Centers and Institutes

The goal of this Center is to explore the interplay among gesture, sign, and language and in so doing, address some of the most basic questions about human language and development. The Center provides a home for the collaborations between members of the Departments of Psychology, Linguistics, and Comparative Human Development, as well as providing fertile ground for new collaborations. 

We conduct cutting edge research exploring the development of cognition, action, and perception during infancy and childhood. Our research focuses on space, number, language, social understanding, empathy, and moral reasoning. Visit the Center for Early Childhood Research for more information.

Wisdom was once regarded as a subject worthy of rigorous scholarly inquiry in order to understand its nature and benefits; however until recently wisdom has been relatively overlooked as a topic for serious scholarly and scientific investigation. It is difficult to imagine a subject more central to the highest aspirations of being human. The study of wisdom holds great promise for shedding light on and opening up new insights for human flourishing. Visit the Center for Practical Wisdom for more information.

Research groups at the Institute for Mind and Biology focuses on answering fundamental questions about the mind and its dynamic interaction with the biological systems of the body using cutting edge techniques across model organism species. Core research areas include Cognition, Perception, Development, Neuroendocrinology and Computational Neuroscience. Faculty in the Institute provide both graduate and post-doctoral training in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience and Integrative Neuroscience. Members contribute significantly to the University's interdisciplinary approach to Neuroscience and Committees on Computational Neuroscience, Evolutionary Biology, and Neurobiology.

The MRIRC includes: A recently upgraded Philips Achieva 3.0T scanner with dStream technology that is equipped for both neuro- and body-imaging. The scanner has the necessary equipment for functional MRI (fMRI) as well as devices for presenting visual and auditory stimuli during fMRI scans and for recording behavioral responses. This scanner will soon be equipped with MRI-guided high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). Specialized coils for body imaging (breast, prostate) are available.