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Previous Workshops & Tutorials

Schedules for current colloquia,workshops,dialogues and tutorials  are available on Events

 

2022-2023

 

Fall

CogSci Kickoff!  

Date: October 10th / 4-6pm
Where: Five and Dime
Please RSVP: RSVP Link

 

Laurel Gabard Durnam
Laurel Gabard-Durnam, Northeastern University

Date: November 29th, 4:00pm
Location: Swift Hall 107
Website: About Laurel Gabard-Durnam
(Local Host: Elizabeth Norton) 

Title: About Time: Plasticity Across Human Development

Abstract: 
Developmental experiences can have a profound influence on our brains, minds, and behavior across the lifespan. Which developmental experiences have these enduring effects, when are they impactful, and how do they get embedded in brain function? We address these questions by focusing on sensitive period mechanisms of brain plasticity shaping early sensory functions to complex emotion regulation. I will illustrate how daily life experiences, like music, can become embedded in the brain during childhood with consequences for later adult behavior and physiology. Further evidence from language and visual domains reflects sensitive periods in both healthy development and explains changes within clinical populations like Autism Spectrum Disorder. Lastly, I will highlight ongoing work combining software design and brain imaging approaches to identify at-risk trajectories of brain development and facilitate early interventions leveraging early neuroplasticity windows to promote resilient outcomes.

 

Workshop: Processing your EEG/ERP data with HAPPE software: from raw data to reproducible analyses

Date: November 30th, 9:30am-12:00pm
Location: Frances Searle Building, 3-417
RSVP required: RSVP here by November 14th at 2pm.
Contact Elizabeth Norton if you have questions

Details: Attend Dr. Gabard-Durnam's workshop and learn how HAPPE open-source software can support pre-processing, validation, and analysis of your electroencephalography (EEG) data across the lifespan using state-of-the-art artifact correction and rejection methods, empirical data quality benchmarks, features to encourage replication and transparent science, and validation/teaching tools. HAPPE is validated for use with a variety of ages (neonatal through adulthood), populations (both clinical and neurotypical), and EEG acquisition setups. We'll walk through HAPPE's structure, methods, and several pre-processing pipelines (baseline EEG, ERP, debiased weighted phase-lag index-based functional connectivity) during this workshop. Laurel will demonstrate on freely available data.

You are welcome to follow along or download and run at the same time from here: https://zenodo.org/record/5172962 You are also welcome to process your own data during the workshop, please email Laurel at l.gabard-durnam@northeastern.edu to ensure HAPPE will be able to read your EEG filetype. If you plan on processing data during the workshop, please download the latest version of HAPPE here: https://github.com/PINE-Lab/HAPPE and Fieldtrip here: https://www.fieldtriptoolbox.org/download/ You can follow the User Guide instructions for 5-minute installation that come with the HAPPE download. Please reach out to Alexa Monachino (a.monachino@northeastern.edu) if you have any difficulty with those steps.

 

 Photo of Emily Cooper

Emily Cooper, University of California Berkeley

Date: December 13th, 4:00pm
Location: Frances Searle Building 3-417
Website: About Emily Cooper
(Local Host: Emma Alexander) 

Title: Improving augmented reality through perceptual science

Abstract: 
Augmented reality (AR) systems aim to enhance our view of the world and make us see things that are not actually there. But building an AR system that effectively integrates with our natural visual experience is hard. AR systems often suffer from technical and visual limitations, such as small eyeboxes and narrow visual-field coverage. An integral part of AR system development, therefore, is perceptual research that improves our understanding of when and why these limitations matter. I will describe the results of perceptual studies designed to provide guidance on how to optimize the limited visual field coverage supported by many AR systems. Our analysis highlights the idiosyncrasies of how our natural binocular visual field is formed, the complexities of quantifying visual field coverage for binocular AR systems, and the trade offs that are necessary when an AR system can only augment a subarea of the visual field.

 


Winter

Cognitive Science in Context: How is Cog Sci shaped by, and in turn influences, its broader social and historical context? 

