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SUMMARY:Super Mario Bros. as a naturalistic laboratory for studying cognit
 ion in brains and machines - Dr. Yann Harel (University of Oxford)
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20260326T150000Z
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20260326T173000Z
UID:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/78b5036c-fe5b-45d5-b2b9-eace70343adf/
DESCRIPTION:Traditional reductionist paradigms in cognitive science often 
 miss the richness of real-world behavior. While naturalistic paradigms hav
 e recently expanded in vision\, audition\, language\, and social cognition
 \, publicly available closed-loop neuroimaging datasets—where participan
 ts actively act on and reshape their sensory input—remain scarce. In par
 allel\, state-of-the-art artificial agents can now learn to navigate a wid
 e range of situations with high proficiency\, but fall short at generalizi
 ng to unseen contexts\, which humans excel at. To bridge these gaps\, we b
 uilt the Courtois Neuromod Mario dataset as part of the CNeuromod project:
  an open deep-phenotyping resource spanning multiple cognitive domains\, i
 ncluding 84 hours of Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo\, 1985) gameplay collecte
 d from five naïve participants. In this talk\, I will introduce the datas
 et\, motivate the design choices behind its acquisition and annotation\, a
 nd show how reliable brain responses can be recovered from naturally occur
 ring game events. I will then present a comprehensive framework for operat
 ionalizing the platformer by segmenting continuous gameplay into short\, w
 ell-contained\, unitary challenges that facilitate the parsing and analysi
 s of behavior. Finally\, I will discuss ongoing and future research avenue
 s\, including the development of benchmarking baselines for continual rein
 forcement learning\, investigations of the neural basis of motor sequence 
 learning\, and the use of intracranial EEG to identify neural correlates o
 f flow states. Together\, these ingredients position Super Mario Bros. as 
 a total laboratory\, where multiple distinct experiments targeting differe
 nt facets of cognition can be conducted within a single\, unified environm
 ent.\nSpeakers:\nDr. Yann Harel (University of Oxford)
LOCATION:Sherrington Library\, off Parks Road OX1 3PT
TZID:Europe/London
URL:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/78b5036c-fe5b-45d5-b2b9-eace70343adf/
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DESCRIPTION:Talk:Super Mario Bros. as a naturalistic laboratory for studyi
 ng cognition in brains and machines - Dr. Yann Harel (University of Oxford
 )
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