Lecture details: The notion of representation is central to the mind-brain sciences. Virtually all theories of perception, action, language, and cognition explicitly or, too often, implicitly make assumptions about the levels and types of representations involved in these processes. Why do we need representations? How do we formulate and evaluate representational claims? Professor Caramazza will discuss an example from his own research in which he proposes and evaluates specific representational claims through behavioral, neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies.  His focus will be on the distinction between sensory-motor representations and the abstract, symbolic representations that underlie cognitive processes.

About the lecturer: Professor Caramazza’s research explores the nature and organization of language processing and conceptual representations in the brain. His earlier work focuses on lexical access and language comprehension; he has studied these topics extensively in patients, documenting a series of dissociations within the language system in the presence of neurological injury (e.g., after stroke). In addition to patient work, his research group also explores the neural organization of language processing (e.g., grammatical category, action content) in healthy individuals using a variety of research techniques including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and behavioral techniques.

This event is free and open to the public!