Clusters

The Department was founded to support interdisciplinary research in cognitive science. Faculty members are usually involved in a range of different projects. Current research clusters include:

Applications of Cognitive Research

Cognitive scientists are involved in the application of cognitive science research to real world problems. At the Institute, researchers explore how research in cognitive science may inform areas such as mathematics education, gaming, visualization, team-oriented technology, spatial cognition applied to navigation, and language training.

Many researchers in this cluster are also involved in the Centre for Applied Cognitive Research.

Chris Herdman

Professor

Jim Davies

Professor

Jo-Anne LeFevre

Chancellor’s Professor

John A. E. Anderson

Assistant Professor

Olessia Jouravlev

Associate Professor

Robert West

Associate Professor

Children’s Thinking: What Develops?

Researchers at the Institute explore issues related to the development of children’s thinking and language. The development of language and literacy is one focus, as is work on Theory of Mind and executive function.

Children’s Representational Development Lab.

Deepthi Kamawar

Professor; Undergraduate Supervisor

Jo-Anne LeFevre

Chancellor’s Professor

Cognitive Neuroscience Cluster

Many of our researchers and labs use neuroimaging techniques to study the brain and mind together. Our researchers have expertise with EEG (Herdman, LeFevre, Jouravlev), fNIRS (Jouravlev, Anderson), and MRI (Anderson & Jouravlev).

Chris Herdman

Professor

Jo-Anne LeFevre

Chancellor’s Professor

John A. E. Anderson

Assistant Professor

Olessia Jouravlev

Associate Professor

Mental Representations: Structure and Process

How are our minds organized? What are the mental structures and processes that humans use to remember, think, learn, and know? Researchers at the Institute explore these questions from a variety of different theoretical and methodological perspectives. Come and study attention, spatial navigation, categorization, reading and mathematics, consciousness or theory of mind.

Andrew Brook

Distinguished Research Professor

Chris Herdman

Professor

Deepthi Kamawar

Professor; Undergraduate Supervisor

Guy Lacroix

Associate Professor; Chair

Jim Davies

Professor

Jo-Anne LeFevre

Chancellor’s Professor

John A. E. Anderson

Assistant Professor

Mary Kelly

Assistant Professor

Myrto Mylopoulos

Associate Professor

Olessia Jouravlev

Associate Professor

Modelling and Simulation

A variety of different forms of modelling and simulation of cognitive processes and embodied cognitive tasks occurs at the Institute. Modelling platforms include Nengo, ACT-R, and NetLogo. The VSIM labs include driving, helicopter, and fixed wing simulators.

Chris Herdman

Professor

Jim Davies

Professor

Mary Kelly

Assistant Professor

Robert West

Associate Professor

Natural Language Processing and Simulation

The Natural Language Processing and Simulation cluster includes researchers interested in topics such as computational linguistics, language modelling and simulation, language acquisition, neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics.

Jean-Pierre Corriveau

Associate Professor

Kumiko Murasugi

Associate Professor

Mary Kelly

Assistant Professor

Masako (Mako) Hirotani

Associate Professor

Olessia Jouravlev

Associate Professor

Raj Singh

Professor

Sound, Structure, and Meaning

The Sound, Structure, and Meaning cluster includes researchers interested in topics such as phonetics, phonology, prosody, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, field linguistics, language change, cross-linguistic variation, and language and culture.