Publications

Lab GitHub page

Highlighted recent conference abstracts

Belledonne, M., Geller, C., & Yildirim, I. (2023). Goal-conditioned world models: Adaptive computation over multi-granular generative models explains human scene perception. Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Conference (CCN)

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Yilmaz, H., Muellner, M., Tenenbaum, J.B., Dobs, K., & Yildirim, I. (2023). Efficient inverse graphics with a differentiable generative model explains robustness of perception to unusual viewing angles. Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Conference (CCN)

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Bi, W., Lin, Q., Peng, K., Shah, A., & Yildirim, I. (2023). Spontaneous visual processing of non-rigid materials recruits intuitive physical inference regions and activates physics-based representations in the human brain. Society for Neuroscience (SfN), Nanosymposium on Representations of Objects and Scenes.

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Calbick, D., Kim, J., Sohn, H., Jazayeri, M., & Yildirim, I. (2024). Uncovering neural mechanisms of mental simulation by symbolically programming RNNs. Cosyne 2024.

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Under review

Belledonne, M, Butkus, E., Scholl, B.J., Yildirim, I. Adaptive computation as a new mechanism of human attention. (in revision; email for a draft)


Yates, T., Yasuda. S, & Yildirim, I. Temporal segmentation and ‘look ahead’ simulation: Physical events structure visual perception of intuitive physics. (under review).

PDF | Preprint

2024

Lin, Q.*, Li, Z.*, Lafferty, J., & Yildirim, I. (accepted.) Images with harder-to-reconstruct visual representations leave stronger memory traces. Nature Human Behaviour.

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Yildirim, I. & Paul, L. (2024). From task structures to world models: What do LLMs know? Trends in Cognitive Sciences (TICS).

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Yamada, Y.*, Bao, Y.*, Lampinen, A.K., Kasai, J. & Yildirim, I. (2024). Evaluating spatial understanding of large language models. Transactions in Machine Learning Research (TMLR).

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Yildirim, I.*, Siegel, M.*, Soltani, A.A.*, Chadhuri, S.R., & Tenenbaum, J.B. (2024). Perception of 3D Shape Integrates Intuitive Physics and Analysis-by-Synthesis. Nature Human Behaviour, 8(2).

PDF | Link, Cover Article!

Yamada, Y., Zhang, F., Kluger, Y., & Yildirim, I. (2024). Three-Dimensional Reconstruction Pre-Training as a Prior to Improve Robustness to Adversarial Attacks and Spurious Correlation. Entropy 26(3).

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2023

Yamada, Y.*, Tang, Y.*, Zhang, M., & Yildirim, I. (2023). When are lemons purple? The concept association bias of vision-language models. Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP).

PDF | Preprint

Wong, K. W., Bi, W., Soltani, A. A., Yildirim, I. & Scholl, B. J. (2023) Seeing soft materials draped over objects: A case study of intuitive physics in perception, attention, & memory. Psychological Science, 34(1), 111-119.

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Zhang, Y., Belledonne. M, Yates, T. & Yildirim, I. (2023). Where does the flow go? Humans automatically predict liquid pathing with coarse-grained simulation. 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci).

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Calbick, D., Kim, J., & Yildirim, I. (2023). Exploring a basis set of intrinsic functions underlying neural computation by symbolically programming recurrent neural networks. Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Conference (CCN)

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2021

Seeing in the dark: Testing deep neural network and analysis-by-synthesis accounts of 3D shape perception with highly degraded images. (2021). Yilmaz, H., Singh, G., Egger, B., Tenenbaum, J., & Yildirim, I. 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 

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Perception of soft materials relies on physics-based object representations: Behavioral and computational evidence. (2021). Bi, W., Shah, A., Wong, K., Scholl, B.J., & Yildirim, I. 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. [talk]

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Automatic computation of navigational affordances explains selective processing of geometry in scene perception: behavioral and computational evidence. (2021). Belledonne, M. & Yildirim, I. 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. [talk]


2020

Efficient inverse graphics in biological face processing. (2020). Yildirim, I., Belledonne, M., Freiwald, W., & Tenenbaum, J.B. Science Advances.

PDF | link, code and data, bioRxiv

Physical object representations for perception and cognition. Yildirim, I., Siegel, M., & Tenenbaum, J.B. (2020). The Cognitive Neurosciences, 6th edition, Gazzaniga, Mangun, Poeppel (Editors). 

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Butkus, E.*, Belledonne, M.*, Scholl, B.J., & Yildirim, I. (2020). Modeling temporal attention in dynamic scenes: Hypothesis-driven resource allocation using adaptive computation explains both objective tracking performance and subjective effort judgments. 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.


