CCNi Debate

Brain reading: how can we decrypt neuronal representations?

From popular press reports and cognitive neuroscience findings in prestigious journals, it appears that significant progress has been made in mind and brain reading, and in the capacity of machines to decode thoughts and personality traits and predict behaviour. At the core of these claims is the belief that new methodologies now enable us to infer sophisticated cognitive representations from brain data. But can we? In this CCNi Debate, experts in Neuroscience and Psychology will discuss:

- the methodologies they use to study neuronal representations in the brain;

- what (i.e. cognitive categories) these methodologies are representing;

- the advantages and limitations of such methodological approaches in investigating the cognitive categories considered;

- the future directions for studying neuronal representations of cognitive categories.

Schedule:

13:00 Registration & Lunch

14:00 Welcome, Dr Guillaume Rousselet
Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (CCNi), University of Glasgow

14:10 Dr Nikolaus Kriegeskorte
Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge

14:30 Dr Edmund Lalor
Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin

14:50 Tea/coffee break

15:10 Professor Hans Op De Beeck
Department of Brain & Cognition, KU Leuven

15:30 Dr Tal Yarkoni
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin

15:50 Tea/coffee break

16:10 Debate, chaired by Professor Russell Poldrack
Department of Psychology, Stanford University

17:10 Drinks reception