Hayoung Song

I am a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis. 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.

I study how the human brain gives rise to the mind using functional neuroimaging and behavioral experiments. Nowadays, I am building computational models of the mind and brain to gain a mechanistic understanding. I am passionate about open and slow science practices and across-field collaborations.

Research Program

Causal inference during naturalistic event comprehension
We understand everyday events by reasoning about their underlying causes. We integrate ongoing events with causally related events in memory to form and update coherent situational representations. How does the brain accomplish this? I use functional magnetic resonance imaging, naturalistic behavioral experiments, and computational modeling to answer this question.

Neural dynamics at multiple scales and their relations to cognitive dynamics
Cognition arises from neural operations at multiple spatial scales, from individual neurons to large-scale networks. I think a lot about how neural operations at different scales collectively give rise to complex behavior, and how we can study this as a field. I use dynamical systems to characterize and model neural dynamics.

Science in the wild
I entered the field to understand the neural basis of subjective experience. I wanted to explain the tingling sensation I felt as a kid in front of a beautiful painting (so-called aesthetic experience). I collaborate with artists and organizations to conduct science in the wild to investigate our subjective experiences.