Date: Wednesday, 14th January 2026
Venue: D001 (QS Vienna) and Zoom: https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/92542715048?pwd=ABqFncllhq9NUDaoaTTwh0Zb88CZtk.1
Meeting ID: 925 4271 5048
Passcode:
829493
Chair: Eva Wittenberg
Title: Objects as Event Representations: Theory, Data, and Models.
Abstract:
To understand events like “the chef chopped the onion,” we need to grasp that objects have shared properties (inherited from their type) and unique properties that distinguish one token from another. The chef and the onion have (intersecting) histories that
started with them in one state and ended with them in another. These histories are in fact trajectories of changes in state across time and space, and their intersection defines the interactions between objects (in this case, the action of the chef on the
onion). To comprehend events, or their descriptions, in real time requires creating on-the-fly representations of object tokens and their changes in state. In this talk I shall outline an account of how this might be accomplished in a brain that is able to
distinguish the systematic associations that define semantic memory for object types from the non-systematic accidental associations that define the episodic characteristics of object tokens. The talk will include fMRI, behavioral and eye tracking data, and
computational modeling – all presented for audiences new to neuroscientific and computational methods.
*Anyone not affiliated with CEU wishing to attend in-person in Vienna must RSVP to get access to the lecture hall.
Best regards,
Fanni
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FANNI TAKÁTSY
Lab Manager/Research Coordinator,
Social Mind Center
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CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY
Quellenstrasse 51. | 1100 Vienna, Austria
http://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/
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