Contact Information

Biography

Alexander Kranjec studied philosophy at Grinnell College. He later received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the City University of New York, Brooklyn College. After completing his studies, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Neurology Department and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, occasionally teaching at their Summer Neuroscience Bootcamp for lay professionals. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University, Adjunct Faculty at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University, and a Community Member of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent his sabbatical as a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Dr. Kranjec is the director of the Art & Language Lab at Duquesne University. His lab uses cognitive behavioral methods, neuroimaging (fMRI), non-invasive brain stimulation (tDCS), case studies, and lesion analysis techniques (in patients with focal brain damage) to investigate how meaning is represented in the mind and brain, and in different media like art and language. He has published extensively on topics pertaining to language, spatial & temporal cognition, and neuroaesthetics. He is particularly interested in developing approaches to empirical aesthetics that go beyond sensation and perception in order to better understand how meaningful relations between people and things produce different kinds of aesthetic experiences. His research has received international coverage in The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, Wired, and Science among many other popular press publications. He has been interviewed by NPR and the BBC.

Education

  • Ph.D. Experimental Psychology, City University of New York, 2006
  • B.A., Philosophy, Grinnell College, 1995

Research Interests or Expertise

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Neuroaesthetics
  • Psychology of Art
  • Abstract Concepts
  • Space, Time, and Language

Art & Language Lab

 