Presentations: February 10th, 2023 - 9:30-11:00am on Zoom - (Missed the presentation? Watch HERE)

Panel Discussion: February 17th, 2023 - 2:30-4:00pm on Zoom OR in Swift 107 for a live Watch Party
Note: There will be a reception following the Watch Party from 4:00-5:00pm in Swift
(Local Host: Matt Goldrick)

Featured Presenters:

Richard Prather, University of Maryland:
Title: "Critical approaches to human cognition"

Abstract:In this presentation I will talk broadly about the need for a critical approach to the study of human cognition. Critical approaches to cognition counter the long history of disciplinary methodology that has supported white supremacy. I focus on the complex problem of integrating cognitive processes and varying human contexts. I present a framework for a quantitative approach to this problem, the Context Space Framework. This framework is a potentially useful tool for all researchers interested in characterizing human cognition while accounting for variation in the cultural, developmental, and societal context of participants. I present some preliminary data analysis using the framework and discuss the approach in relation to other frameworks such as intersectionality and ecological models of human behavior.

 

Dana Miller-Cotto, Kent State University
Title: "Assumptions of assessment across diverse groups"

Abstract:Numerous assessments that approximate cognitive skills assume that all individuals will respond similarly to these tasks and that poor performance on these tasks demonstrates some inherent deficiency in the individual. Differences in performance between children from different racial/ethnic backgrounds are often attributed to the quality of their environment and family resources, promoting a deficient narrative for minoritized children. However, certain heretofore untested assumptions are built into an assessment that may have important implications for results. Indeed, there is an assumption that all children respond similarly to assessment contexts. However, young children may respond differently to the characteristics of the assessor and the assessment environment. This may be particularly true for children from historically minoritized groups in the U.S. due to the sociopolitical histories of minoritized groups. During this talk, I outline specific assessment assumptions and use prior research to motivate the need to determine how task performance may differ across contexts.


Ayanna Thomas, Tufts University: 
Title: "Color evasive cognition: The unavoidable impact of scientific racism in the founding of a field"

Abstract:
Cognitive psychology has traditionally focused on investigating features and principles of cognition that are universal across the human species. The motivation to identify and understand “cognitive universals'' stems from the close relationship between biology and human cognition, and the theoretical architecture presupposed by the Information Processing Model. In this paper we argue that the underlying theoretical assumption of universality also stems from epistemological and methodological assumptions that laws of cognition can be effectively developed only by controlling for variables deemed outside the scope of internal cognition. These assumptions have resulted in the development of a science of human cognition based on the performance and behavior of a White, English-speaking, normatively Invisible, Racially color-evasive, socially Dominant class (WEIRD). I will discuss how scientific racism has influenced the study of cognition and offer perspective on how researchers may reconsider many of the premises that undergird our approach. Our goal is to acknowledge that the study of cognition continues to be invisibly guided by assumptions stemming from racists beliefs and demonstrate that the study of human cognition can move past this limitation and emerge as a field of study that balances universal assumptions with a careful consideration of cognition in context.

 

Dialogue on Cognition and the Arts 

Date: February 21st, 2023 - 12:30-2:00pm, Zoom

(Local Host: Ana Diaz Barriga) 

 

Photo of Kevin Dorst
Kevin Dorst, MIT

Date: February 28th, 2023 - 4:00pm
Location: Swift Hall 107
Website: About Kevin Dorst
(Local Host: Megan Hyska) 

Title: Bayesian Bias

Abstract:
Standard Bayesianism says that rational opinions must both be probabilistic and update in a way that satisfies a standard “Reflection” (or “martingale”) principle. This theory is not only dominant in formal epistemology, but embedded in the practice of social science: it is the basis on which economists predict market behavior, cognitive scientists explain inference, and psychologists evaluate human rationality.  But Standard Bayesianism is wrong, for it entails Access Internalism: that rational people must always be certain of exactly what rationality requires of them.  Without Access Internalism, the foundational arguments for Bayesianism (Dutch books, accuracy, etc.) establish a weaker theory that makes qualitatively different predictions.  I’ll illustrate this by focusing on calibration: the constraint that degrees of belief should match objective frequencies.  Though Standard Bayesianism predicts that rational people will usually be calibrated, real people often are not calibrated. It's often inferred from this that real people are irrationally overconfident.  But this is too quick. Without Access Internalism, rational (Bayesian) opinions will often be predictably miscalibrated—the connection between rationality and truth is looser than most have assumed.

