Prof. Gustaf Gredebäck's Excellence Lecture in Cognitive Science "How Hands Shape the Mind"

The University of Latvia (UL) Faculty of Science and Technology Department of Computing invites you to the Robert Blumberg 2025 Excellence Lecture in Cognitive Science, delivered by Professor Gustaf Gredebäck from Uppsala University, Sweden.

In the Excellence Lecture, "How Hands Shape the Mind", Professor Gredebäck will explain how hand and palm actions in infancy influence thinking and perception.

The lecture will take place on Tuesday, January 21, at 5:00 PM, at the RSU Anatomy Museum, Kronvalda Boulevard 9.

In his lecture, Professor Gredebäck will discuss how hand and palm actions (e.g., reaching, grasping, interacting with objects) impact thinking, perception, and the mind. Drawing on research findings, he will outline four developmental pathways that enable infants to address significant challenges early in life:

1. Engaging motor process simulations to predict future actions.
2. The emergence of cognitive control through reaching and grasping.
3. Actively exploring the surrounding environment.
4. Learning from errors to facilitate cognitive and perceptual processes.

These four developmental pathways illustrate how infants, through hand activity and associated neural processes, control actions to structure their world, develop cognitive abilities, and learn from interactions with the physical and social environment.

Professor Gustaf Gredebäck is a prominent cognitive scientist and developmental psychologist who has conducted groundbreaking and transformative research. His contributions include pioneering new research methods and enhancing existing ones.

Professor Gredebäck's studies span multiple areas of developmental psychology, particularly focusing on the cognitive, social, and emotional development of infants. A central aspect of his research highlights infants' intentional and active engagement with their environment to foster cognitive development.

Other significant areas of Professor Gredebäck’s work include studying cognitive development in children raised in war zones or families with parental mental health challenges, as well as children growing up in transitional societies. He has also explored child development in communities beyond Europe and the highly industrialized and developed world.

Professor Gredebäck has made notable discoveries in perception research, particularly in the field of eye movement studies, where his work on infant eye tracking is considered part of modern science's golden standard. His methods are widely used worldwide. He has also significantly contributed to research on understanding the role of pupilometry (the study of pupil diameter measurements) in perception.

Professor Gredebäck is the director of the Uppsala Child and Baby Lab at Uppsala University and is one of Sweden's and Scandinavia's most distinguished cognitive scientists.

He is the Robert Blumberg Excellence Lecturer for 2024/2025. The lecture series was established and supported by Robert Blumberg, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Latvia in Illinois, USA.

The lecture's organization is administered by the UL Foundation, with additional support from the UL Faculty of Science and Technology Department of Computing and the RSU Anatomy Museum.