Tommy Botch

About

Hi, I'm Tommy! I am a PhD Candidate in Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College (Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences), primarily working with Emily Finn.

My research aims to understand how humans process and make predictions about language. I am particularly interested in how and when language representation diverges both between individuals and between humans and artificial neural networks (e.g., large language models). To tackle these questions, I use a combination of human behavior, functional neuroimaging (fMRI), and machine learning.

Before starting my PhD, I completed a B.S. in Psychobiology at UCLA and worked as a lab manager for Caroline Robertson at Dartmouth College.

Publications & Preprints

Botch, T.L. & Finn, E.S. (2024). Neural representations of concreteness and concrete concepts are specific to the individual. Journal of Neuroscience, doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0288-24.2024.  pdf

Botch, T.L. & Finn, E.S. (2024). Human predictions of spoken language are more accurate and better aligned with neural activity than language model predictions. Proc 8th Ann Conf on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience.  pdf.

Botch, T.L. & Finn, E.S. (2024). Humans diverge from language models when predicting spoken language. ICLR 2024 Workshop on Representational Alignment.   pdf.

Prasad, D., Haskins, A.J., Botch, T.L., Mentch, J., Robertson, C.E. (2023). vrGazeCore: a toolbox for virtual reality eye-tracking analysis. Proc 7th Ann Conf on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience.   pdf.   Github Tutorial

Mynick, A., Steel, A., Jayaraman, A., Botch, T.L., Burrows, A., Robertson., C.E. (2023). Memory-based predictions prime perceptual judgments across head turns in immersive, real-world scenes. PsyArXiv. doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/nkdjv.  pdf

Botch, T.L., Garcia, B.D., Choi, Y.B., Feffer, N., Robertson, C.E. (2023). Active visual search in naturalistic environments reflects individual differences in classic visual search performance. Scientific Reports, 13, 631.  pdf

Haskins, A.J., Mentch, J., Botch, T.L., Garcia, B.D., Burrows, A.L., Robertson, C.E. (2022). Reduced social attention in autism is magnified by perceptual load in naturalistic environments. Autism Research, 15 (12), 2310–2323.  pdf

Botch, T.L., Robertson, C.E., Finn, E.S. (2022). A deeper look at vision and memory. Nature Neuroscience, 25, 8–10. (News & Views)  pdf

Cohen, M.A., Botch, T.L., Robertson, C.E. (2020). The limits of color awareness during active, real-world vision. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 117, 13821-13827.  pdf

Haskins, A.J., Mentch, J.S., Botch, T.L., Robertson, C.E. (2020). Active vision in immersive, 360° environments. Scientific Reports, 10, 14304.  pdf

Select Posters

Botch, T.L., Song, H., Vanderwal, T., Rosenberg, M.D. & Finn, E.S. (2024). Naturalistic “dark matter”: Inter-subject correlations persist after regressing stimulus features. Organization of Human Brain Mapping Annual Meeting.

Botch, T.L. & Finn, E.S. (2023). Neural responses to concrete concepts enable finngerprinting of individuals during story listening. Organization of Human Brain Mapping Annual Meeting.

Botch, T.L., Prasad, D., Haskins, A.J., Mentch, J., Robertson, C.E. (2023). vrGazeCore: an open-source package for virtual reality eye-tracking analysis. Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting.

Botch, T.L., Choi, Y.B., Garcia, B.D., Robertson, C.E. (2022). Performance on classic and real-world visual search tasks in individuals with and without autism. Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting.

Botch, T.L., Busch, E.L., Robertson, C.E. (2020) Application of Deep Neural Networks to Model Omnidirectional Gaze Behavior in Immersive VR, Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting.

Botch, T.L., Mentch, J., Robertson, C.E. (2019) Gaze behavior during 360º naturalistic scene viewing. Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting.

Contact

Send me an email at tlasmanbotch (at) gmail (dot) com!

Elements

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