Professor
Area: Cognitive

Contact information:
Email: plaut@cmu.edu
Psychology office: 254N Baker Hall
Psychology phone: 412-268-5145

Research Interests:

My research involves using computational modeling, complemented by empirical studies, to investigate the nature of normal and disordered cognitive processing in the domain of reading and language. My modeling work is cast within a connectionist or parallel distributed processing framework, in which cognitive processes are implemented in terms of cooperative and competitive interactions among large numbers of simple, neuron-like processing units. These models provide new ways of thinking about how cognitive processes are implemented in the brain, and how disorders of brain function lead to disorders of cognition. I'm particularly interested in studying the effects of damage in connectionist networks as a way of understanding the nature of cognitive impairments that can arise following brain damage, and in exploring ways of retraining damaged networks with the goal of helping to design more effective strategies for patient rehabilitation. I'm also interested in the implications of connectionist learning principles for the nature of normal and abnormal cognitive development.
 

Publications:

Click HERE for a list of Publications
 

Assistants to Dr. Plaut:

Postdoctoral Associate:

Sarah Laszlo,  sarahlaszlo@cmu.edu

Current Graduate Students:

Blair Armstrong,  blairarm@andrew.cmu.edu

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Related Links:

Curriculum Vitae (pdf file)

Individual Website

CNBC - Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition

CMU School of Computer Science

CMU Directory Information

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