Chris Eliasmith

Professor
Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Neuroscience
Department of Philosophy
Department of Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo 
Waterloo, Ontario
N2L 3G1
Canada

email: celiasmith@uwaterloo.ca

[Education] [Books] [Refereed Publications] [Chapters, Encyclopedia, etc.] [Edited Publications] [Awards] [Conferences] [Committees and Professional Affiliations]

Research Positions

Education

Books

Eliasmith, C. (in press) How to build a brain: A neural architecture for biological cognition. Oxford University Press.

Eliasmith, C. and C. H. Anderson (2003). Neural Engineering: Computation, representation and dynamics in neurobiological systems. MIT Press. (Amazon.com).

Refereed Publications

[Theoretical Neuroscience][Theoretical Psychology][Philosophy][Machine Intelligence]

*Note: Many of these publications and related ones not listed can be found in full at my lab's main website.

Theoretical Neuroscience

Eliasmith, C., Stewart T. C., Choo X., Bekolay T., DeWolf T., Tang Y., Rasmussen, D. (2012). A large-scale model of the functioning brain. Science. 338(6111), 1202-1205. (reprint)

Stewart, T. C., Bekolay T., & Eliasmith C. (2012). Learning to select actions with spiking neurons in the basal ganglia. Frontiers in Decision Neuroscience. 6. (online)

Galluppi, F., Davies S., Stewart T., Eliasmith C., & Furber S. (2012). Real Time On-Chip Implementation of Dynamical Systems with Spiking Neurons. IJCNN. (online)

DeWolf, T., & Eliasmith C. (2011). The neural optimal control hierarchy for motor control. The Journal of Neural Engineering. 8, 21. (online)

MacNeil, D., Eliasmith, C. (2011). Fine-tuning and the stability of recurrent neural networks. PLoS ONE. 6(9), 22885. (online)

Dethier, J., Nuyujukian, P., Eliasmith, C., Stewart, T., Elassaad, S.A., Shenoy, K., Boahen, K.
(2011). A brain-machine interface operating with a real-time spiking neural network control
algorithm. Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS).

Eliasmith, C., Martens, J. (2011). Normalization for probabilistic inference with neurons. Biological Cybernetics. 104(4), 251-262. (online)

Tripp B.P. and Eliasmith C. (2010) Population models of temporal differentiation. Neural Computation. 22(3):621-59 (.pdf penultimate version). 

Stewart, T.C., Tripp, B., Eliasmith, C. (2009) Python Scripting in the Nengo Simulator. Frontiers in Neuroinformatics. 3:7 (online).

Parisien, C., C. H. Anderson, and C. Eliasmith (2008). Solving the problem of negative synaptic weights in cortical models. Neural Computation. 20: 1473-1494 (pdf penultimate version).

Tripp, B. and C. Eliasmith (2007). Neural populations can induce reliable postsynaptic currents without observable spike rate changes or precise spike timing. Cerebral Cortex. 17:1830-1840 (on-line) (pdf penultimate version).

Singh, R. and C. Eliasmith (2006). Higher-dimensional neurons explain the tuning and dynamics of working memory cells. Journal of Neuroscience. 26: 3667-3678. (pdf version).

Kuo, D. and C. Eliasmith (2005) Integrating behavioral and neural data in a model of zebrafish network interaction. Biological Cybernetics. 93(3): 178-187 (pdf version - penultimate).

Eliasmith, C. (2005). A unified approach to building and controlling spiking attractor networks. Neural Computation. 17(6): 1276-1314 (pdf version - penultimate)

Conklin, J. and C. Eliasmith (2005). An attractor network model of path integration in the rat. Journal of Computational Neuroscience. 18: 183-203 (pdf version)

Kuo, D. and C. Eliasmith (2004). Understanding interactions between networks controlling distinct behaviors: Escape and swimming in larval zebrafish. Neurocomputing. 58-60: 541-547. (pdf version)

Eliasmith, C., M. B. Westover, and C. H. Anderson (2002). A general framework for neurobiological modeling: An application to the vestibular system. Neurocomputing. 46: 1071-1076. (pdf version).