 


Spring

Maria Arrendondo, University of Texas Austin

Date: May 2nd, 2023 - 4:00pm
Location: Swift Hall 107
Website: About Maria Arrendondo
(Local Host: Adriana Weisleder) 

Title: Neurocognitive mechanisms of bilingual language development

Abstract: 
Are bilingual babies really all that special? Language experiences rely upon and interact with multiple aspects of early cognitive development and may have an enduring impact on neural organization and brain plasticity during early life. In this talk, I will present a set of studies showing how bilingual environments provide insight into neuroplasticity by adapting mechanisms of cognitive function and those of word learning during infancy. Beginning with the first year of life, I will briefly review my recent work showing how bilingualism (and especially code-switching environments) adapt attention and memory mechanisms. Next, I will present new evidence on how bilingual toddlers may use and not use disambiguation (i.e., a word learning strategy in which children map a novel word to an unfamiliar referent) during word acquisition. The talk will present a range of methods including experimental paradigms, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and looking-behavior tasks. The talk highlights how linguistic environments adapt behavior and neuroplasticity, and will conclude with a brief discussion of future directions.

2021-2022

 *All Tuesday events are LIVE @4:00pm unless specified otherwise, held in Swift 107*

Fall

 
Peter Cheng (Local Host: Steven Franconeri) 
Website: About Peter Cheng
Date: November 12, 2021, Friday 10:00am, Zoom 

Title:Representing knowledge and thought: insights from the design of radical representational systems

Abstract:As citizens of a technological society ours is a world of representational systems.  They substantially determine what we can think, how easily we solve problems and the difficulty of learning.  To maximise the theoretical and empirical leverage available for the study of representations, I design novel notations for conceptually challenging topics (e.g., circuit electricity, probability theory, algebra, logic), novel user-interfaces for information intensive problem-solving (e.g., scheduling, planning), and novel diagrammatic systems for everyday activities (e.g., transit system navigation, dancing).  From the task analytic and experimental contrast of these novel representations with extant conventional representations, various insights have been gleaned.  STEM subjects should be easy to learn.  In representational terms, conventional notations that encode STEM knowledge are typically conceptually incoherent.  In contrast, effective representational systems possess semantic transparency and are syntactically plastic.  Such representations promise a factor of two performance improvement for problem solving and learning.  For the routine engineering of effective representational systems, in addition to the application of cognitive science, I propose (i) a theory that embraces the full conceptual richness of knowledge and (ii) a language to enable the systematic modelling of the full complexity of the concept-encoding functions of representational systems

Winter

Melanie Mitchell (Local Host: Jacob Kelter) 
Website: About Melanie Mitchell
Date: March 1, 2022, Tuesday 4:00pm, Zoom 

Title:Why AI is Harder Than We Think

Abstract:Since its beginning in the 1950s, the field of artificial intelligence has cycled several times between periods of optimistic predictions and massive investment (“AI Spring”) and periods of disappointment, loss of confidence, and reduced funding (“AI Winter”).  Even with today’s seemingly fast pace of AI breakthroughs, the development of long-promised technologies such as self-driving cars, housekeeping robots, and conversational companions  has turned out to be much harder than many people expected. 

One reason for these repeating cycles is our limited understanding of the nature and complexity of intelligence itself.   In this talk I will discuss some fallacies in common assumptions made by AI researchers, which can lead to overconfident predictions about the field.  I will also speculate on what is needed for the grand challenge of making AI systems more robust, general, and adaptable—in short, more intelligent.

Speaker Bio: Melanie Mitchell is the Davis Professor of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute.  Her current research focuses on conceptual abstraction, analogy-making, and visual recognition in artificial intelligence systems. Melanie is the author or editor of six books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems. Her book Complexity: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press) won the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Award and was named by Amazon.com as one of the ten best science books of 2009. Her latest book is Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux).

Spring

Dialogue series: Cognitive Science in Practice and in Theory (Local Host: Matt Goldrick)
Overview: The time is ripe for cognitive scientists to critically examine how we conceptualize our field – to move beyond the theoretical conceptualization of the field at its foundation to examine how multiple disciplinary/research traditions actually interact in the practices of working cognitive scientists. Three speakers will examine this issue, grounded in discussion of their own work. Following the three talks we will host a panel discussion seeking consensus on what constitutes a coherent discipline of cognitive science and how we should train the next generation of cognitive scientists.

 

Virginia de Sa
Website:About Virginia de Sa
Date: April 5, 2022, Tuesday 4:00pm, Live + Zoom (Register)
Dr. de Sa’s research aims to better understand the neural and computational basis of human perception and learning. The driving philosophy behind her work is that studying both machine learning and human learning is synergistic. Insights from human learning and brain physiology are used to guide the development of novel machine learning algorithms, and ideas from computational algorithms are used to motivate new models of human and animal learning as well as to analyze neural and behavioral data in new ways.


