Current Events

Regular colloquia are Wednesdays, 2:00 P.M. –  4:00 P.M., in 280 Park Hall (unless otherwise noted), North Campus, and are open to the public. To receive email announcements of each event, please subscribe to one of our mailing lists by clicking the link  that best describes you: studentUB Faculty and Staff, or Non-UB Cognitive Scientist. You can also subscribe to our calendar.

Background readings for each lecture are available to UB faculty and students on UB Learns. To access, please log in to UB Learns and select "Center for Cognitive Science" → "Course Documents" → "Background Readings for (Semester/Year)." If you are affiliated with UB and do not have access to the UBLearns website, please contact Eduardo Mercado III, director of the Center for Cognitive Science. 

Spring 2023 Events

Center for Cognitive Science Plenary Meeting

February 8

Second verse, same as the first: Learning abstract concepts through repetition

February 22
Speaker:
Eduardo Mercado III
Professor, Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Person-centric Similarity

March 1
Speaker:
Kenny Joseph
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Is cochlear-implant listening more effortful with age?

March 15
Speaker: 
Kristina Deroy Milvae
Assistant Professor, Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Atypical hemispheric asymmetry: the influence on sensory processing in autism

April 5
Speaker: 
Tara Deemyad
Research Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology, Johns Hopkins University

Oscillatory EEG dynamics associated with effortful listening

April 19
Speaker:
Matthew Wisniewski
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, Kansas State University

Neural circuitry underlying cortical control of a vocalization-driven maternal behavior

May 3
Speaker:
Amy LeMessurier
Postdoctoral Fellow, Grossman School of Medicine, New York University

Perception of vocalizations is crucial for social behavior. A highly conserved example of this is mothers responding to distress vocalizations from infants. In mice, experienced mothers (dams) find and retrieve isolated pups into the nest when pups emit ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs). This behavior can be learned by virgin females that are co-housed with a dam and litter, and expertise is correlated with plasticity in the left auditory cortex. This plasticity may support learning via top-down projections from cortex to earlier structures in the auditory pathway. The central auditory pathway is highly interconnected, with dense “corticofugal” feedback projections from auditory cortex to earlier structures that may support vocal perception by filtering incoming auditory input. I have examined the contribution of corticofugal projections to perception and retrieval behavior using a combination of in vivo imaging, electrophysiology and circuit manipulation techniques, targeting distinct populations of projection neurons using retrograde viruses. Results from chemogenetic silencing experiments during behavior indicate that projections from left auditory cortex to subcortical targets are crucial for behavior, and that specific projection targets may be preferentially involved. Examination of pup call responses in projections to auditory striatum and auditory midbrain revealed greater modulation in midbrain-projecting neurons, and these neurons exhibited persistently increased activity during repeated bouts of calls. Tracking activity in midbrain-projecting neurons over days of pup retrieval experience revealed a diversity of changes in neuronal and population-level responses to calls, suggesting that plasticity in feedback projections from cortex could drive learning.