer online hiring experiment (N=200 pilot data).

Time: 03/12/25 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: Adolescent neurocognitive development of motivated behaviors

Katie Insel, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University

Abstract: Adolescence is a transitional phase of the lifespan that offers a window into how the mind and brain develop and adapt to changing environments. This period is characterized by unique opportunities for learning and growth, yet adolescents also face enhanced vulnerability for mental health disorders. How does adolescent brain development shape both adaptive and maladaptive behaviors? In this talk, I will present a series of studies examining how motivated behaviors and the corresponding brain processes develop during adolescence. I will first discuss how adolescent brain development shapes goal-directed behavior and underlying neural circuits. Then, I will demonstrate how adolescents use memory for rewards to guide value-based decision-making and generalization. Finally, I will discuss my ongoing work that characterizes how the neurodevelopment of multiple learning and memory systems guide motivated behavior during adolescence.

Time: 02/26/25 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: Reward restructures existing cognitive maps

Seoyoung Lee, doctoral student in the Bakkour Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago

Abstract: While experienced as discrete events, memories tend to form networks to allow for adaptive behavior. These networks, also known as cognitive graphs, are internal models that represent relations between prior experiences and have been used to examine how flexible decisions are made, such as how their structure can bias choices (Pudhiyidath et al., 2020, 2022). However, memory is not static and external factors like reward are known to influence decisions by prioritizing items in memory that are directly or indirectly associated with it (Braun et al., 2018; Shohamy & Adcock, 2010; Wimmer & Shohamy, 2012). The potential for reward to alter the existing memory representation of a neutral cognitive graph and the impact of such alteration on decision-making is crucial for understanding how choices are made. Thus, three experiments were conducted in which participants had to learn a community structure graph, learn which item in the graph is associated with reward, and make decisions based on this information. Results across experiments suggest participants’ choices were not affected by an item’s proximity to reward unless the items being compared had been explicitly seen together before choice. In such cases, participants’ choices were influenced by items that were one association from the rewarded item. Furthermore, although participants demonstrated knowledge of the community structure cognitive graph, the community structure had no effect on their choices. A reconstruction of the graph using participants’ choices revealed two clusters: one containing the rewarded item and the other consisting of the remaining items. These findings suggest that reward reorganized the community structure cognitive graph, thereby influencing value-based decision-making.

Time: 02/12/25 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: Reward-induced memory distortions bias value-based decisions

Xinyue Li, doctoral student in the Bakkour Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago

Abstract: Our memories play a crucial role in many decisions. Recent work has begun to study how individuals recombine elements of past episodes stored in memory to evaluate the outcome of some decisions (Biderman et al., 2020; Shohamy & Daw, 2015). However, memory is not infallible and can get distorted. Understanding the impact of a fallible memory system on decision-making is essential. To explore how rewards influence memory and subsequent choices, we employed a modified version of the classic Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995), where we assigned different levels of reward to different DRM lists at the encoding stage . Words were either novel, studied, or conceptually related critical lures. In Experiment 1, we tested the effect of reward level at encoding on subsequent memory performance. In Experiment 2, we tested the effect of reward level on subsequent memory-guided value-based decision making. We found that high-value critical lures were brought to mind more often than low-value critical lures overall. Interestingly, participants properly identified high-value critical lures as new, despite bringing those words to mind (i.e., participants successfully monitored their memory for high-value critical lures), but failed to so for low-value critical lures. Moreover, participants chose high-value critical lures more often than novel items that were not related to the studied lists when compared to low-value critical lures. These findings suggest that reward can modulate memory representations to be more generalizable and consequently shape decisions that rely on such representations.

Time: 01/29/25 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: Aging and Metacognitive Updating: Can We Improve Self-Awareness?

Tesnim Arar, doctoral student in the Gallo Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago

Abstract: Metacognition, or knowledge of one’s cognitive processes and abilities, is a critical component of self-regulation. Given this relationship between metacognition and behavior, researchers have argued that enhancing the accuracy of our metacognitive beliefs is an antecedent to improving behavior, and this may be especially true for older adults. Yet despite the potential value of harnessing metacognitive beliefs to mitigate negative aging-induced effects on behavior, one vital question remains unanswered: How does aging affect metacognition? One hypothesis is that aging spares metacognitive monitoring—or the ability to evaluate one’s cognitive performance on laboratory or everyday tasks in real-time—but impairs older adults’ capacity to update self-representations in memory. Another hypothesis is that older adults’ inaccurate metacognitive beliefs—when found—may arise not from impaired memory processes, but rather, a positivity bias, or a tendency to avoid incorporating recent task experiences into their self-representations because these experiences are presumably more negative. Here, we evaluate both these hypotheses via a feedback paradigm. Younger and older adults took a cognitive battery and received feedback, presented as percentiles, on their performance. We then examined whether this task-specific feedback induced updates in their everyday metacognitive beliefs at various delays. We found evidence that both groups can update and improve their metacognitive beliefs for up to two weeks, but several factors moderated this effect.

Time: 01/15/25 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: What is perceived diversity?

Alex Koch, Assistant Professor, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Abstract: Institutions and organizations place importance on signaling that their workforce is diverse. This signaling requires knowing the indicator(s) that stakeholders rely on to perceive diversity. Does perceived diversity depend on the number of groups represented in a work unit? We contrast this richness indicator with several indicators that relate to the evenness of the workers’ distribution across the represented groups. In Experiment 1, the richness of a work unit predicted its perceived diversity independently of several evenness indicators. In Experiments 2a-c, the richer of two work units appeared more diverse, despite all evenness indicators suggesting the opposite. This result generalized from fictional to real groups, and from groups of beings to types of things. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2a with a larger sample of work units. Experiments 4 and 5 flipped the effect. Instead of being informed about the richness and evenness of two work units, people experienced both work units by encountering worker after worker. Sequentially experiencing the less rich but more even work unit included more switches between represented groups, which, in turn, made the less rich but more even work unit seem more diverse. Experiment 6 showed a second boundary condition. People did not perceive the richer of two work units as more diverse when the other work unit was substantially more even. Overall, institutions and organizations can effectively signal diversity through statements that emphasize the number of groups represented in their workforce.

Time: 12/04/24 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).

Title: Colored Word, Is it Visual or Verbal?

Woohyeuk (Leo) Chang, doctoral student in the Awh/Vogel Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago

Abstract: Visual working memory (VWM) and verbal working memory have often been treated as distinct processes. However, recent research suggests a potential overlap between these two forms of memory. For instance, letters and words, despite their verbal associations, can elicit similar contralateral delay activity (CDA) – a load-sensitive electrophysiological signature of VWM that is typically associated with visual stimuli (e.g., colored squares). Here, by leveraging multivariate load decoding technique and representational similarity analysis, we re-analyzed data from Rajsic et al. (2019) and re-confirmed the presence of a generalized load signal across stimulus types, as well as distinct content-based signals. To further test this finding, we ran a modified version of the original task, where we removed the perceptual differences between visual and verbal working memory task conditions by using colored words. Our results once again demonstrated a generalized load signal across task conditions, while also allowing us to track the specific content being actively maintained. Thus, our results strengthen the case of a unified mechanism underlying working memory load that is independent of content.

Time: 11/13/24 3:30 PM

Location: Biopsychological Sciences Building atrium

If you have any questions, requests, and concerns, please contact Nakwon Rim (nwrim [at] uchicago [dot] edu) or Cambria Revsine (crevsine [at] uchicago [dot] edu).