Meet the Scientist Index Dr. Jeff Elman Explore and Discover with Dr. Jeff Elman: Language and The Human Brain Biography Dr. Jeff Elman is a Professor of Cognitive Science, the Acting Dean of Social Sciences, and a Founding Co-Director of the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind at UCSD. He tells us about the organization he founded, his computer models of the human brain, and his surprising path to academia. Interview Conducted by Shelley DuBois Q: As an expert in the field of Cognitive Science, how would you describe the difference between the brain and the mind A: In the simplest terms, the brain is the machine that the mind uses. If you were to look at the brain as a computer, the brain would be the hardware, and the mind would be the software. The mind is what the brain does, like the program Word is what a PC does. Q: How does your specific research incorporate these concepts? A: We are mainly interested in how the kind of hardware the brain consists of ultimately leads to the behaviors we associate with the mind. This is an amazing mystery. How can billions and billions of neurons give rise to imagination, emotion, creativity, desire, thought, and so on? Q: I understand you are one of the founding members of KIBM (the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind at UCSD), what purpose does that organization serve in your field A: At KIBM, we are trying to bridge the gap between brain and mind. We do this by mutual education so that we can establish a common vocabulary between various fields. Above all, we are trying to encourage cross-disciplinary research that bridges the brain-mind gap. Q: How do you intend to do so? A: Several years ago, the Kavli Foundation gave the campus a generous gift that created a permanent endowment, and that is what funds the KIBM. That endowment generates an annual interest (about $300,000 per year) that lets us fund a number of innovative grants, We look for creative and unusual proposals. Good science is a must, but we’re particularly interested in interesting proposals that involve interdisciplinary collaborations, and which might not appeal to the more traditional funding agencies. But if the research we fund results in successes, we hope those traditional funding agencies would then continue to support the work. Q: You are involved in some pretty innovative research yourself. Could you explain your connectionism theory? A: Connectionism is the artificial model of the way the brain works. We are in the process of designing a computer based on the brain’s guiding principals. Q: What is the most surprising information that you have learned through your connectionism theory? A: One of the things that the brain does best is learn—babies especially are incredible in their capacity to absorb information. There are many things that human beings know that many psychologists and linguists used to think could not be learned passively. For instance, it was felt that a two-year-old could not learn certain aspects of complex grammar, and that these things therefore had to be innate. Surprisingly, the computer models indicate that it is in fact possible to learn many of the things previously thought to be unlearnable. The human brain is truly amazing in that brains are made of neurons, since neurons alone are stupid. Something remarkable happens when you hook up billions of them, because the transfer of energy between them is extremely complex. Q: What are some of the ways that computers work differently from the human brain? A: Speed is the main shortcoming when working with a digital representation of the human brain because although modern computers are very fast (their internal clocks may run at a rate of more than 3 million ticks per second), computers do one thing at a time. Individual neurons are much slower, but so many neurons are all active at the same time that the brain as a whole can complete tasks much more quickly. For example, it would take the computer model about one-half hour to do something that the human brain might do in less than a second. Q: You spend so much time looking at the strictly mechanical aspects of the human brain, has this affected your interactions with people in your day-to-day life? A: Not really. But I am interested in what makes people tick. Research is research—I like to meet people, and I like getting to know them. Q: What do you do when you’re not in the lab? A: I used to run until my knees went, and now I travel quite a bit. Over the years, I’ve gone to many interesting places for work, so I’ve developed friendships all over the world, Now when I return to those places, I get to spend time with the close friends I’ve made in other countries. I also read a lot, and do some carpentry and crafts work. I love hiking in Anza Borrego, and I’d like to take up kayaking Q: Is there anything else you’d like to tell students who are interested in your field? A: Yes actually, just a little bit of personal history. At first, I was not excited about academia; I was a pretty unhappy academic. I became a high school teacher, and went to grad school on a whim. A job opened up for me in the Linguistic department at UCSD, and I took it—and now here I am still at UCSD thirty years later! My life has proceeded in an unpredictable way. I was very anxious in college about the future, and I’ve realized that it was a mistake to worry too much about the future. I would advise students to keep their eyes open, and to understand that luck and opportunity play an enormous role. When luck hits you over the head, answer. My own academic career certainly wasn’t planned step for step. Also, I would like to say that I often feel like I’m spoiled. I’ve got a great job; there are few jobs where I could have so much control over how I spend my time. I’m surrounded by smart, interesting people. So many of the faculty care about teaching and sharing knowledge. I’m lucky to be around people like that.