SISU Launches a Lab to Bridge Humanities and Science

Wang Dai

The Neurocognitive Image Lab(NIL) opened at Shanghai International Studies  University(SISU) on October 21 . It is a laboratory to experiment on how human brains respond to art works. The findings can be applied to artificial intelligence (AI) development, psychotherapy as well as cultural heritage protection.

The establishment of NIL aims to integrate language science with image research in order to let AI recognize and understand images more accurately. It empowers interdisciplinary innovation and integration through the development of New Humanities.

New Humanities means the combination of traditional humanistic inquiry with scientific and technological innovations such as AI. According to the Ministry of Education of China , New Humanity was proposed to cultivate talents for the digital age and boost the integration of liberal arts and science. Moreover, New Humanities was expected to establish China's own discourse system and academic concepts, which was planed to complete before 2035.

 Besides, NIL will cooperate with the existing laboratories in SISU, such as Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain-Machine Intelligence for Information Behavior(BMIB) in SISU. The latter studies how human brains process information with the aid of AI and neuroscience equipment, to carry out research about information processing.

President of SISU Li Yansong noted that the establishment of NIL expanded the academic focus from language to image, from cognition to intelligence. Though as a university specialized in language research, SISU has started the research of image years before the establishment of NIL.

As a cofounder of NIL and Dean of World Art History Institute, Professor. Lao Zhu believed the research of image pursued a dual mission. One is to investigate the fundamental nature of images themselves and the other is to explore how images are processed and generated by the human mind.

 NIL is a lab where science and art meet. When the images of cultural heritages are shown on the screen, special machines were used to measure participants’ brain wave activity so that human being’s aesthetic perception will be recorded. “We try to understand not only how we see images, but how images make us human,” said For Ernst Pöppel, Director of NIL.

Vice Principal Wang Xin also signed an inter-university cooperation agreements with Vera Zabotkina, Vice President of the Russian State University for the Humanities. The agreements are expected to lay a foundation of joint research in cognitive neuroscience and interdisciplinary talent training.

he Neurocognitive Image Lab(NIL) opened at Shanghai International Studies University(SISU) on October 21 . It is a laboratory to experiment on how human brains respond to art works. The findings can be applied to artificial intelligence (AI) development, psychotherapy as well as cultural heritage protection.

The establishment of NIL aims to integrate language science with image research in order to let AI recognize and understand images more accurately. It empowers interdisciplinary innovation and integration through the development of New Humanities.

New Humanities means the combination of traditional humanistic inquiry with scientific and technological innovations such as AI. According to the Ministry of Education of China , New Humanity was proposed to cultivate talents for the digital age and boost the integration of liberal arts and science. Moreover, New Humanities was expected to establish China's own discourse system and academic concepts, which was planed to complete before 2035.

 Besides, NIL will cooperate with the existing laboratories in SISU, such as Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain-Machine Intelligence for Information Behavior(BMIB) in SISU. The latter studies how human brains process information with the aid of AI and neuroscience equipment, to carry out research about information processing.

President of SISU Li Yansong noted that the establishment of NIL expanded the academic focus from language to image, from cognition to intelligence. Though as a university specialized in language research, SISU has started the research of image years before the establishment of NIL.

As a cofounder of NIL and Dean of World Art History Institute, Professor. Lao Zhu believed the research of image pursued a dual mission. One is to investigate the fundamental nature of images themselves and the other is to explore how images are processed and generated by the human mind.

 NIL is a lab where science and art meet. When the images of cultural heritages are shown on the screen, special machines were used to measure participants’ brain wave activity so that human being’s aesthetic perception will be recorded. “We try to understand not only how we see images, but how images make us human,” said For Ernst Pöppel, Director of NIL.

Vice Principal Wang Xin also signed an inter-university cooperation agreements with Vera Zabotkina, Vice President of the Russian State University for the Humanities. The agreements are expected to lay a foundation of joint research in cognitive neuroscience and interdisciplinary talent training.