Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture

Gil Weinberg | Professor, School of Music and Founding Director of the Center for Music Technology | Georgia Institute of Technology  "Embodied Creative Machines"  Human creativity is directly linked to embodied interaction with the physical environment. At the Robotic Musicianship Group at Georgia Tech, we explore how embodiment effects and enhances both human and artificial creativity. The talk will present a wide range of robotic projects developed at Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology over the last 20 years, from robotic musicians that compose, improvise, and interact with humans in a variety of musical genres, through robotic dancers that respond to human movement, to prosthetic robotic arms that enable amputees to play musical instruments.  Gil Weinberg is a professor and the founding director of Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, where he leads the Robotic Musicianship group. His research focuses on developing artificial creativity and musical expression for robots and augmented humans. Among his projects are a marimba playing robotic musician called Shimon that uses machine learning for Jazz improvisation, and a prosthetic robotic arm for amputees that restores and enhances human drumming abilities.  Weinberg presented his work worldwide in venues such as The Kennedy Center, The World Economic Forum, Ars Electronica, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum, SIGGRAPH, TED-Ed, DLD and others. His music was performed with Orchestras such as Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the National Irish Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish BBC Symphony while his research has been disseminated through numerous journal articles and patents. Dr. Weinberg received his MS and PhD degrees in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and his BA from the interdisciplinary program for fostering excellence in Tel Aviv University.  Gil Weinberg :: https://www.gilweinberg.com/ SEE BELOW FOR SOME OF THE VIDEOS PREVIEWED IN PRESENTATION.  THE AGE OF AI :: https://youtu.be/UwsrzCVZAb8?si=9rfi3NSCwIe1n0NR&t=863  SHIMON IN CONCERT :: https://youtu.be/zG8VWPL35qI?si=54IKr0E8ax26x9Jc  BRAINWAVES / “FISH AND CHIPS” :: https://www.gilweinberg.com/brainwaves?pgid=m2acvhzk1-f5d71d01-9eb3-4cae-a336-1dbf7f335ade EYEDRUM EXHIBITION :: https://www.gilweinberg.com/brainwaves?pgid=m2acvhzk1-c6092737-f02b-4a58-942b-42e685ea9595 NERVE BEATBUGS :: https://youtu.be/B7WlkVGH1fs?si=I2xWeoqUOWVCPBkc HAILE :: https://youtu.be/OT2Lp00ib1Y?si=jPupqd-Qb9gCYuHE THREE-ARMED DRUMMING :: https://youtu.be/fKryPingtww?si=U7SrChs-n-5ctTZW  DRUMMING PROSTHETIC CONCERT @ KSU :: https://youtu.be/6xc2_p-q9tU?si=I7tnesxJyhQUpNAn  JASON BARNES EMG PROSTHETIC ARM SHOWCASE :: https://youtu.be/4rakPJHH7KU?si=sUrBc2zlTiCYvhSy  JASON BARNES - GUINESS WORLD RECORDS :: https://youtu.be/cVFcJ3TMrok?si=C104ssuxrU6Hn_SK  WORLD’S FIRST BIONIC DRUMMER :: https://youtu.be/GKW7cg45EwY?si=1jBmN1ABFXiP-lxb  SKYWALKER HAND :: https://youtu.be/8t8p43m1Iuw?si=SKhs2BTMX6qP-GXz  GIL WEINBERG: LUKE SKYWALKER PROSTHESIS CONTROLS FINGERS AND PLAYS PIANO :: https://youtu.be/HjW1kIt5iQg?si=kHcuIHgsLnAWJvMy   If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.

Héctor Álvarez | Theater Studies, Emory University  "Dilating Time: Tempo as Contemplative Tool in Ota Shogo’s Poetics of Deceleration"  This talk explores Ota Shogo's groundbreaking wordless play "The Water Station" as a paradigm of temporal expansion in contemporary theater, examining how extreme deceleration creates unique spaces for audience reflection and embodied awareness. Together we'll investigate how slowed theatrical time functions not merely as stylistic choice but as philosophical intervention—challenging our accelerated cultural rhythms and opening possibilities for deeper environmental and existential awareness.  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Héctor Álvarez is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar working in performance, theater, film, and contemporary opera, who has recently joined the faculty at Emory in Theater Studies. This event marks the first in a planned series of dialogues between the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture and the Keio University Centre for Contemplative Studies in Tokyo, Japan, an interdisciplinary group of contemplative scholars, cognitive scientists and artists.       If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.

Shay Welch | Associate Professor of Philosophy | Spelman College  "The Bio-Psycho-Social Affect Loop, HyperSensitivity, and Radical Embodied Cognition" If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.

Tara Callaghan |  Professor of Psychology, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada  "Fostering Prosociality in Refugee Children: An Intervention with Rohingya Children"  Prosocial behavior is a distinguishing characteristic of human nature. Although prosocial behaviors emerge early in development, contextual factors play an important role in how these behaviors are manifested over development. A large body of research focuses on the trajectory of prosocial development across diverse cultures and investigating contexts that foster it. Against this backdrop of developmental research endeavoring to understand and enhance the cooperative side of humanity, is the catastrophic impact of profoundly negative forces on social-emotional development for children forced to flee from violent conflict. Close to half a million Rohingya children, whose families were forced to flee genocide in Myanmar, now live in the largest refugee camp in the world. To examine the resilience of human prosociality in the face of extreme adversity, we documented initial levels of prosociality in Rohingya refugee children living in a mega-camp (Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh) and the extent to which those levels were improved following a multifaceted intervention designed to foster prosociality. The research was a partnership between Rohingya community members with lived experience, humanitarian practitioners, and developmental researchers. (Continued - for the full ABSTRACT follow this link: https://bit.ly/cmbclecturecallaghan [https://bit.ly/cmbclecturecallaghan] )  00:00 Intro by Philippe Rochet, Professor of Psychology, Emory University  03:52 Lecture  46:38 Q&A Session  If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.

Alexandra (Sasha) Key | Professor, Marcus Autism Center, Emory University School of Medicine  "Building a functional communication system: Does the baby have a say?"  For a long time, language development has been framed mainly in the context of nature-nurture interactions. However, research in non-typical development suggests that another critical contributor should be considered. In this talk, I will present findings from neurophysiological studies in infants and children to demonstrate the importance of self-initiated active engagement with spoken communication for supporting more optimal developmental outcomes. Our data will demonstrate that choosing to engage with speech, an indication of social motivation, is an integral part of the previously established associations between the neural systems and the environmental factors contributing to individual differences in language development. Expanding the general conceptual approach to language to include nature-nurture-person will allow us to better understand the sources of variability in functional communication abilities across the full spectrum of developmental outcomes. If you would like to become an AFFILIATE [https://cmbc.emory.edu/about/join.html] of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/@emorycmbc1507] to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/emorycmbc/] |  Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/EmoryCenterForMindBrainAndCulture/]   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture or Emory University.