M. B. Westover, C. Eliasmith and C. H. Anderson C. Eliasmith (2002). Linearly decodable functions from neural population codes. Neurocomputing. 45: 691-696. (pdf version)

Eliasmith, C. and C. H. Anderson (2001). Beyond bumps: Spiking networks that store smooth n-dimensional functions. Neurocomputing. 38, 581-586. (pdf version)

Eliasmith, C. and C. H. Anderson (2000). Rethinking central pattern generators: A general framework. Neurocomputing. 32-33(1-4): 735-740 (pdf version)

Eliasmith, C. and C. H. Anderson (1999). Developing and applying a toolkit from a general neurocomputational framework. Neurocomputing, 26(1): 1013-1018 (pdf version)

Theoretical psychology

Eliasmith, C. (2011). The complex systems approach: Rhetoric or revolution? Topics in Cognitive Science. doi: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2011.01169.x (online)

Stewart, T., T. Bekolay, C. Eliasmith (2011). Neural representations of compositional structures: Representing and manipulating vector spaces with spiking neurons. Connection Science. 22(3), 145-153. (pdf)

Rasmussen, D. and C. Eliasmith (2011). A neural model of rule generation in inductive reasoning. Topics in Cognitive Science (TopICS) 3(1): 140-153. doi: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01127.x (online)

Stewart, T. C., Y. Tang, and C. Eliasmith (2011) A biologically realistic cleanup memory: Autoassociation in spiking neurons. Cognitive Systems Research, 12, 84-92. (pdf)

Litt, A, C. Eliasmith, and P. Thagard (2008) Neural affective decision theory: Choices, brains, and emotions. Cognitive Systems Research. 9:252-273 (pdf penultimate version).

Eliasmith, C. (2004). Learning context sensitive logical inference in a neurobiological simulation. in Levy, S. and Gayler, R. (eds.). Compositional Connectionism in Cognitive Science. AAAI Fall Symposium. AAAI Press. p. 17-20. (pdf version).

Eliasmith, C. and P. Thagard (2001). Integrating structure and meaning: A distributed model of analogical mapping. Cognitive Science. (html version)

Philosophy

Eliasmith, C. (2010). How we ought to understand computation in the brain. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 41(3) 131-320 (pdf penultimate version).

Eliasmith, C. (2007). How to build a brain: From function to implementation. Synthese. 153(3): 373-388 (pdf penultimate version).

Litt, A. C. Eliasmith, F. Kroon, S. Weinstein and P. Thagard (2006). Is the brain a quantum computer? Cognitive Science. 30(3): 593-603 (pdf version).

Eliasmith, C. (2005). A new perspective on representational problems. Journal of Cognitive Science. 6: 97-123. (pdf version - penultimate).

Eliasmith, C. (2003). Moving beyond metaphors: Understanding the mind for what it is. Journal of Philosophy. C(10):493-520. Reprinted in Brooks and Akins (eds). Cognition and the Brain. 2005. Cambridge University Press. p.131-159. (pdf version)

Eliasmith, C. (2002). The myth of the Turing machine: The failings of functionalism and related theses. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. 14: 1-8. (html version)

Eliasmith, C. (2002). Discreteness and relevance: A reply to Roman Poznanski. Minds and Machines. 12: 437-438. (pdf version)

Eliasmith, C. (2001). Attractive and in-discrete: A critique of two putative virtues of the dynamicist theory of mind. Minds and Machines. 11: 417-426. (html version)

Eliasmith, C. (2000) Is the brain analog or digital?: The solution and its consequences for cognitive science. Cognitive Science Quarterly. 1(2): 147-170. (html version).

