Cognitive Science Colloquium accompanying discussion series

Fall 2008

All meetings take place on Thursdays, 3.30-5.30 pm in Bioscience Research Building 1103, and are open to all faculty and students.

September 4 — discussion of Gallistel [1] "The rat approximates an ideal detector of changes in rates of reward: implications for the law of effect" Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 2001. & [2] "Computational versus associative models of simple conditioning" Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2001.

September 18 — discussion of Fessler, [1] "Steps towards an evolutionary psychology of a culture-dependent species" in P. Carruthers, S. Laurence, and Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind: volume 2: Culture and Cognition. OUP, 2007. & [2] "A burning desire: steps toward an evolutionary psychology of fire learning" Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2006.

October 2 — discussion of Seyfarth, [1] "Primate social cognition and the origins of language" Trends in Cognitive Science, 2005. & [2] "Social complexity and the information acquired during eavesdropping by primates and other animals" in P. McGregor (ed.), Animal Communication Networks, CUP, 2005.

October 16 — discussion of Scholl, [1] "Object persistence in philosophy and psychology" Mind and Language 2007. & [2] "Perceptual scotomas: a functional account of motion-induced blindness" Psychological Science 2008.

October 30 — discussion of Gopnik, [1] "A theory of causal learning in children: causal maps and Bayes nets" Psychological Science 2004. & [2] "Mechanisms of theory-formation in young children" Trends in Cognitive Science 2004.

November 13 — discussion of Beilock, [1] "Embodied preference judgments: can likeability be driven by the motor system?" Psychological Science 2007. & [2] "Sports experience changes the neural processing of action language" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (in press).

December 4 — discussion of Landau, [1] "Language and space: momentary interactions" to appear in P. Chilton and V. Evans (eds.), Language, Cognition, and Space, Equinox Publishing. & [2] "Specialization, breakdown, and sparing in spatial cognition: Lessons from Williams syndrome" in C. Morris, H. Lenhoff, and P. Wang (eds.), Williams-Beuren Syndrome, Johns Hopkins Press, 2005.