prof.dr. F. van der Velde (Frank)

I am professor of Technical Cognition at the department of Cognitive Psychology and Ergonomics (CPE) and the Digital Society Institute (DSI) at the University of Twente. I have a background in cognitive science (psychology) and physics. 

My research interests concern mechanisms of cognition, with a focus on their neural implementation. Specific topics include cognitive and neuro-computational architectures of grounded and productive cognition, visual perception and attention, working memory, higher-level aspects of cognition (language-reasoning), categorization (with learning) and neural models of sequential (control, motor) behavior. The research aims to understand the neurocognitive mechanisms of the brain and to apply these mechanisms in technical systems, as in robots or neuromorphic hardware.

A main focus of my research concerns the development of 'Neural Blackboard Architectures' (NBAs) and the understanding of their learning abilities. NBAs are neuro-computational architectures that afford forms of combinatorial (productive) processing in (human) cognition. An example is the NBA of human language (sentence) processing. This NBA relates the (fully productive) linguistic features of language with the computational architecture needed to implement these features in neural mechanisms. Neuro-dynamical processing in the NBA accounts for aspects of human language processing, such as parsing and ambiguity resolution.  Other (dedicated) NBAs would underlie phonological processing, (aspects of) semantic processing and complex motor planning. 

Key publications related to the NBA are:

• Van der Velde, F., Forth, J., Nazareth, D. S. & Wiggins, G. A. (2017). Linking neural
  and symbolic representation and processing of conceptual structures. Frontiers in Psychology: Cognition, 8:1297.
• Van der Velde, F. (2016). Concepts and relations in neurally inspired in situ concept based computing. Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 10 (4), 1-6.
• Van der Velde, F (2015). Communication, concepts and grounding. Neural Networks, 62, 112-117.
• Van der Velde, F. & de Kamps, M (2015) The necessity of connection structures in
  neural models of variable binding. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 9, 359–370.
• Van Dijk, D. & van der Velde, F. (2015). A Central Pattern Generator for Controlling Sequential Activation in a Neural Architecture for Sentence Processing. Neurocomputing, 170, 128–140.
• Van der Velde, F & de Kamps, M. (2011). Compositional connectionist structures
  based on in situ grounded representations. Connection Science, 23, 97–107.
• Van der Velde, F & de Kamps, M. (2010). Learning of control in a neural architecture of grounded language processing. Cognitive Systems Research, 11, 93–107.
• Van der Velde, F. & de Kamps, M. (2006). Neural blackboard architectures of
  combinatorial structures in cognition (target article). Behavioral and Brain
  Sciences, 29, 37-70. 

Verbonden aan

• Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS), Cognition, Data and Education (CODE)