Eliasmith, C. (1997). Computation and dynamical models of mind. Minds and Machines, 7, 531-541. (html version)

Eliasmith, C. and P. Thagard (1997). Waves, particles, and explanatory coherence. British Journal of the Philosophy of Science, 48, 1-19. (html version)

Eliasmith, C. (1996). The third contender: A critical examination of the dynamicist theory of cognition. Philosophical Psychology, 9, 441-463. Reprinted in P. Thagard (Ed.). (1998). Mind readings: Introductory selections in cognitive science. MIT Press. (html version)

Machine Intelligence

Tang, Y., Eliasmith, C. (2010). Deep networks for robust visual recognition. International Conference on Machine Learning. (pdf)

Carrilo et al. (2010) Concept Based Representations for Ranking in Geographic Information Retrieval. IceTAL 2010 7th International Conference on Natural Language Processing.

Carrillo, M.,  E. Villatoro-Tello, A. Lopez-Lopez, C. Eliasmith, M. Montes-y-Gomez and L. Villasenor-Pineda (2009) “Concept representations in Geographic Information Retrieval as Re-ranking Strategies” in 18th ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. (pdf version)

Carrillo, M., C. Eliasmith , and A. Lopez-Lopez (2009) “Combining Text Vector Representations for Information Retrieval” in V. Matousek, P. Mautner (eds) Text, Speech and Dialogue. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference TSD 2009. (pdf version)

Carrillo, M., Villatoro-Tello, E., Lopez-Lopez, A., Eliasmith, C., Montes-y-Gomez, M., Villasenor-Pineda, L. (2009). Representing Context Information for Document Retrieval. In T. Andreasen et al. (Ed.), Flexible Query Answering Systems, FQAS 2009. 239-250. (pdf version)

Fishbein, J and C. Eliasmith (2008) Methods for augmenting semantic models with structural information for text classification. Advances in Information Retrieval. Springer. pp. 575-579. DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-78646-7_58 (online version)

Fishbein, J and C. Eliasmith (2008) Integrating structure and meaning: A new method for encoding structure for text classification. Advances in Information Retrieval. Springer. pp. 514-521.(online version)

Chapters, Reviews, Encyclopedia, etc. (chronological)

Stewart, T. and C. Eliasmith. (2011) Compositionality and biologically plausible models. In W. Hinzen, E. Machery, and M. Werning (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Compositionality. Oxford University Press. (pdf penultimate version)

Eliasmith, C. (2009). Neurocomputational models: Theory and applications. In J. Bickle (Eds.) Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Neuroscience. Oxford University Press. pp. 346-369 (pdf penultimate version).

Eliasmith, C. (2009). Dynamics, control, and cognition. In P. Robbins and M. Aydede (Eds.) Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition. Cambridge University Press. pp. 134-154 (pdf version)

Stewart, T. C., Tripp, B., & Eliasmith, C. (2008). Supplementing Neural Modelling with ACT-R. Proceedings of the 15th Annual ACT-R Workshop, Pittsburgh, USA.

Eliasmith, C. (2008) Review of The great brain debate: Nature or nurture? by John E. Dowling. The Quarterly Review of Biology. 83(2):210-211 (pdf penultimate version)

Stewart, T. C. & Eliasmith, C. (2008). Implementing the ACT-R Production System in Spiking Neurons. Proceedings of the 15th Annual ACT-R Workshop, Pittsburgh, USA.

Chris Eliasmith (2007) Attractor network. Scholarpedia 2(10):1380.

Eliasmith, C. (2007). Computational neuroscience. In P. Thagard (ed.), Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science. Handbook of Philosophy of Science (Vol. 4). Amsterdam: Elsevier. (pdf version)

Eliasmith, C. (2006). Neurosemantics and categories. In C. Lefebvre and H. Cohen (eds.). Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science. Amsterdam: Elsevier. (pdf version)

Eliasmith, C. (2005). Cognition with neurons: A large-scale, biologically realistic model of the Wason task. In G. Bara, L. Barsalou, and M. Bucciarelli (Eds)., Proceedings of the 27 th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Stresa , Italy (pdf version).

Eliasmith, C. (2005). Large-scale neural modeling. In J. Wooley and H. Lin (eds.). Catalyzing Inquiry at the Interface of Computing and Biology. Washington: The National Academies Press. 173-178.