2019

Explaining intuitive difficulty judgments by modeling physical effort and risk. (2019). Yildirim, I.*, Saeed, B.*, Gerstenberg, T., Bennett-Pierre, G., Tenenbaum, J.B.+, Gweon, H.+ 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

arXiv 1905.04445

An integrative computational architecture for object-driven cortex. (2019). Yildirim, I., Wu, J., Kanwisher, N., & Tenenbaum, J.B. Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

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Modeling human intuitions about liquid flow with particle-based simulation. (2019). Bates, C.J., Yildirim, I., Battaglia, P.W., Tenenbaum, J.B. PLoS Computational Biology.

arXiv

2018

Neurocomputational modeling of human physical scene understanding. (2018). Yildirim, I.*, Smith, K.*, Belledonne, M.*, Wu, J., & Tenenbaum, J.B. In 2nd Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Conference (CCN). [Selected as a talk.]

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2017

Physical problem solving: Joint planning with symbolic, geometric, and dynamic constraints. (2017) Yildirim, I.*, Gerstenberg, T.*, Saeed, B., Toussaint, M., Tenenbaum, J.B. Proceedings of the Thirty-Night Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

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Causal and compositional generative models in online perception. (2017) Yildirim, I.*, Janner M.*, Belledonne, M., Wallraven, C., Freiwald, W., Tenenbaum, J.B. Proceedings of the Thirty-Night Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

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Self-supervised intrinsic image decomposition. (2017). Janner, M., Wu, J., Kulkarni, T., Yildirim, I., Tenenbaum, J.B. Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).

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2016

Perceiving Fully Occluded Objects via Physical Simulation. Yildirim, I.*, Siegel, M.*, Tenenbaum, J.B. Proceedings of the Thirty-Eight Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

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Integrating Identification and Perception: A case study of familiar and unfamiliar face processing. Allen, K.R., Yildirim, I., Tenenbaum, J.B. Proceedings of the Thirty-Eight Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

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2015

Learning Multisensory Representations for Auditory-Visual Transfer of Sequence Category Knowledge: A Probabilistic Language of Thought Approach Yildirim, I. & Jacobs, R.A. (2015). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22(3), p.673.

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Talker-specificity and adaptation in quantifier interpretation. Yildirim, I., Degen, J., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Jaeger, T. F. (2015). Journal of Memory and Language.

PDF | sciencedirect

From Sensory Signals to Modality-Independent Conceptual Representations: A Probabilistic Language of Thought Approach. Erdogan, G., Yildirim, I., & Jacobs, R. A. (in press). PLoS Computational Biology.

PDF | PLoS

Galileo: Perceiving physical object properties by integrating a physics engine with deep learning. (2015). Wu, J.*, Yildirim, I.*, Lim, J., Freeman, W.T., & Tenenbaum, J.B. Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). *equal contributions, authors listed in the alphabetical order.

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Efficient analysis-by-synthesis in vision: A computational framework, behavioral tests, and modeling neuronal representations. Yildirim, I., Kulkarni, T.D., Freiwald, W.A., & Tenenbaum, J.B. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

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Humans predict liquid dynamics using probabilistic simulation. Bates, C. J., Yildirim, I., Tenenbaum, J.B., & Battaglia, P.W. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

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2014

Transfer of object shape knowledge across visual and haptic modalities. Erdogan, G., Yildirim, I., & Jacobs, R. A. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

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From Perception to Conception: Learning Multisensory Representations. Yildirim, I. (2014). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.

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2013

Transfer of Object Category Knowledge Across Visual and Haptic Modalities: Experimental and Computational Studies. Yildirim, I. & Jacobs, R. A. (2013). Cognition, 126, 135-148.

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Linguistic Variability and Adaptation in Quantifier Meanings. Yildirim, I., Degen, J., Tanenhaus, M. K., & Jaeger, T. F. (2013). In Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

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2012 and before

A Rational Analysis of the Acquisition of Multisensory Representations. Yildirim, I. & Jacobs, R. A. (2012). Cognitive Science, 36(2), 305-332.

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A Bayesian Nonparametric Approach to Multisensory Perception. Yildirim, I. & Jacobs, R. A. (2010). In Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society .

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Hybrid Models for Achieving and Maintaining Cooperative Symbiotic Groups. (2009). Yildirim, I. & Yolum, P. Mind & Society.

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Cooperative Sign Language Tutoring: A Multiagent Approach. (2009). Yildirim, I., Aran, O., Yolum, P., & Akarun, L. In Proceedings of Engineering Societies in Agents’ World X.

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