“Bridging the gap between cognitive models and neuroscience”
Research at the CSCA Research Center focuses on a number of key areas in which the CSCA is especially strong and which will profit considerably from an interdisciplinary approach. The overall mission is to come to a better understanding of the mechanisms of cognition. The three basic areas are:
1. How do we perceive and understand the world?
In this group there is a strong emphasis on understanding perception in parsimonious models and the reduction of cognition to low level mechanisms and their neural substrates. Cognitive and mathematical modellers, experimental psychologists and neuroscientists participate in this program.
2. How do we control our actions?
A strong common theme in this group is the role of reward and punishment in the control of behaviour and how unconscious influences determine our interactions with the environment and with other people. Experimental psychologists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, linguists and economists investigate the questions involved.
3. How do we learn and remember?
In this programme there is a strong focus on bridging the gap between basic neuroscience and cognitive models of learning and memory. Experimental and clinical psychologists, neuroscientists, linguists and cognitive modellers participate in this group.
The CSCA Research Center is strongly linked with the Spinoza Center for Neuroimaging. The combination of state of the art neuroimaging facilities with the ambitious interdisciplinary research groups of the Cognition institute creates a true center of excellence in the field of cognition as a whole.