Eliasmith, C. (2003). Neural engineering: Unraveling the comlexities of neural systems. IEEE Canadian Review (43): 13-15. (pdf version).

Eliasmith, C. and W. Bechtel (2003). Symbolic vs. subsymbolic. In Lynn Nadel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitve Science. MacMillian.

Clark, A. and C. Eliasmith (2002). Philosophical issues in brain theory and connectionism. In M. Arbib (Ed.), Handbook of brain theory and neural networks (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 886-888. (html version)

Thagard, P., C. Eliasmith, P. Rusnock, and C. Shelley (2002). Epistemic coherence. In R. Elio (Ed.), Common sense, reasoning, and rationality. Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science (Vol. 11). Oxford University Press. pp. 104-131. (html version)

Eliasmith, C. (1999). Review of C. Dilworth's The metaphysics of science: An account of modern science in terms of principles, laws, and theories. Dialogue, 37, 656-8. (html version )

Eliasmith, C. (1998). Dynamical models and van Gelder's dynamicism: Two different things. Commentary on van Gelder, T. (1998). The dynamical hypothesis in cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21, 616-665. (html version)

Eliasmith, C. (1998). Review of William Lyons' Modern philosophy of mind. Philosophical Psychology, 11, 3.(html version)

Edited Publications

Eliasmith, C. (Ed.) (1998). Dictionary of philosophy of mind. Department of Philosophy, University of Waterloo. http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/.

Awards/Grants

Conferences and Talks (chronologically)

Marr's Attacks: A gentle reminder. Marr Symposium on Levels of Description. Peebles and Cooper (organizers). Cognitive Science Society, 2012. Invited.

Integrating perception, action, and cognition in neuromorphic hardware and software. Led 3-week session. Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Workshop. 2012. with Kwabena Boahen, Bryan Tripp, Terry Stewart (submitted proposal).

Function and form: Both matter for neural modelling. ASIC, 2012. Sardinia. Submitted talk.

Constructing a large-scale, nonlinear dynamical brain. Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics in Complex Neural Architectures. Lyons, 2012. Invited talk.

Methods for large-scale functional modeling in neural hardware. ETHZ Zurich. 2012. Invited talk.

How to build a brain: From single cells to cognition. Coast to Coast Seminar Series. Waterloo (broadcast through Compute Canada), 2012 (slides). Invited talk.

From single cells to cognition in hardware and software. Led 3-week session. Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Workshop. 2011. with Kwabena Boahen, Terry Stewart (submitted proposal).

How to build a brain: From single cells to cognitive systems. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. New York. 2011 Invited talk.

Neural-symbolic integration. 4.5h of lecture. Spring School on Interdisciplinary Cognitive Science. Meunster, Germany. 2011. Invited talks.

Neural Cognitive Modelling: A Biologically Constrained Spiking Neuron Model of the Tower of Hanoi Task. (Carlson, L., Hölscher C., & Shipley T., Ed.). 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. with Terry Stewart. Submitted talk.

Large-scale neuro-cognitive modelling. One-day workshop. Cognitive Science. Boston. 2011.with Terry Stewart (submitted proposal).

Applying optimal hierarchical controllers to neural models of motor control. International Conference on Applied Mathematics, Modeling and Computational Science (AMMCS) 2011. with T. Dewolf.

A general error-modulated STDP learning rule applied to reinforcement learning in the basal ganglia. CoSyne 2011. Salt Lake City, Utah. with Bekolay, T.

The Attentional Routing Circuit: Receptive Field Modulation Through Nonlinear Dendritic Interactions. CoSyne 2011. Salt Lake City, Utah. with B. Bobier and T. Stewart.

A spiking neuron model of movement and pre-movement activity in M1. CoSyne 2011. Salt Lake City, Utah. with DeWolf, T.

Making brain dynamics useful: From single cells to cognition. Cosyne 2011 Workshops. Invited talk.

A neuronal mechanism for linking actions to outcomes in the medial prefrontal cortex. Cosyne 2011, Salt Lake City, B. Liu, M. Caetano, N. Narayanan, C. Eliasmith, and M. Laubach.

