Cognitive Mechanics Lab
Welcome to the cognitive mechanics lab at UC Merced! Our name derives from statistical mechanics, which is a branch of physics that relates microscopic interactions to their macroscopic properties and behaviors. Our lab takes an analogous approach to cognitive systems. We study how relatively "microscopic" interactions among neural and bodily components can be related to properties and principles of cognitive function.
- Behavioral: Behaviors are macroscopic patterns that express cognitive functions like perception, attention, memory, and language. We conduct behavioral experiments to investigate the properties and principles of these patterns.
- Neural: Neurons are the primary elements in microscopic interactions that give rise to cognitive functions and their corresponding behavioral patterns. We analyze neural activity to investigate the flexible organization of behavioral patterns.
- Computational: Neural and behavioral processes can be theorized in terms of computations. We build computational models of neural interactions to simulate and test properties and principles of cognitive functions.
News
- Congrats to the whole lab for being author or co-author on five paper submissions to the Cognitive Science Society meeting in Berlin, July-August 2013
- Congrats to Janelle on passing her qualifying exam!
- The cogmech lab welcomes Drew Abney to his first year of grad school at UCM
