A hallmark of human intelligence is the ability to learn quickly in the face of sparse or ambiguous information in the environment and to make solid inferences that go beyond our immediate experience. Specifically, humans can recognize abstract relational similarities between two situations and apply knowledge from one domain to another—a key to creative insight and scientific advance. How does the human brain process information to enable this inferential capacity?

Our Minerva Research Group aims to gain insight into the neural coding properties that underly key aspects of human intelligence. In particular, we are interested in how the brain forms and represents conceptual knowledge and how these representations are used to guide learning, reasoning, and generating new solutions. To address these questions, we use a combination of behavioral paradigms and non-invasive brain-imaging methods, such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Our goal is to contribute to a better understanding of the neural information processing properties that support intelligent behavior and shape our cognitive abilities.