Neural circuits for persistent activity in medial prefrontal cortex. Society for Neuroscience. (poster 200.18). Nov 2010. Laubach, M., Caetano, M. S., Liu, B., Smith, N. J., Narayanan, N. S., & Eliasmith, C.

Rapid large-scale model construction: A application to working memory. John B. Pierce Lab, Yale University. Nov 2010, Invited talk.

Symbolic Reasoning in Spiking Neurons: A Model of the Cortex/Basal Ganglia/Thalamus Loop. 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Aug. 2010. with Stewart, T.C., Choo, X.

A Spiking Neuron Model of Serial-Order Recall. In Richard Cattrambone & Stellan Ohlsson (Eds.), 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Portland, OR: Cognitive Science Society. Aug 2010. with Choo, X.

A neural model of rule generation in inductive reasoning. In Richard Cattrambone & Stellan Ohlsson (Eds.), 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Portland, OR: Cognitive Science Society. Aug 2010. with Rasmussen, D. Won Best Paper Award.

Dynamic Behaviour of a Spiking Model of Action Selection in the Basal Ganglia. 10th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling. Aug 2010. with Stewart, T.C., Choo, X.

NOCH: A framework for biologically plausible models of neural motor control. Neural Control of Movement 20th Annual Conference. Naples, FL. June 2010. with DeWolf, T.

Dynamic Routing Model for Visuospatial Attention.  Cosyne. Salt Lake City, Feb 2010 with Bobier, B., Stewart, T.C. (1st, 2nd).

A new learning rule for neural integrators. Cosyne Workshop on Persistent Activity. Feb, 2010. Invited talk.

Large-scale cognitive modelling. Neurocognitive Networks Workshop. Florida Atlantic. Feb. 2010. Invited talk.

Nengo: A new large-scale neural simulator. NIPS Demo, Dec. 2009.

MCMC with spiking neurons with Lloyd Elliott (first). NIPS 2009 Workshop on Bounded-rational analyses of human cognition: Bayesian models, approximate inference, and the brain.

How to build a brain. University of Montreal. Sept 2009. Invited talk.

Lage-scale cognitive modelling with spiking neurons. UQAM. Sept 2009. Invited talk.

Cognitive modelling with the NEF. Full day workshop ICCM, Aug. 2009.

Spiking attractor networks in the NEF. Columbia University. CTN Jan. 2009. Invited talk.

How to build a brain: A suggestion for how to unify the brain sciences. Perimeter Institute, Waterloo. October, 2008. invited talk.

Beyond representation: A general, unified method for characterizing neural computation over space and time. Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Munich. May, 2008. invited talk.

How we ought to understand computation in the brain. Computation in Cognitive Science Workshop. July, 2008. Kings College, Cambridge. invited talk.

Building production systems with realistic spiking neurons. Cognitive Science Conference. Washington, DC. August, 2008. with Terrence C. Stewart (1st) submitted poster.

Plasticity and population coding. COSYNE. Salt Lake City, Feb. 2008. with Bryan Tripp (1st). submitted poster.

How to build a brain. Cognitive Science Seminar Series, York University, Nov, 2007. invited talk.

Modelling the mind: Unifying the new brain sciences. Annual Arts Public Lecture, University of Waterloo, Nov. 2007. invited talk.

A new method for encoding structure for text classification. MMKD 2007, Waterloo, Oct 2007, with Jon Fishbein (1st), submitted poster (won best poster award).

Population coding in the basal ganglia. International Basal Ganglia Society IX, Amsterdam, ND, Sept. 2007, with Bryan Tripp (1st), submitted poster.

Minds and brains through mathematics:
Theoretical neuroscience and mental representation. British Society for Philosophy of Science. Bristol, UK, July 2007, invited keynote.

A neurologically plausible implementation of statistical inference applied to random dot motion. Computational Neuroscience (CNS*07), Toronto, July 2007, with James Martens (1st), submitted poster.

