14th October 2026 12:20 PM

PhonDAWG - Phonetics Lab Data Analysis Working Group

Fengyue (Lisa) will present a preliminary analysis of her dissertation data.

16th October 2026 03:00 PM

Cognitive Science Hybrid Colloquium: From Sensation to Meaning

The Fall 2026 Cornell Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science Program Colloquium Series presents Dr. Madineh Sedigh-Sarvestani, Assistant Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Freeman Hrabowski Scholar in the Neurobiology and Behavior Department at Cornell University.

Dr. Sedigh-Sarvestani will give a talk titled:   From Sensation to Meaning

Abstract:

How does sensory activity come to represent meaningful features of the world?

My lab studies this question in the visual systems of different species, using behavior to ask what information animals extract from sensory signals and how that information becomes useful for perception and action. By comparing animals with different bodies, sensory systems, and movement capabilities, we can ask how the problems a nervous system must solve depend on the particular ways an animal interacts with its environment.

I’ll describe ongoing projects that examine how relationships among sensation, action, and the physical world shape perception and its underlying neural representations.

Across these studies, we ask how animals interpret sensory signals, how those interpretations can be altered by experience, and what this can reveal about how sensation comes to carry meaning.

Bio:

Madineh Sedigh-Sarvestani has a BA in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College and a PhD in Engineering Science & Mechanics from Penn State University. Her doctoral work focused on statistical and computational modeling of the brain rhythms involved in epilepsy.

She turned to visual neuroscience for her postdoctoral work, first with Diego Contreras and Larry Palmer at the University of Pennsylvania, and later with David Fitzpatrick at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. 

Research Focus:

My lab uses multiple animal models to understand how the architecture and function of the brain’s sensory system meets the behavioral demands of the animal. One of our main goals is to understand how circuits in the visual system transform the visual inputs that arrive at the retina, the biological sensor in the back of the eye.

Our other main goal is to understand how the information encoded in visual circuits is shaped by an animal’s particular movements.  This understanding is pivotal to discovering how visuomotor circuits become optimized to the unique demands of individual animals, including humans. We use in vivo two-photon imaging, electrophysiology, behavioral monitoring, and mathematical modeling to understand the structure and function of visual circuits, and how they are shaped by bodily movements.

In a subset of projects, we use sensors worn by the animal to record the inputs that various biological sensors, like the eye, receive during natural behaviors. Our work will contribute to understanding sensory processing in a manner more faithful to our experience as moving animals.

16th October 2026 07:00 PM

ASL Literature Series: Ben Jarashow Live!

The ASL Program at the Department of Linguistics proudly presents Ben Jarashow, Senior Lecturer at RIT/NTID. 

Ben’s live storytelling show offers a collection of stories, ranging from embarrassing, comedic real-life experiences to stand-up comedy. Prepare for a visual journey filled with jellyfish and a grumpy wife, humor, vivid imagery, and laughter.

Ben Jarashow is a Deaf Studies educator, ASL storyteller, and performer whose passion for storytelling began at a young age. A Gallaudet graduate, Ben is curently a senior lecturer at RIT/NTID in Rochester, NY.

ASL/English interpretation will be provided.

23rd October 2026 08:00 AM

CNY Language Sound Structure Meeting: Workshop on Tone in Speech Corpora

We will travel to Syracuse University for the two-day CNY Language Sound Structure Meeting of the LIN10 Workshop on Tone in Speech Corpora.  LIN10 will focus on methodologies for studying tone in speech corpora, with a goal of discussing and debating current and newly developed tools and best practices in their implementation.

On Friday (Noon to 5:30PM)  we will meet in room 500 in the Hall of Languages, where invited speaker Kathryn Franich (Harvard University) will share  tools developed in her lab to study tonal prominences and their intersection with speech rhythm.

On Saturday in Kittredge Auditorium (10:00AM to 5:00PM), we will have a series of short talks and roundtable discussions centered upon the workshop’s overarching theme of tonal phonology.

This workshop is funded and made possible by the CNY Humanities Corridor. More information can be found at https://www.cnycorridor.net/. We thank the CNY corridor for making this event possible. We are also grateful to SU’s Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics for making their spaces available for use during the event.