Iris van Rooij
WebsiteAbout Iris van Rooij
Date: ​April 8, 2022, Friday 10:00am, Zoom (Register)
Professor van Rooij’s research lies at the interface of psychology, philosophy and theoretical computer science. Using formal modeling and complexity-theoretic proof techniques, she studies the scope and limits of computational explanations of cognition. She pursues, among other things, meta-theoretical questions like ‘how can explanations scale from toy domains to the real world?’ and `how hard is cognitive science?’

 
 
Asifa Majid
WebsiteAbout Asifa Majid
Date: April 15, 2022, Friday 10:00am, Zoom (Register)
Dr. Majid investigates categories and concepts in language, non-linguistic perception and cognition, and the relationship between them. She adopts a large-scale cross-cultural approach to establish which aspects of categorization are fundamentally shared, and which are language-specific. Her work combines psychological experiments with in-depth linguistic studies and ethnographically-informed description.


                             >>>>Panel Discussion (Dialogue Series)-Date: April 22, 2022, Friday 10:00am, Zoom (Register)<<<<


Phil Wolff (Local Host: Matt Goldrick) 
WebsiteAbout Phil Wolff
Date: May 3, 2022-Tuesday 4:00pm, Swift Hall Room 107 and Zoom
Title:Predicting Psychosis and Neurodegenerative Diseases from the Way People Talk: A machine learning approach
Abstract: When people talk, they give away information about the state of their cognitive system. The information present in natural language can often be subtle and obscure, but what is difficult to discern can be revealed through tools made available through machine learning and natural language processing. In the first part of my talk, I describe how the linguistic marker of semantic density can be obtained from the mathematical method of vector unpacking and used to predict conversion to psychosis with 90% accuracy. In the second part, I will discuss how the transformer model T5 can be used to discover natural categories of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), a neurodegenerative disorder associated with Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. In the third part, I show how such models, in conjunction with MRI, can be used to discover the cortical organization of the human language network. The results point to a larger project whereby tools from machine learning are used to discover fine-grain properties of the human conceptual system and consequently used in the early detection of disease.

 

Mina Cikara (Local Host: Mary McGrath)
Website: About Mina Cikara 
Date: May 10, 2022 -Tuesday 4:00pm,  Zoom

Title: Causes and consequences of coalitional cognition

Abstract:What is a group? How do we know to which groups we belong? How do we assign others to groups? A great deal of theorizing across the social sciences has conceptualized ‘groups’ as synonymous with ‘categories,’ however there are a number of limitations to this approach: particularly for making predictions about novel intergroup contexts or about how intergroup dynamics will change over time. Here I present two projects that offer alternative frameworks for thinking about these questions. First I review some recent work elucidating the cognitive processes that give rise to the inference of coalitions (even in the absence of category labels). Then I'll discuss an ongoing project on the effects of social group reference dependence--which falls out of coalitional reasoning--on hate crimes in the U.S. between 1990 and 2010. 

CogSciFest
Date: Spring- May 24, 2022- Tuesday

 

2020-2021

November

Tuesday, November 17, 2020: Colloquium
Speaker: Julian Jara-Ettinger, Yale University

Title: The social basis of referential communication

Abstract:Human communication is an intrinsically social activity which allows us to share our thoughts through sounds and movements. Accordingly, theoretical work has long argued that this capacity must rely on commonsense psychology—our ability to understand other people’s behavior in terms of unobservable mental states. Yet, classic empirical work suggests that the interaction between commonsense psychology and communication is surprisingly limited. In this talk, I will argue that this conflict arises due to the use of communicative tasks that do not reflect the structure of natural communication. I will then show evidence that traces of social reasoning appear in one of the most basic forms of communication: referential expressions. Finally, I show how computational models of referential communication centered on commonsense psychology diverge from, and outperform, non-social communicative models that rely on an assumption of brevity in speech.

