koglist September 2011

koglist@maillist.ttk.hu

9 participants
15 discussions

[koglist] [CDC Seminars] ANNOUNCEMENT: CDC Seminar, Soonja Choi, Wednesday, September 21, 5 PM

by Marian Chen

The next talk in the CDC Seminar series will be given by: Soonja Choi, San Diego State University Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 5 PM Location: CEU Cognitive Development Center, Hattyú u. 14, 3rd floor *Language and Thought: Spatial Semantics & Spatial Cognition from Infancy to Adulthood* Abstract: Languages differ significantly in the way they categorize spatial relations. For example, English makes a distinction between containment (e.g. putting an apple IN a bowl) and support (e.g. putting a cup ON a table), whereas Korean makes a distinction between loose fit and tight fit regardless of containment and support. In Korean, the verb *KKITA* ‘tight fit or interlock’ is used for both a tight-fit containment relation such as ‘putting a book tightly in its box-shaped cover’ and a tight-fit support relation such as ‘putting a Lego piece tightly onto another’. The extensiveness of cross-linguistic differences in spatial semantic categorization found in recent studies on adult grammars raises questions about when and how children acquire the spatial semantic system of their native language, and more generally, about the relationship between language and cognition in children and adults. In this talk, I present studies that examine language-specific input and spatial cognition in learners and adult speakers of English and Korean. In particular, I examine whether and to what extent language-specific semantics can influence nonverbal spatial categorization involving tight fit, containment and support. Overall, my studies show that there is a dynamic interaction between language and cognition from an early age and that language starts to influence spatial cognition as children use spatial words productively. However, some perceptual aspects persist and contribute to spatial categorization in certain contexts regardless of language-specific input. Cognitive Science events at CEU: http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/events _______________________________________________ Subscribe by sending an empty mail to seminars-subscribe(a)cdc.ceu.hu Unsubscribe by sending an empty mail to seminars-unsubscribe(a)cdc.ceu.hu

14 years, 7 months

[koglist] [CDC Seminars] REMINDER: CDC Seminar, Mikołaj Hernik, September 14, 5 PM

by Marian Chen

The next talk in the CDC Seminar series will be given by Mikołaj Hernik, CEU Date: Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 5 PM Location: Cognitive Development Center, Hattyú u. 14, 3 em. Front matters: On infants’ ability to fast-map fronts of novel agents Abstract: Bodies of almost all modern animals, including all vertebrates, are organized according to a bilateral body-plan with a pronounced anterio-posterior axis. In other words, most animals have fronts and backs. In addition, in many organisms neuronal structures (e.g. brains in vertebrates) tend to be accumulated towards their frontal parts (an evolutionary trend called cephalization). These two general facts of animal evolution may have tremendous significance for a cognitive grasp of animal behavior for two reasons: (i) the ubiquitous bilateral and cephalized body plan promotes salient differences in morphology (most animals’ fronts tend to look different from their backs); (ii) the body plan constrains animal locomotion (some obvious exceptions notwithstanding, animals tend to move facing forward). As a consequence, animal’s orientation in motion is a reliable source of information about its frontal features (the parts at the front of a moving animal are very likely to *be* its frontal features). But also, the location of the already known frontal features of an animal in rest is a reliable source of information about that animal’s ability to act (it is more likely to start moving in the direction determined by its frontal features). I am going to present results from a series of studies designed to test whether preverbal human infants can engage in such inferences. Indeed infants in their first year of life are sensitive to front-movement mismatches, they fast-map novel frontal features from the agent’s behavior and take their orientation into account when anticipating the agent’s subsequent actions. I will argue that the ubiquity of bilateral body plan might have resulted in cognitive adaptations for processing the movement-front co-relation. _______________________________________________ Subscribe by sending an empty mail to seminars-subscribe(a)cdc.ceu.hu Unsubscribe by sending an empty mail to seminars-unsubscribe(a)cdc.ceu.hu

14 years, 8 months

[koglist] September in the Institute for Linguistics

by Anne Tamm

Reminder/Sorry for cross-postings. The programme of the Institute for Linguistics can be found at the following page (the schedule for September): http://www.nytud.hu/eng/prog.html A happy new academic year to all of you. Anne

14 years, 8 months

[koglist] Meghívó - BME Kognitív Szemináriumsorozat / Invitation - BME Cognitive Seminar Series

by Attila Keresztes

Mindenkit szeretettel látunk A BME Kognitív Szemináriumsorozat következo" elo"adására: We cordially invite you to the next lecture of the BME cognitive seminar series: Figyelem / Attention! Új helyre költöztünk / We moved to a new place Date & Time: September 12, Monday, 11:00-12:00 Location: BME, XI., Egry József utca 1., T. ép 515. *The early right anterior negativity as an index of music-syntactic processing Stefan Koelsch* Department of Educational Science and Psychology Cluster "Languages of Emotion" Freie Universität Berlin http://www.stefan-koelsch.de/ Abstract This talk will first give a brief overview over theoretical concepts of musical syntax. Then studies using the early right anterior negativity (ERAN) as an electrophysiological index of music-syntactic processing will be reviewed. The ERAN is usually occurs at around 150 - 200 ms after the onset of a musical event, and receives main contributions from the inferior fronto-lateral cortex (Broca's area and its right-hemispheric homotope). The ERAN is taken as an index of a disruption of musical structure building. Although the morphology of the ERAN is reminiscent of that of the mismatch negativity (MMN), there are important functional differences between ERAN and MMN. For example, the regularities underlying the generation of the MMN are established on-line (that is, based on on representations of regularities that are extracted on-line from the acoustic environment). By contrast, the generation of the ERAN requires (implicit) knowledge about regularities (that is, representations of regularities that are stored in a long-term format). Furthermore, the generation of the MMN is based on local dependencies, whereas the generation of the ERAN involves processing of long-distance dependencies at the level of phrase-structure grammar (context-free grammar). -- Attila Keresztes Junior Research Fellow Budapest University of Technology and Economics Dept. of Cognitive Science, Egry József u. 1, Budapest 1111, Hungary Tel: +36 1 4633525

14 years, 8 months

[koglist] [CDC Seminars] ANNOUNCEMENT: CDC Seminar, Mikołaj Hernik, Wednesday, September 14, 5 PM

by Marian Chen

14 years, 8 months

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koglist September 2011