Alex Miklashevsky

I am a cognitive scientist whose research investigates how embodied processes shape human cognition, with a focus on how motor systems, semantics, and attention interact with abstract concepts. My work integrates behavioral experiments with continuous physiological measures — such as grip force or eye tracking — to uncover how the body contributes to understanding language, numbers, space, time, and affective meaning. This research bridges cognitive psychology, linguistics, and embodied cognition, highlighting both shared mechanisms and individual differences in cognitive processing. I am currently leading the WiNoDa Knowledge Lab at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, where I support interdisciplinary teams to improve scientific data competence and research workflows.

Core Research Themes

1. Embodied Semantics

Understanding how meaning is grounded in sensory and motor systems — for concrete and abstract concepts (e.g. time, valence, numbers).

2. Motor Contribution to Cognition

I investigate how motor system signatures (e.g., grip force changes) reveal cognitive processing during perception, language, and numerical tasks.

3. Spatial and Numerical Cognition

Examining how spatial attention and body-based representations relate to number understanding and mapping.

4. Individual Differences

I explore how individual cognitive profiles moderate embodied effects, emphasizing variation across participants.

5. Methods & Quantitative Approaches

Methodologically, I combine classic psycholinguistic and behavioral techniques with continuous physiological signals and advanced statistical modeling (LMMs, PCA, factor analysis), mainly in R.