About Julian Jara-Ettinger

 

Tuesday, November 24, 2020: Colloquium

Speaker: Laurel Trainor, McMaster University

Title: Music, rhythm and prediction: From brain oscillations to social interaction

Abstract:Rhythmic stimuli are powerful because their regularity enables us to predict when important events will happen and, as a result, to attend to those points in time in order to process these important events optimally. Rhythms are ubiquitous in biological systems, from motor movements for locomotion to communication signals such as speech and music. I will present evidence that the human auditory system uses the motor system to accomplish rhythmic timing, and that auditory-motor interactions for timing are present very early in development. Further, I will present evidence that fluctuations in the power of brain oscillations measured with EEG in the beta frequency (~20 Hz) entrain to external auditory rhythms and are a neural signature of the prediction of upcoming sounds. Finally, I will discuss the importance of timing and prediction in human interactions from musical ensembles to pro-social behaviour in infants.

 About Laurel Trainor

 

January

Tuesday, January 12, 2021: Colloquium

Speaker:Chris Dancy, Bucknell University

Title: Towards a multi-level framework for human-AI interaction

Abstract:How can we develop AI systems that can competently, ethically, and autonomously interact with all people? Understanding how human physiological, affective, and cognitive processes interact with social-cultural structures and knowledge during cooperation and collaboration between agents (human and artificial) is critical to this competence. In this talk, I will discuss my work on developing a hybrid cognitive architecture that enables more tractable development of computational cognitive models that are moderated by physiological and affective processes. I will also discuss corresponding computational cognitive models that use this architecture. Lastly, I will examine how we might use existing critical analysis to think about anti-Blackness in the context of Human-AI interaction, and anchor some of this discussion using cognitive modeling.

About Chris Dancy

 

March

Tuesday, March 9, 2021: Colloquium

Speaker:Dr. Peter H Ditto, University of California, Irvine

Title:Through the Partisan Looking Glass:The Social Psychology of Political Polarization

Article:Political sectarianism in America

Abstract: A key contributor to political conflict in the U.S. is the different factual beliefs held by liberals and conservatives about important policy-relevant matters such taxes, gun violence, climate change and election security. In this talk, I propose a three-part account of how such differential beliefs arise and are sustained, or more precisely, an account of how prescriptive beliefs (ideologically and morally-based intuitions regarding how the world should be) shape descriptive ones (“factual” beliefs regarding how the world really is). The account identifies three important contributing processes: Moralization (the infusion of political issues, events and actors with moral significance), Factualization (the construction of pseudo-descriptive justifications for moral evaluations), and Socialization (the reinforcement of morally-palatable beliefs by selective exposure to ideologically-sympathetic people, groups, and media sources). Each of these processes are typical of intergroup conflict but have been exacerbated by technological advances and exploited by political actors interested in promoting partisan animosities for political gain. The shortest part of my talk will focus on the hardest part of the problem: what we all can do to promote more civil and more rational political discourse.

 About Dr. Peter H. Ditto

May

Tuesday, May 11, 2021: Colloquium

Speaker: Nia Dowell, University of California, Irvine

Title:Creating Scalable Models of Collaborative Interaction Dynamics and Outcomes

Abstract:In the current globalized world, innovation in science and technology are vital for
economic competitiveness, quality of life, and national security. This trend is accelerating the
increasing reliance on virtual teams and their collaborative effort to solve complex environmental,
social and public health problems. To contend with these dynamic conditions, communication, and
collaborative problem-solving (CPS) competencies have taken a principal role in educational
policy, research, and technology. Adaptive educational technologies provide a platform to deliver
personalized training to improve learners’ CPS skills. However, for these systems to optimally
tailor instruction, they must have key insights into learners’ interaction dynamics and team
behaviors. We have been exploring these properties by employing Group Communication
Analysis (GCA), a computational linguistics methodology for quantifying and characterizing the
socio-cognitive processes between learners in online interactions. This talk will focus on recent
studies where we have used GCA to gain a deeper understanding of role ecologies, learning and
problem-solving, and issues of inclusivity in digitally-mediated group interactions. The scalability
of GCA opens the door for future research efforts directed towards improving collaborative
competencies and creating more inclusive online interactions.

About Nia Dowell

 

Tuesday, May 25, 2021: Colloquium, 9:00am CST**(note: time change has been made for this event)

Speaker: Dr. Andrea Martin, Donders Institute at Radboud University

Title:Towards a model of language processing in a neurophysiological system

Abstract:Human language is a fundamental biological signal with computational properties that differ from other perception-action systems: hierarchical relationships between sounds, words, phrases, and sentences, and the unbounded ability to combine smaller units into larger ones, resulting in a "discrete infinity" of expressions that are often compositional. These properties have long made language hard to account for from a biological systems perspective and within models of cognition. In this talk, I synthesize insights from the language sciences, computation, and neuroscience that center on the idea that time can be used to combine and separate representations. I describe how a well-supported computational model from a related area of cognition capitalizes on time and rhythm in computation, and how neuroscientific experiments can then be instrumentalized to determine the computational bounds on artificial neural network models. I offer examples of the approach from cognitive neuroimaging data and computational simulations, including leveraging other existing models and metascience. I outline a developing a theory of how language is represented in the brain that integrates basic insights from linguistics and psycholinguistics with the currency of neural computation.

