Cognitive Neuroscience Society

Day 1 at #CNS2026 @gc-cogneuro.bsky.social
We’re at Booth 14! 🧠

Stop by to learn more about our program. We’ll be here through Tuesday (3/10) — come say hello! 👋

Tomorrow, Sunday the 7th, I’ll be presenting my poster “Earlier sensory encoding for surprising words in connected speech” at #CNS2026

Poster 46 — Session B (8–10 AM)

Come say hi if you're around!

Always happy to talk about this project or my work on multisensory language processing :)

Making the Brain Language Ready: A Journey of Discovery For more than four decades, CNS 2026 keynote speaker Peter Hagoort has focused on one key question: What makes the human brain language ready?

What a wonderful keynote by Peter Hagoort! For more information on Hagoort's work, read this exclusive Q&A on the CNS blog:
www.cogneurosociety.org/making-the-b...
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Hagoort argues for a unified model of language processing with multiple neural networks... and looks beyond processing to also understand communication more broadly, like in the example of an indirect request or an indirect reply -- getting at speaker meaning
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We also have to integrate contextual information about a speaker, can test that with some sentences consistent with what would be expected from the voice of a speaker and some inconsistent...e.g., these sentences with voice of a young child v. a man
-Hagoort #CNS2026 8/

Semantic mistakes, deviations, have a measurable signature in the brain, studies have found
-Hagoort #CNS2026 7/
(Dutch trains are yellow, hence that mistake considered a world knowledge violation)

How can a watch be fake and genuine? Understanding this store front requires language hiearchy
- Hagoort #CNS2026 6/

With the building blocks of language, we can create unique communication in the moment -Hagoort #CNS2026 5/

Every time, we speak a word, we assemble it from scratch, it's not preassembled, wow!
Hagoort #CNS2026 4/

Hagoort explains the expansive nature of the language system, both in terms of brain activity and the knowledge, the building blocks, involved...some 50,000 words in the native language!
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Hagoort begins his talk on language by contrasting the seemingly effortless development of language skills in his daughter when she was young to the intensity of learning how to tie her shoes
Excited to see the full house!
#CNS2026

On now at #CNS2026: Our keynote talk by Peter Hagoort, about our language-ready brain. Intro from Sabine Kastner, who opens with welcome remarks, reminding us all about the global nature of science.
Join us now in the Ballroom.
@mpi-nl.bsky.social 1/

Share any area restaurant tips!
#CNS2026

Tell your friends and colleagues at #CNS2026 to join us here, if they haven't yet! Hoping to continue building a robust community on this platform. Lots of live posts more to come...
And hopefully by tomorrow, the skies here will be blue!

Poster Session A...check it out now!
#CNS2026

Was a packed house at Rising Stars and a cameo here by our keynote speaker, Peter Hagoort, who will speak today at 5pm. See you then! Meantime, the Exhibit Hall is open with Poster Session A
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Lastly, in this fantastic Rising Stars session, Anastasia Kiyonaga discusses the idea that working memory is adaptively allocated across the sensory and motor structures to support current needs -- in contrast to earlier neuroscience frameworks
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"A key problem that predictive brains need to solve is setting the ‘balance’ between stubbornness and flexibility..." Yes!
A highly relevant talk now by Daniel Yon
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Now, Laura Gwilliams on neural algorithms for language, and how our brain continues to process words in parallel even while listening to and understanding a simple sentence like "We ate sushi in Vancouver"
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And Hitchcock offers yet another great example, of challenges for new parents...and why some people are more prone to depression than others
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Next up: Peter Hitchcock on new ways to measure and understand depression in the brain, beyond self reporting
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Another relatable real-world example in a talk by Mengyuan Gong about the "template" we use to guide our attention, in this case, how we think about hailing a cab
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Can relate to the setup in the next talk by Blaire Dube, about how we hold visual details of our luggage in our memory...last night, saw someone with the exact same suitcase as me and was convinced they were walking off with mine!
All about visual representation in memory and distraction
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The science in the talks is outstanding but you can also come for Murty's stand-up comedy in between the talks #CNS2026

Alex Barnett (via Zoom due to travel disruptions) is presenting his research about how events are stored into memory and how event
representations shape what is remembered. And he starts with "story time." #CNS2026

Join us for some fantastic talks at the Rising Stars session, starting now in Salon EF, being kicked off by Vishnu Murty #CNS2026

CNSers! Please tag your conference posts with #CNS2026. We will be posting here and with that hashtag throughout the meeting in Vancouver.

Fantastic start to #CNS2026 at DataBlitz! Lots of cool findings already! One highlight for me: how differently people recall positive collective memories vs. personal memories, reflecting distinct functions of collectivistic vs individually experienced memory. Great talk: @signysheldon.bsky.social

#CNS2026 Student Lounge located in BURRARD room, free snacks and drinks available!

@mitpress.bsky.social is set up and ready to go #CNS2026