Supervision of motor cortex by basal ganglia. Computational Neuroscience (CNS*07), Toronto, July 2007, with Bryan Tripp (1st), submitted talk.

A large-scale neurocomputational model of emotional decision making. Computational Neuroscience (CNS*07), Toronto, July 2007, with Abninder Litt (1st) and Paul Thagard (3rd), submitted poster.

Temporal coding of continuously-varying inputs. Computational Neuroscience (CNS*07), Toronto, July 2007, with Bryan Tripp (1st), submitted poster.

Large-scale models of neural computation, Unconventional Computation: Quo Vadis? Santa Fe Institute, March 2007, invited talk.

A biologically realistic model of statistical inference applied to random dot motion. COSYNE, Salt Lake City, February, 2007, with James Martens (1st), submitted poster.

Challenges for biological bayes:
Solving normalization. COSYNE Workshop on Statistical Inference in the Brain, February, 2007, with James Martens (2nd), contributed talk.

When matter matters: understanding brains to enrich behavioral explanations of judgments and decisions Society for Judgment and Decision Making. Houston, Nov. 2006. With Abninder Litt (1st) and Paul Thagard (3rd). Contributed talk and poster.

Emotions shape decisions -- but how? A neurocomputational account Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, Houston, Nov. 2006. With Abninder Litt (1st) and Paul Thagard (3rd). Submitted talk and poster.

Situated cognition: What's worth keeping? Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS): Mind Group Symposium. Frankfurt, Germany, Oct. 2006. Invited keynote.

How to build a brain. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), Waterloo, Oct. 2006. Invited demo.

Large-scale models of neural computation. Mind & Brain V: Physics and the Brain, Dubrovnik, Croatia, Oct. 2006. Invited talk.

Basics of computational modeling of brain function. Cognitive Systems:
Bridging Cellular to Social. Sandia National Labs, Santa Fe, June, 2006. Invited tutorial.

Classifying and evaluating theories and models
in theoretical neuroscience. Models and Prediction
in Science, Science Studies, and Public Policy, UCSD, San Diego, May, 2006. Invited talk.

PCs, primates and people: Differences in kind or degree? UTism Conference on Cognitive Science. Toronto, Mar. 2006. Invited talk.

Comparison of neural circuits that estimate temporal derivatives. COSYNE '06, Salt Lake City, Mar. 2006 with Bryan Tripp (1st). Submitted poster.

Biologically realistic neural inhibition in arbitrary neural circuits. COSYNE '06, Salt Lake City, Mar. 2006 with Charles H. Anderson (2nd) and Christopher Parisien (1st). Submitted poster, chosen for highlight talk.

The biological plausibility and cognitive relevance of predictive coding. Predictive Coding Workshop. Aarhus University, Denmark, Feb. 2006. Invited talk.

A generalization of central pattern generators. Program No. 753.17. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2005 with Bryan Tripp (1st). Contributed poster.

A computational model of the effects of prism adaptation in spatial neglect Program No. 287.15. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2005 with Michael Lerman (1st) and James Danckert (2nd). Contributed poster.

BioSLIE: Context-sensitive Linguistic Inference in a Biologically Realistic Simulation. Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Meeting. Washington DC : Nov. 2005. Submitted poster and talk.

From single cells to cognition: General methods and specific models. RIKEN Brain Sciences Institute. Wako City , Japan : Aug. 2005. Invited talk.

Cognition with neurons: A large-scale, biologically realistic model of the Wason task. Cognitive Science Society Conference. Stresa , Italy : July 2005. Submitted poster.

Dynamics in neural systems. McDonnell Project in Philosophy and Neuroscience. Caltech: June 2005. Invited talk

Learning context sensitive inference in a neurobiological simulation. AAAI Fall Symposium on Compositional Connectionism. Oct. 2004. Submitted talk.

Neural engineering: Large-scale neurobiological simulations with applications. Research Colloquium in the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. Jun. 2004. Invited talk.

