Edinburgh Psychology Keynote Talk

Speaker: Professor Rhodri Cusack (Trinity College Dublin)

Title: Using Neuroimaging and Deep Learning to Understand Brain Development in Helpless Young Infants

Abstract: Human infants have a protracted helpless period. Language, motor control, and other functions are rudimentary for around a year after birth, but mature rapidly thereafter. What is the cause of this delay? It might be because the corresponding brain systems need time to mature before they are ready to function. Alternatively, these systems may function from birth, but need to gather experience of the environment before overt behavior can develop. To distinguish these alternatives, we used neuroimaging with fMRI to probe the selectivity and connectivity in the infant brain, and deep neural networks to create computational models of learning. Across domains, we found converging evidence that cognitive systems are surprisingly mature, and that even high-level systems are functioning, supporting a neuroconstructivist perspective that the protracted helpless period is because infants are acquiring a foundation model, of effective brain representations to support future cognition.

Further information

For further information please contact Dr Hilary Richardson or Professor Hugh Rabagliati.

The talk is open to all PPLS staff and postgraduate students as well as Psychology undergraduate students in Year 3 and 4.

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