About Andrea E. Martin

              

2019-2020

 

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020: Colloquium

                Barbara Shinn-Cunningham,

                Carnegie Mellon University,

                Networks of auditory attention

                (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020: Colloquium

                Isabelle Darcy,

                Indiana University,

                Learning to forget? Phonological updates in the bilingual mental lexicon.

 

Tuesday, February 11th, 2020: Colloquium

Sponsored by the Knight Lab, the N. W., Harris Lecture Fund, the Visual Thinking Lab, and the Segal Design Institute.

                Aaron Williams,

                Investigative Reporter, Washington Post

                 On data and visual storytelling

                (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, February 4th, 2020: Colloquium

                Gary Lupyan,

                University of Wisconsin, Madison,

                What are we learning from language?

                (Video Archive)

                         
Tuesday, January 21st, 2020: Colloquium

                Michael Jones,

                Indiana University,

                 The stability-plasticity dilemma in predictive neural network models of semantic memory

 

Tuesday, November 19th, 2019: Colloquium

                Bethany Rittle-Johnson,

                Venderbilt University,

                Comparing Solution Methods to Promote Algebra Learning:

                                An Example of Using Cognitive Science to Improve Classroom Instruction

                 (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, November 12th, 2019: Colloquium

                Michael Tomasello,

                Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,

                Leipzig, Germany

                Origins of Human Cooperation

                 (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, October 8th, 2019: Colloquium

                Yejin Choi, University of Washington

                Commonsense intelligence:
                Cracking the longstanding challenge in A.I.

                 (Video Archive available on request)

 

2018-2019

 

 Tuesday, May 21st / Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019: Workshop

                Learning construction grammar 

                 Adele Goldberg, Princeton University; Peter Culicover, Ohio State University;

                 Libby Barak, Rutgers University; Jessica Montag, University of Illinois;

  1. J. McFate, Cognition

 

 Monday, May 20th, 2019: Colloquium

                Adele Goldberg, Princeton University

                Explain me this:
                Children are both more conservative and more ready generalizers for the same reason

                 (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, April 30th, 2019: Colloquium

                Tamar Gollan, University of California, San Diego

                Reversing bilingual language dominance.

                 (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019: Colloquium

                Carrie Niziolek, University of Wisconsin, Madison

                Language made audible:
                How speech acoustics reflect cognition.

                 (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, March 15th, 2019: Colloquium

                Zenzi M. Griffin, University of Texas at Austin

                Talking and Timing

 

Tuesday, March 5th, 2019: Colloquium

                Jonathan Gratch, University of Southern California

                The Media Equation revisited: Do we really treat computers like people?

                 (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, October 30th, 2018: Colloquium

                Paul Pietroski, University of Maryland

                Meanings, Most, and Mass

                 (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, October 9th, 2018: Colloquium

                 Laura Wagner, Ohio State University 

                 Performance Factors Influencing Competence With Linguistic Aspect

         

2017-2018

 

Tuesday, June 18th, 2018: Colloquium

                Maithilee Kunda, Vanderbilt University

                "Imagery-base A.I."

                (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, May 30th, 2018: Colloquium

                Michael Frank, Stanford University

                "Bigger data about smaller people: Studying children’s language learning at scale"

                (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, May 1st, 2018: Colloquium

                Jamie Pennebaker, University of Texas, Austin

                "Analyzing language to understand social and psychological processes"

                (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, April 24th, 2018: Colloquium

                Linda Skitka, University of Illinois at Chicago

                "The social and political implications of moral conviction"

 

Tuesday, April 17th, 2018: Colloquium

                Bonnie Nozari, Johns Hopkins University

                "Inhibitory control in language production: From single word production to discourse"

                (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, April 10th, 2018: Colloquium

                Steven Sloman, Brown University

                "Ignorance and the Community of Knowledge"

                (Video Archive)

 

Tuesday, February 27th, 2018: Colloquium

                Laura Hiatt, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

                "Priming in Human Cognition"

