Research Interests

I use statistical learning paradigms to investigate how we spontaneously extract relational patterns from statistics about events, how we use such patterns to make conceptual judgments, and which neural pathways enable the transformation of observed events into generalizable relational structures. I use an innovative combination of quantifiable, well-characterized stimuli, rich conceptual measures, and nuanced neuroimaging analyses to answer these questions. My approach uniquely bridges insights from statistical learning, episodic memory, causal reasoning, and semantic memory to tackle some of the most abstract aspects of cognition. Specific interests include the nature of representations in lateral temporal areas around the middle temporal gyrus, representations of concepts of actions and artefacts, and relational complexity in learning.