ДепартаментКогнитивна наука и психология

My major research interest is how knowledge is represented in biological and artificial neural networks. In particular, I am investigating the extent to each state-of-the-art neural network models can account for symbolic processing and how their capacity to generalize can be improved by explicitly training them to represent symbols. I am also trying to explain the nature of mental representations which underlie cognitive functions such as short term memory and relational reasoning by using connectionist modelling and behavioral experiments.

Vankov, I., & Bowers, J. (in press). Training neural networks to encode symbols enables combinatorial generalization. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0309

Vankov, I. I., & Bowers, J. S. (2016). Do arbitrary input–output mappings in parallel distributed processing networks require localist coding? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 32(3), 392–399. doi:10.1080/23273798.2016.1256490

Bowers, J. S., Vankov, I. I., & Ludwig, C. J. H. (2015). The visual system supports online translation invariance for object identification. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23(2), 432–438. doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0916-2

Bowers, J. S., Vankov, I. I., Damian, M. F., & Davis, C. J. (2016). Why do some neurons in cortex respond to information in a selective manner? Insights from artificial neural networks. Cognition, 148, 47–63. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2015.12.009

Vankov, I., Bowers, J., & Munafo, M. R. (2014). Article Commentary: On the Persistence of Low Power in Psychological Science. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67(5), 1037–1040. doi:10.1080/17470218.2014.885986 

Bowers, J. S., Vankov, I. I., Damian, M. F., & Davis, C. J. (2014). Neural networks learn highly selective representations in order to overcome the superposition catastrophe. Psychological Review, 121(2), 248–261. doi:10.1037/a0035943

Vankov, I., & Kokinov, B. (2013). The role of the motor system in conceptual processing: Effects of object affordances beyond response interference. Acta Psychologica, 143(1), 52–57. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2013.02.003

Vankov, I. (2011). The interplay of spatial attention and memory: evidence for memory-driven spatial compatibility effects, but not for a facilitating role of attention in memory retrieval. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 73(7), 2124–2129. doi:10.3758/s13414-011-0157-z