 

Thursday, February 8th, 2018: Colloquium

                Ayanna Thomas, Tufts University

                "What Have We Learned About Eyewitness Memory?" (Video archive)

 

Tuesday, January 16th, 2018: Colloquium

                Percival Matthews, University of Wisconsin-Madison

                "Are Fractions Natural Numbers, Too? Perceptual foundations for understanding numerical magnitudes" (Video archive)

 

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018: Colloquium

                Robert Slevc, University of Maryland

                “Relationships between language and music: From sound to syntax” (Video archive)

 

Tuesday, November 28th, 2017: Colloquium

                Elisabeth Camp, Rutgers University

                “Assessing Frames for Epistemic Aptness” (Video archive)

 

Monday, November 27th, 2017: Dialogue

                Tom Griffiths, University of California, Berkeley

                Niko Kriegeskorte, Columbia University                 

                Jennifer Cole, Northwestern University

                Jennifer Cutler, Northwestern University

                Ken Forbus, Northwestern University

                Mitra Hartmann, Northwestern University

                “Is the route to human level intelligence paved with Big Data?” (Video archive)

 

Tuesday, November 14th, 2017: Colloquium

                Dan Kahan, Yale University

                “Science comprehension without curiosity is no virtue, and curiosity without comprehension no vice” (Video archive)

 

Tuesday, October 24th, 2017: Colloquium

                Dan Jurafsky, Stanford University

                “Automatically Extracting Social Meaning from Language” (Video archive)

2016-2017

 

*Tuesday, May 16th, 2017: Colloquium

                Carol Lynne Krumhansl, Cornell University

                “Isomorphisms between pitch and time in music”

Tuesday, May 9th, 2017: Colloquium

                Michael Strevens, New York University

                “Conceptual innovation in science without definitions” (Video Archive)

*Tuesday, May 3rd, 2017: Colloquium

                Amanda Cox, New York Times

                “Data visualization at the New York Times” (Video Archive)

*Tuesday, April 27th, 2017: Dialogue

                Dan Simons, University of Illinois

                Jennifer Tackett, Northwestern University

                Blake McShane, Northwestern University

                Eli Finkel, Northwestern University

                “Signal and Noise in Science”

Tuesday, April 19th, 2017: Colloquium

                Robert Glushko, University of California, Berkeley

                “The discipline of organizing”

*Tuesday, March 7th, 2017: Tutorial

                Steve Franconeri, Northwestern University

                “Now they see it: Visual communication of the patterns in your data”

*Tuesday, February 21st, 2017: Colloquium

                Albert Newen, Ruhr Univeristy

                “Cognition and Perception: Does higher-order background information influence our perceptual experience?”

Tuesday, February 7th, 2017: Colloquium

                Tony Ro, City University of New York

                “Neural mechanisms for unconscious and conscious vision”

*Tuesday, January 17th, 2017: Colloquium

                Allison McCann, Vice News

                “Against boring charts”

Tuesday, January 10th, 2017: Colloquium

                Ernest Davis, New York University

               “Simulation in Cognitive Models: Scope and Limits”

Tuesday, November 1st, 2016: Colloquium

                Ken McRae, University of Western Ontario

                “The Importance of Event Knowledge in the Organization and Structure of Semantic Memory”

Tuesday, October 18th, 2016: Colloquium

                Priti Shah, University of Michigan

                “How to play 20 questions with nature and lose: Reflections on 100 years of brain-training research”

*Tuesday, October 11th, 2016: Colloquium

                Penelope Lewis, Cardiff University

                “Exploring sleep's impact on memory with targeted memory reactivation”

2015-2016

 

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2016: Colloquium

                Linda Smith, Indiana University

                “Rethinking referential ambiguity:  Clear cases and noisy data in statistical word-referent learning”

Tuesday, April 12th, 2016: Cognitive Science Dialogue

                Nancy Kanwisher, MIT

                Brian Scholl, Yale University

                “How—and how much—do fMRI studies contribute to psychology?”

Monday, April 11th, 2016: Colloquium

                Brian Scholl, Yale University

                “Let's see what happens: dynamic events as foundational units of perception and cognition.”

Tuesday, April 5th, 2016: Colloquium

                Doug Lenat, Cycorp

                “Truths that aren’t.”

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016: Colloquium

               Todd Braver, Washington University

               “Flexible neural mechanisms of cognitive control”