About us

Human intelligence far exceeds the intelligence of other animals. Several theories have been proposed about what makes human intelligence special, pointing to different specialized abilities such as theory of mind or a dedicated language faculty. We propose that these are instances of a more general ability, namely binding ability. In particular, because humans can rapidly combine and structure novel information, they excel in several domains including understanding other people’s intentions and language. Such binding abilities have been studied under several labels in the literature, including cognitive control, working memory, intelligence, and executive functioning.

In the current BIND project, we investigate the nature of this rapid binding from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. We will investigate how (sub)cortical areas interact at millisecond (EEG) and slower (fMRI) timescales. For this purpose, we employ state-of-the-art statistical connectivity analysis. Further, computational models will be built to understand the collected data and re-analyze (recycle) those data. All data collected in the project will be made available at open science foundation (osf.io) or openfmri.org.

For more information, please contact Tom Verguts.