Hayoung Song

We understand the world by constructing meaning from a sequence of everyday events. This process, known as narrative comprehension, draws on cognitive processes like memory, attention, and causal reasoning. My research asks how the brain carries out the computations that underlie comprehension. I use naturalistic behavioral experiments during functional magnetic resonance imaging to study brain activity as people follow narratives like movies and stories and describe their thoughts out loud. I also develop computational models, using both normative and data-driven approaches, to simulate cognitive processes and the underlying brain circuits. My goal is to understand how the human brain gives rise to complex cognitive processes that we experience in the real world. I am passionate about slow and open science practices and across-field collaborations.

I am currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis, where I mainly work with ShiNung Ching and Zach Reagh. I received a PhD in Psychology (Integrative Neuroscience) from the University of Chicago, advised by Monica Rosenberg and Yuan Chang Leong. I received an MS in Biomedical Engineering and a BA in Psychology from Sungkyunkwan University in Korea, advised by Won Mok Shim and Min-Suk Kang.