Interactive Systems in Cognition
WTI Symposium
Friday, February 21, 2025
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
100 College Street
Floor 11, Workshop 1116
The Wu Tsai Institute will host a symposium featuring faculty job candidates at 100 College Street in the 11th floor Workshop (room 1116) on Friday, February 21, 2025. All members of the Yale community are invited to attend a morning of fascinating science hosted by Kia Nobre, Director of WTI’s Center for Neurocognition and Behavior.
View the symposium agenda, abstracts, and speakers listed below. For any questions, please contact wti@yale.edu.
Speakers + Host
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Speaker
Saikat Ray, Weizmann Institute of Science
LEARN MORERay is a postdoctoral systems neuroscientist using ethological and computational methods to understand the neural basis of real-world animal behaviors.
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Speaker
Diana Liao, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tuebingen
LEARN MORELiao is a postdoctoral systems neuroscientist interested in comparative cognition and communication systems.
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Speaker
Isaac Kauvar, Stanford University
LEARN MOREKauver is a postdoctoral systems neuroscientist studying conserved and clinically relevant brain-wide neural dynamics that shape emotion, cognition, and their interactions.
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Faculty Host
Kia Nobre
LEARN MORENobre is a cognitive neuroscientist interested in the organizing principles of the brain systems that support adaptive human cognition and behavior. She is the Director of the Center for Neurocognition and Behavior, Associate Director of the Wu Tsai Institute, and Wu Tsai Professor of Psychology at Yale.
Agenda + Abstracts
Kia Nobre will welcome attendees and open the conference.
How does the brain represent the real world in natural, multi-animal settings?
Saikat Ray will discuss his work using wireless neural recordings in the hippocampal formation of freely flying bats in social groups, both in a laboratory-based cave and outside on an oceanic island. These studies provide the first insights into the neural encoding of real-world places and societies.
How does communication emerge in diverse animal species and brain architectures?
Diana Liao will present research in which crows volitionally control their vocalizations by "counting out loud." The studies aim to uncover convergent (and divergent) solutions for cognition using behavioral modeling, electrophysiology, and functional ultrasound imaging.
Light refreshments and coffee will be available in the lounge.
How do distributed emotional states interact with cognitive representations and neural computations?
Isaac Kauvar will present research using brain-wide neural recordings in mice and humans and large-scale analyses to detect and characterize population dynamics. The findings reveal conserved dynamical principles that shape affective behavior across species.