Feindel Virtual Brain and Mind Lecture Series: Reasoning Ability: Neural Mechanisms, Development, and Plasticity
Silvia A. BungeÌý±è°ù±ð²õ±ð²Ô³Ù²õ: Reasoning Ability: Neural Mechanisms, Development, and Plasticity
Registration available .
Speaker: Silvia A. Bunge, PhD
Professor, Department of Psychology & Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley, USA
Abstract:ÌýRelational thinking, or the process of identifying and integrating relations between mental representations, is regularly invoked during reasoning. This mental capacity enables us to draw higher-order abstractions and generalize across situations and contexts, and we have argued that it should be included in the pantheon of executive functions. In this talk, I will briefly review our lab's work characterizing the roles of lateral prefrontal and parietal regions in relational thinking. I will then discuss structural and functional predictors of individual differences and developmental changes in reasoning.
Bio:ÌýDr. Silvia Bunge is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. She directs the Building Blocks of Cognition Laboratory, which draws from the fields of cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and education research. Her lab studies the cognitive and neural processes that support reasoning, memory, and goal-directed behavior in humans. The lab also studies how these processes mature over childhood and adolescence, and how they are shaped by education and demographic factors – for better and for worse. Professor Bunge seeks to extend her research to understand individual differences and developmental change in reasoning about real-world phenomena in daily life, as well as in the context of STEM education. To investigate these phenomena, the lab leverages behavioral, structural and functional brain imaging, and eyetracking methods, and experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal designs.
The Feindel Virtual Brain and Mind (VBM) Seminar Series will advance the vision of Dr. William Feindel (1918–2014), Former Director of the Neuro (1972–1984), to constantly bridge the clinical and research realms. The talks will highlight the latest advances and discoveries in neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroimaging.
Speakers will include scientists from across The Neuro, as well as colleagues and collaborators locally and from around the world. The series is intended to provide a virtual forum for scientists and trainees to continue to foster interdisciplinary exchanges on the mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment of brain and cognitive disorders.
