---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 15:40:51 GMT+0100
From: "g.j.dalenoort" <G.J.DALENOORT(a)ppsw.rug.nl>
To: ESSCS.mailing.addresses.4-3-1998(a)ppsw.rug.nl
Subject: summerschool Groningen 29 June-3 July 1998
Summerschool 'SYMBOLS AND NEURONS'
The Research School 'Behavioural, Cognitive, and Neurosciences' this
year again organizes a summerschool. It will consist of a number of
separate and independent workshops. One of the workshops will be on
the role of symbols for human information-processing, and their
interrelation to neural processes. This topic will be placed in a more
general context of cognitive and neural systems. The lectures will be
partly introductory, and partly cover specific and advanced topics.
Title: Models of cognitive and neural systems
Time: Monday 29 June - Friday 3 July, 13:30 - 16:30
There will be four speakers:
Prof. Stevan Harnad, University of Southampton, UK
Prof. Terrence W. Deacon, Boston University, Boston, USA
Dr. G.J. Dalenoort, BCN, University of Groningen, NL
Dr. P.H. de Vries, BCN, University of Groningen, NL
Proposed topics (to be divided over the five afternoons):
1.general methodology, levels of description (Dalenoort)
(symbolic/functional and structural).
2.some general questions relating to questions of self-organization
in relation to learning, the nature of the memory trace, etc.
(Dalenoort).
3.symbol-grounding (qualia), categorical perception, the origin and
adaptive value of natural language. (Harnad).
4.neural models, artificial as well as biological (Harnad, Dalenoort)
5.conceptual networks networks as inspired by cognitive psychology
and the neural substratum. (De Vries)
6.models of the development of symbolic abilities (including
language, evolutionary (phylogenetic) as well as individual
(ontogenetic), in relation to the architecture of the brain, and
to cognition. (Deacon)
The basis for the contributions by Prof. Deacon will be his new book
'The symbolic species', New York/London, 1997.
consequences these may have for our models of the architecture
of the brain.
8.The relation to binding from theoretical and experimental point of
view (Dalenoort/ De Vries)
This is not the precise order of presentation during the week.
During the workshop some demonstrations will be given of simulation
programs of conceptual networks, and possibly A-life (artificial life).
=========================================================================
General lecture:
T.W. Deacon: Tuesday 30 June, 16.45 -18.30 hrs.: 'The symbolic species'.
The lecture will concentrate on the last chapter of the book of
this title, that appeared 1997 (published by W.W. Norton & Co.,
New York and London).
Of course a number of topics from earlier chapters will be mentioned
as building ground for the topics of the last chapter.
Comments, and elaborations of some points will be given by Prof. Harnad,
the other speaker from abroad.
=========================================================================
Organization: Experimental and Work psychology, Research school BCN,
Coordinator(s): Dr. G.J. Dalenoort and Dr. P.H. de Vries
=========================================================================
More information on the Summerschool on the webpage of the BCN:
http://WWW.BCN.RUG.NL, under 'new'
(if you cannot make contact, please send a message to the address below)
Participation: for members of universities NLG 400.-, for staff members
University of Groningen NLG 300, for PhD students (Netherlands: AIO, OIO)
NLG 200.-. (includes coffees and teas, and a reader on the topics
of the workshop, not accomodation).
Information on the programme, and on details for registration, and
accomodation: G.J.Dalenoort(a)ppsw.rug.nl , P.H.de.Vries(a)ppsw.rug.nl
Tel. +31-50-363.6448 or ..6454 or 6472
=========================================================================
Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article on:
NEUROBIOLOGY OF THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY:
DOPAMINE, FACILITATION OF INCENTIVE MOTIVATION, AND EXTRAVERSION
by Richard A. Depue and Paul F. Collins
This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing
Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in
the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences.
Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To
be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other
appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS
Associate, please send EMAIL to:
bbs(a)cogsci.soton.ac.uk
or write to:
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Department of Psychology
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/
ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a
BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is
familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators
are eligible to become BBS Associates.
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give
some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring
your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator.
An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection
with a WWW browser, anonymous ftp or gopher according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract.
____________________________________________________________________
NEUROBIOLOGY OF THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY:
DOPAMINE, FACILITATION OF INCENTIVE MOTIVATION, AND EXTRAVERSION
Richard A. Depue, Cornell University
Department of Human Development
Laboratory of Neurobiology of Personality and Emotion
NG21 MVR Hall
Ithaca, New York 14853
rad5(a)cornell.edu
Paul F. Collins, University of Oregon
Department of Psychology
Eugene, Oregon 97403
pcollins(a)oregon.uoregon.edu
KEYWORDS: personality, extraversion, dopamine, incentive
motivation, neurobiology behavioral sensitization,
heterosynaptic plasticity
ABSTRACT: Extraversion has two central characteristics: 1)
Interpersonal engagement consisting of affiliation (enjoying
and valuing close interpersonal bonds, being warm and
affectionate)and agency (being socially dominant and enjoying
leadership roles, being assertive, exhibitionistic and having a
sense of potency in accomplishing goals) and 2) Impulsivity,
which emerges from the interaction of extraversion and a
second, independent trait (constraint). Agency is a more
general motivational disposition including dominance, ambition,
mastery, efficacy, and achievement. Positive affect (a
combination of positive feelings and motivation) is closely
associated with extraversion. Extraversion is accordingly based
on positive incentive motivation. Parallels between
extraversion (particularly its agency component) and a
mammalian approach system based on positive incentive
motivation implicate a neuroanatomical network, and is
neurotransmitter in the processing of incentive motivation. A
corticolimbic-striatal-thalamic network (a) integrates the
salient incentive context in the medial orbital cortex,
amygdala, and hippocampus; (b) encodes the intensity of
incentive stimuli in a motive circuit composed of the nucleus
accumbens, ventral pallidum, and ventral tegmental area
dopamine projection system; and (c) creates an incentive
motivational state that can be transmitted to the motor
system.
Individual differences in the functioning of this network arise
from functional variation in the properties of the ventral
tegmental area dopamine projections, which are directly
involved in coding the intensity of incentive motivation.
Animal evidence suggests that there are three
neurodevelopmental sources of individual differences in
dopamine: genetic, "experience-expectant", and
"experience-dependent processes". Individual differences
promote variation in the heterosynaptic plasticity that
enhances the connection between incentive context and incentive
motivation and behavior. Our psychobiological threshold model
explains the effects of individual differences in dopamine
transmission on behavior and their relation to personality
traits.
--------------------------------------------------------------
To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for
this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide
Web or by anonymous ftp or gopher from the US or UK BBS Archive. Ftp
instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on this
draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant
expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the
article.
The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive:
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.depue.htmlftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.depue
ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/Archive/bbs.depue
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either:
ftp ftp.princeton.edu
or
ftp 128.112.128.1
When you are asked for your login, type:
anonymous
Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid:
yourlogin(a)yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@")
cd /pub/harnad/BBS
To show the available files, type:
ls
Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example):
get bbs.depue
When you have the file(s) you want, type:
quit
