Alexander Kranjec

Alexander Kranjec is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University's McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts. He also holds adjunct faculty positions at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University and is a Community Member of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics at the University of Pennsylvania. Previously, he was a Visiting Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands during his sabbatical.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, City University of New York, 2006
• M.S. in Experimental Psychology, City University of New York, 2002
• B.A. in Philosophy, Grinnell College, 1995

Dr. Kranjec's research focuses on how meaning is represented in the mind and brain across different media such as art and language. His work integrates cognitive neuroscience with aesthetics to explore spatial and temporal cognition, abstract concepts, and the relationship between language and thought. He employs diverse methodologies including fMRI, tDCS, eye tracking, and lesion analysis to investigate how meaningful relations between people and things produce different kinds of aesthetic experiences. His lab specifically aims to develop approaches to empirical aesthetics that go beyond sensation and perception.

His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on spatial and temporal cognition across cultures, examining how time is conceptualized through spatial metaphors and how these representations vary cross-culturally. His work spans cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, and aesthetics, with particular attention to writing systems, sound symbolism, and the neural bases of meaning representation. Kranjec frequently collaborates with researchers across institutions to conduct cross-cultural and cross-linguistic studies that reveal universal and culture-specific aspects of cognition.

Dr. Kranjec directs the Art & Language Lab at Duquesne University, which is equipped for research using transcranial direct current stimulation (including HD-tDCS), eye tracking, and skin conductance measurements. Through affiliations with the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University, the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, and Duquesne's Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, his lab has access to resources for fMRI and neuropsychological patient research. The lab investigates how meaning is represented in the mind and brain across different media like art and language, with particular focus on basic concepts like space and time.

Dr. Kranjec's research has received international coverage in The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, Wired, and Science, and he has been interviewed by NPR and the BBC. His work on soccer refereeing biases ("A Sinister Bias for Calling Fouls in Soccer") was featured in The New York Times under the title "Referees' Calls May Get Lost in Their Translation." He has delivered numerous invited talks at institutions worldwide and has participated in significant conferences including the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics and the Cognitive Science Society meetings.