School

Undergraduate Courses

  • Brain, Behavior, and Cognition
  • Laboratory in Psychological Research

Graduate Courses 

  • Physiological Psychology
  • Callizo-Romero, C., Tutnjević, S., Pandza, M., Ouellet, M., Kranjec, A., Ilić, S., ... & Santiago, J. (2022). Does time extend asymmetrically into the past and the future? A multitask crosscultural study. Language and Cognition, 1-28.
  • Koelsch, L. E., & Kranjec, A. (2022). Revealing Levinas: Transcending moral and aesthetic distinctions between form and content through poetic gamespersonship. Middle Voices, 2(1), 4.
  • Santiago, J., Escámez, O., Callizo, C., Göksun, T., & Kranjec, A. (2021). How are Spatial Distance, Temporal Distance and Temporal Valuation Related?. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 43, No. 43).
  • Callizo-Romero, C., Tutnjević, S., Pandza, M., Ouellet, M., Kranjec, A., Ilić, S., Gu, Y., Göksun, T., Chahboun, S., Casasanto, D. & Santiago, J. (2020). Temporal focus and time spatialization across cultures. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
  • Kranjec, A., & Skov, M. (2020). Visualizing Aesthetics Across Two Centuries. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 0276237420905308.
  • Wallace, S. E., Brown, E. V. D., Simpson, R. C., D'Acunto, K., Kranjec, A., Rodgers, M., & Agostino, C. (2019). A Comparison of Electronic and Paper Versions of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders, 33(3), 272-278.
  • Kranjec, A., Lamanna, L., Guzman, E., Plante, C., Reysen, S., Gerbasi, K., Roberts, S., & Fein, E. (2019). Illusory Body Perception and Experience in Furries. Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
  • Kranjec, A., Lehet M., Woods A.J., & Chatterjee, A. (2019) Time Is Not More Abstract Than Space in Sound. Frontiers in Psychology. 10:48.
  • Kranjec, A. (2018). Representational Biases in Space and Language. In T. Hubbard (Ed.), Spatial Biases in Perception and Cognition (pp. 94-106). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Verbos, J., Wallace, S., & Kranjec, A. (2017). Non-Symbolic Exact Quantity Representation in a Language Impaired Population. Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
  • Özer, D., Kranjec, A., Balcı, F., & Göksun, T. (2017). The Effects of Duration Words and Spatial-Temporal Metaphors on Perceived Duration. Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
  • Kostek, M., Polaski, A., Kolber, B., Ramsey, A., Kranjec, A., & Szucs, K. (2016). A protocol of manual tests to measure sensation and pain in humans. Journal of Visualized Experiments.
  • Quandt, L. C., Cardillo, E. R., Kranjec, A., & Chatterjee, A. (2015).Fronto-temporal regions encode the manner of motion in spatial language. Neuroscience Letters.
  • Woods, A.J., Kranjec, A., Lehet, M., Chatterjee, A. (2015). Expertise and Decision-making in American Football. Frontiers in Psychology.
  • Kranjec, A. (2015). Conceptual Art Made Simple for Neuroaesthetics. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Special Issue: Neuroaesthetics: Neuroscience of Aesthetics).
  • Göksun, T., Kranjec, A., Chatterjee, A. (2014). The development of visual art preferences. Proceedings of the 23rd International Association of Empirical Aesthetics.
  • Kranjec, A. (2014). What Can Conceptual Art Teach Neuroaesthetics? Proceedings of the 23rd International Association of Empirical Aesthetics.
  • Kranjec, A., Lupyan, G., Chatterjee, A. (2014). Categorical Biases in Perceiving Spatial Relations. PLoS ONE.
  • Kranjec, A., Lehet, M., Chatterjee, A. (2014). Pitch Affects Estimates of Space but not Vice Versa. In P. Bello, M. Guarini, M. McShane & B. Scassellati (Eds.), Proceedings of the thirty-fifth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
  • Woods, A.J., Hamilton, R.H., Kranjec, A., Minhas, P., Bikson, M, Yu, J., Chatterjee, A. (2014). Space, Time, and Causality in the Human Brain. Neuroimage.
  • Kranjec, A. (2013). Thought is a Material: Talking with Mel Bochner about Space, Art, and Language. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 25:12, 2015-2024.
  • Kranjec, A., Lehet, M., Chatterjee, A. (2013). Space and Time are Mutually Contagious in Sound. In M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz & I. Wachsmuth (Eds.), Proceedings of the thirty-fourth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
  • Kranjec, A., Ianni, G., & Chatterjee, A. (2013). Schemas reveal spatial relations to a patient with simultanagnosia. Cortex.
  • Schmidt, G. L., Cardillo, E. R., Kranjec, A., Lehet, M., Widick, P., & Chatterjee, A. (2012). Not all analogies are created equal: Associative and categorical analogy processing following brain damage. Neuropsychologia.
  • Cardillo, E. R., Watson, C. E., Schmidt, G. L., Kranjec, A., & Chatterjee, A. (2012). From novel to familiar: Tuning the brain for metaphors. Neuroimage.
  • Kranjec, A., Cardillo, E., Schmidt, G., Lehet, M., & Chatterjee, A. (2012). Deconstructing events: The neural bases for space, time, and causality. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 24:1, 1-16.
  • Amorapanth, P., Kranjec, A., Bromberger, B., Lehet, M., Widick, P., Woods, A., Kimberg, D. & Chatterjee, A. (2012). Language, perception, and the schematic representation of spatial relations. Brain and Language.
  • Kranjec, A., Amorapanth, P., Chatterjee, A. (2012). The Schematic Representation of Spatial Relations: Evidence from Group and Single-Case Lesion Studies. In L. Carlson, C. Hölscher & T. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the thirty-third annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
  • Kranjec, A., & McDonough, L. (2011). The implicit and explicit embodiment of time. Journal of Pragmatics. 43: 3, 735-738. (Special Issue: The Language of Space and Time)
  • Kranjec, A., Chatterjee, A. (2010). Are temporal concepts embodied? A challenge for cognitive neuroscience. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00240. (Special Issue: Embodied and grounded cognition)
  • Cardillo, E., Schmidt, G., Kranjec, A., & Chatterjee, A. (2010). Stimulus design is an obstacle course: 560 Matched literal and metaphorical sentences for testing neural hypotheses about metaphor. Behavior Research Methods, 42, 651-664.
  • Delamater, A., Kranjec, A., & Fein, M. (2010). Differential outcome effects in Pavlovian biconditional ambiguous cue occasion setting tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes. 36:4, 41-481.
  • Kranjec, A., Lehet, M., Bromberger, B., Chatterjee, A. (2010). A Sinister Bias for Calling Fouls in Soccer. PLoS ONE. 5(7): e11667. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011667
  • Kranjec, A., Cardillo, E., Schmidt, G., & Chatterjee, A. (2010). Prescribed spatial prepositions influence how we think about time. Cognition, 114:1, 111-116.
  • Schmidt, G., Kranjec, A., Cardillo, E., & Chatterjee, A. (2010). Beyond Laterality: A Critical Assessment of Research on the Neural Basis of Metaphor. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 16:1-5.
  • Kranjec, A. (2006). Extending Spatial Frames of Reference to Temporal Concepts. In K. Forbus, D. Gentner & T. Regier (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-sixth annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 447-452). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.