About Me
I’m Jieyu (Jerry) Li, an RA at NYU Shanghai. My works mainly consist of two parts. One line of my research is about human planning, which is cooperating with Prof. Wei Ji Ma at NYU. We aim to develop a computational model to figure out how human plan in complex circumstances. Another line of my research is about attention, which is supervised by Prof. Xing Tian at NYU Shanghai. We aim to answer the question: What Is the Representation of Visual Attention?
My research interests focus on how the brain represents and acquires knowledge with high efficiency and adaptability. I’d like to find answers from two aspects:
- The general framework behind complex problem solving, e.g., causal reasoning.
- Computation underlying specific cognitive processes, e.g., the Bayesian model for sensory integration.
Before NYU Shanghai, I obtained my master’s and bachelor’s degrees at Shanghai Jiao Tong University majoring in Computer Science. I spent 5 years researching AI and natural language processing (NLP) under the supervision of Prof. Kai Yu and Prof. Lu Chen before I graduated from there. I realized that only studying how AI works is sufficient to understand how the human brain works even though sometimes they behave similarly. That’s the main reason I switch to cognitive science.
Methods
Computational Model
I prefer building computational models using mathematical concepts (e.g., bayesian theory, causality, information entropy, and stochastic process) to explain human cognition.
Artificial Neural Network
I also like to compare the difference between human and ANNs, aiming to figure out the specific features of human cognition that drive us, the most sophisticated intelligent agents in the world, in a much more efficient way than AI.
Behavior Experiments
Behavior experiments are always the basic of exploring human cognition. I love to develop and evaluate theories with both online and in-person experiments
Neuroimaging
I believe that the evidence provided by neural activity recording is noisy but necessary. Therefore, I also want to use neural recordings (e.g., fMRI, EEG, StereoEEG) to evaluate my theories.
Resume
Education
Sep 2020 - Mar 2023
M.E. in Computer Science
Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityFocus on my research on natural language processing and also lead two projects cooperating with companies
Sep 2016 - Jul 2020
B.E. in Computer Science
Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityTake part in several CS and mathematical courses. Spend half of my undergraduate time on the research of AI and dialogue system
Research Experience
Mar 2024 - Current
Weiji Ma's Lab
New York UniversityDevelop a solver to benefit the human planning studies using 4-in-a-row paradigms
Apr 2023 - Current
SLANG (PI: Prof. Xing Tian)
New York University ShanghaiModel object-based attention with eye-tracking and behavior experiments. Analyze neural activities in auditory and somatosensory cortex collected by EEG and StereoEEG
May 2018 - Apr 2023
SpeechLab (PI: Prof. Kai Yu)
Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityDevelop AI algorithms mainly focus on building natural-language-based human-machine interactive system
