PEOPLE

Yanchao Bi is a Boya professor in School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Institute for Artificial Intelligence, at Peking University. She received her PhD from the Department of Psychology, Harvard University in 2006. Her work focuses on the study of functional and neural architecture associated with semantic memory, knowledge representation, and language processing, using cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, multi-modal neuroimaging, computation modeling and other research methods. Her work is mainly funded by Ministry of Science and Technology (973 project) and National Science Foundation of China. She currently serves on the editorial board of Journals Elife (Senior Editor), Neurobiology of Language (Senior Editor), Cognitive Neuropsychology. She has won various awards, scholarships, or recognitions such as “The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars”, “The National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars”, “New Century Excellent Talents in University”, Sackler scholar of psychophysiology, Fulbright scholar, and “rising star” in the Observer by the Association for Psychological Sciences.

Research Interest: I'm interested in how knowledge is stored in the human brain. Specifically, I study abstract word meanings and recently investigates what cognitive and neural factors contribute to the commonalities and differences of abstract word representation across individuals.

Research Interest: My studies focus on the cognitive and neural basis of concept learning, including but not limited to the following issues: 1) how people can learn new concept from only a few examples; 2) what roles sensory and language experience play in concept learning, and 3) how concept learning varis between individuals.

Research Interest: My research focuses on how the brain processes objects, particularly artificial objects that represent human technology. I explore this process from multiple perspectives, including ontogeny, development, and genetics, examining the role of both cortical and subcortical brain networks. Additionally, I investigate interactions between different cognitive systems, with a special emphasis on the relationship between language and object processing. How does language shape object recognition? Do they share a common genetic foundation? These studies offer an ha ode evolutionary perspective on object processing and the coordination of multiple cognitive systems.

Research Interest: My general interests lie in visual perception, recognition, learning, and attention. I study the recognition of faces and objects and how it is influenced by context and experience. I am also interested in visual behaviors associated with music reading experience. My most recent work revolves around ensemble perception and investigates how people vary in their abilities to perceive ensembles of diverse categories.

Research Interest: How do internal knowledge representations interact with mental imagery? I investigate this question by combining fMRI with deep neural networks (DNNs), comparing individuals with congenital aphantasia (no voluntary imagery) and neurotypical controls.

Research Interest: I'm interested in how meaning and knowledge are represented in mind and brain. In particular, I use computational and formal modeling to study how semantic and knowledge representations are formed from experiential inputs in both human and AI. I scrutinize the computational mechanisms undelying these representations that gives rise to the compositional and generative production of potentially infinite novel as well as semantically plausible sentences, concepts, and knowledge.

Research Interest: My research investigates how causal inference shapes human cognition across levels, from everyday goal-directed actions like reaching to novel embodied experiences such as virtual flight, and further to complex reasoning in domains like chess.

Research Interest: I'm interested in how knowledge is created and transmitted in group and societies through language communications. I use computational modeling and neural imaging methods to examine the way that language experience impacts on our understanding of the world.

Research Interest: I'm interested in the mechanism of brain plasticity, and I'm now investigating the interaction between sensorimotor experience and neural representation of body and body actions.

Research Interest: My main research interest is how conceptual knowledge is represented in the brain. Recently, I’ve been focusing on two key questions: (1) how conceptual knowledge is organized using spatial scaffolds, and (2) how sensory and linguistic experiences shape the way we represent concepts.

Research Interest: My current research focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language development in preschool children (ages 0-6). By integrating neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, MRI, DTI) with cognitive experimental approaches, I examine how young children acquire complex language abilities, such as phonological representation and semantic knowledge, and explore the underlying computational processes in the developing brain. In parallel, I am working to develop standardized assessment tools for tracking language development in Mandarin-speaking children, as well as designing early screening and intervention programs for those at risk of developmental language disorders.