A neurobiological simulation of deductive reasoning. COSYNE 04, Cold Spring Harbor Labratory. Mar. 2004. Submitted poster.

A dynamic model of working memory in the PFC during a somatosensory discrimination task. COSYNE 04, Cold Spring Harbor Labratory. Mar. 2004. Submitted poster with Ray Singh.

Neurosemantics and misrepresentation. Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Colloquium. Washington University in St. Louis. Oct. 2003. Invited talk.

Beyond a metaphor: Understanding the mind for what it is. Philosophy Department Colloquium. Washington University in St. Louis. Oct. 2003. Invited talk.

Inference and prediction in neocortical circuits. American Institute of Mathematics, Palo Alto, CA. Sept. 2003. Invited workshop participant.

A neurosemantics for categories. Cognitive Science Summer School, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, PQ. July, 2003. Invited talk.

Neurosemantics and misrepresentation. McDonnell Project in Philosophy and the Neurosciences, Heron Island, Australia. July, 2003. Invited talk.

A general framework for constructing large-scale, biologically plausible simulations. CNS *2003, Alicante, Spain. Jun. 2003. Submitted poster and 1/2 day workshop.

A general framework for large-scale simulations applied to working memory. ICCNS'03, Boston, MA. May 2003. Submitted talk.

Neural engineering:
How to build large-scale, biologically plausible simulations of neural systems. Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State University. Feb. 2003. Invited talk.

Beyond a metaphor: Understanding the mind for what it is. Philosophy Department Colloquium. University of Western Ontario. Oct. 2002. Invited talk.

Beyond metaphors: Computation, representation and dynamics in cognitive systems. Neuroscience and Philosophy. Carleton University. Oct. 2002. Invited talk.

A general framework for understanding neurobiological systems: An application to working memory. Center for Neuroscience, UC Davis. Apr. 2002. Invited talk.

Beyond a metaphor: Understanding the mind for what it is. Cognitive Science in the New Millennium Foundations, Directions, Applications, and Problems. CalState University, Long Beach. Apr. 2002. Invited talk.

Integrating representations, transformations, and dynamics: A general framework for understanding neurobiological systems. Caltech and Pitzer College, CA. Nov. 2001. Invited talk.

A general framework for neurobiological modeling: An application to the vestibular system. Computational Neuroscience (CNS*2001). Monterey, CA. July, 2001. Poster.

How brains represent: Sensing motion. University of Waterloo Cognitive Science Forum. June, 2001. Invited talk.

A general framework for simulating neurobiological networks applied to the vestibular system. Washington University Computational Neuroscience Series. April, 2001. Invited talk.

Beyond bumps: Spiking networks that store smooth n-dimensional functions. Computational Neuroscience (CNS *2000). Brugge, Belgium. July, 2000. Poster.

The myth of the Turing machine: The failings of functionalism and related theses. American Philosophical Association, Central Division. Chicago, IL. April, 2000. Submitted talk.

Rethinking central pattern generators: A general framework. Computational Neuroscience (CNS *99). Pittsburgh, PA. July, 1999. Poster.

A change in perspective for philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists: A new take on representational problems. Washington University, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program work-in-progress colloquia. April, 1999. Volunteered talk.

Attractors, representation, and a neurocomputational framework. Computational Neuroscience (CNS *98). Santa Barbara, CA. July, 1998. Poster. Washington University Neuroscience Retreat. Potosi, MO. October, 1998. Invited talk.

Attractive and in-discrete: A critique of two putative virtues of the dynamicist theory of mind. Society for Philosophy and Psychology. June, 1998. Poster. Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology. April, 1998. Submitted talk.

The neural integrator: An application of the PDF modeling framework. Washington University Neuroscience Retreat. Potosi, MO. October, 1997. Poster.

Structure without symbols: Providing a distributed account of high-level cognition. Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology. March, 1997. Submitted talk. (html version)

Integrating structure and meaning: A distributed model of analogical mapping. Washington University, Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program work-in-progress colloquia. October, 1996. Volunteered talk.

Committees, Professional Affiliations, and other activities