koglist November 2023

koglist@maillist.ttk.hu

16 participants
17 discussions

[Koglist] ELTE Cognitive Seminar: Stella Xu - 2023.11.21. 17:00 (CET)

by Réka Schvajda

Dear all, We would like to invite you to the following talk by Stella Xu (Department of Psychology and Human Development, IOE UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society), organized as part of the ELTE Cognitive Seminar series. Time and date: 17:00 (CET), Tuesday, 21. November 2023. Speaker: Stella Xu (UCL) Title: Mathematical Development in Individuals with Williams syndrome Abstract: Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic syndrome that results in an uneven cognitive profile, where individuals with WS have relatively better language skills than visuospatial abilities. Many individuals with WS are also delayed in their mathematical abilities. This PhD project aims to investigate the individual differences in strengths and difficulties related to mathematics among individuals with WS. It examines the performance of different mathematical tasks and explores the factors that might influence the development of mathematics over time, such as those aspects of mathematics that rely more on language and those that rely more on visuospatial skills. This project is innovative in that it uses both novel and existing cross-sectional and longitudinal data by combining data from various labs in the WiSDom database, such that it is able to incorporate data from more than 200 individuals spanning from 4 months to 70 years of age. The findings are of particular interest to parents, teachers, and researchers who would like to understand and support the mathematical development of individuals with WS. Zoom link: https://ppk-elte-hu.zoom.us/j/99673891387?pwd=Q09tdjhHWVdHTlBlVzJiU0t5ZFcwd… Meeting ID: 996 7389 1387 Passcode: 620387 If you have questions about the event, please contact us via email ( alexastonem(a)student.elte.hu or reka.schvajda(a)ppk.elte.hu). We look forward to seeing you at the event, Schvajda Réka Alexandra Kelemen organizers ELTE Department of Cognitive Psychology

2 years, 6 months

[Koglist] [CEU Cogsci Talks] Budapest Computational Neuroscience Forum - Nov. 15. András Ecker

by Ildiko Zsoka Varga

Dear All, The CEU Department of Cognitive Science and the Center for Cognitive Computation (CCC) invites you to the upcoming meeting of the Budapest Computational Neuroscience Forum<https://ccc.ceu.edu/budapest-computational-neuroscience-forum>. Speaker: András Ecker, EPFL Long-term plasticity induces sparse and specific synaptic changes in a biophysically detailed cortical model Abstract: Synaptic plasticity underlies the brain's ability to learn and adapt. This process is often studied in small groups of neurons in vitro or indirectly through its effects on behavior in vivo. Due to the limitations of available experimental techniques, investigating synaptic plasticity at the microcircuit level relies on simulation-based approaches. Although modeling studies provide valuable insights, they are usually limited in scale and generality. To overcome these limitations, we extended a previously published and validated large-scale cortical network model with a recently developed calcium-based model of functional plasticity between excitatory cells. We calibrated the network to mimic an in vivo state characterized by low synaptic release probability and low-rate asynchronous firing, and exposed it to 10 different stimuli. We found that synaptic plasticity sparsely and specifically strengthened synapses forming spatial clusters on postsynaptic dendrites and those between populations of co-firing neurons, also known as cell assemblies: among 312 million synapses, only 5% experienced noticeable plasticity and cross-assembly synapses underwent three times more changes than average. Furthermore, as occasional large-amplitude potentiation was counteracted by more frequent synaptic depression, the network remained stable without explicitly modeling homeostatic plasticity. When comparing the network's responses to the different stimuli before and after plasticity, we found that it became more stimulus-specific after plasticity, manifesting in prolonged activity after selected stimuli and more unique groups of neurons responding exclusively to a single pattern. Taken together, we present a plasticity rule that leads to sparse change and analyze the rules governing those changes. Time: 17:00, November 15., 2023. Location: CEU, 1051 Budapest, Nádor u. 15, Room 203. and Zoom (Meeting ID: 957 1381 9303<https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/95713819303?pwd=SzM0b1NIU0ZUbzBOUkRpeVc0ME1kQT09> Passcode: 367015) Should you have any inquiries about the series, please contact Mihály Bányai<mailto:mihaly.s.banyai@gmail.com>. Best regards, Ildikó Ildikó Varga Department Coordinator (Budapest) Department of Cognitive Science [cid:19577c97-0d6c-4255-b849-7cca23b147b8] H-1051 Budapest Nador u. 15. FT room 404 tel: +36-1 327-3000 2941 http://www.ceu.edu<http://www.ceu.edu/> http://cognitivescience.ceu.edu<http://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/> ______________________________________________ Subscribe by sending an empty mail to talks-subscribe(a)cogsci.ceu.edu Unsubscribe by sending an empty mail to talks-unsubscribe(a)cogsci.ceu.edu

2 years, 6 months

[Koglist] DUCOG 2024 – Memory, space, and language

by DUCOG - Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science

Dear All, We are pleased to announce the XV. Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science devoted to Memory, space, and language. The conference will take place between 23 and 26 May 2024 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. DUCOG 2024 brings together researchers striving to understand what shared neural and cognitive mechanisms allow humans and non-human animals to represent and process memory, space, and language and how these mechanisms change across the lifespan. Our goal is to uncover synergies and opposing views of approaches from different levels of analysis, from cellular through systems level neuroscience to cognitive- and neuropsychology, in order to facilitate cross-talk between currently independent research fields to inspire novel research. Invited speakers will include: Helen Barron – University of Oxford, UK Melissa C. Duff - Vanderbilt University, USA Paul Frankland – University of Toronto, Canada Monika Schönauer - University of Freiburg, Germany Jelena Sučević - University of Oxford, UK For more information please visit https://ducog.cecog.eu or email us at: ducog(a)cecog.eu Poster abstract submissions will be open between 1 January and 28 February 2024. On behalf of the organisers, Attila Keresztes, Markus Werkle-Bergner - Conference chairs

2 years, 6 months

[Koglist] [CEU Cogsci Talks] CEU Cognitive Science Departmental Colloquium: Elizabeth Spelke, Wednesday, November 8

by Gergely Csibra

Venue: D-001*, Quellenstraße 51, Vienna, and on Zoom<https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/97444589221?pwd=OVp3OUVIZ3hCeHFNeHZ2RGplZGYzZz09> Date: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 Time: 4pm to 5:30pm CET Chair: Gergely Csibra Speaker: Elizabeth Spelke<https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/elizabeth-s-spelke> (Harvard) Title: From the lab to the field and back: Toward a synergy between research in developmental cognitive science and in the economics of education Abstract: In developing countries like India, almost all children attend school, but many fail to learn up to their potential. In this talk, I ask two questions. First, can basic research in developmental cognitive science contribute to efforts to address this problem and promote Indian children’s learning in school? Second, can field research, using randomized designs to evaluate the impacts of curricula that aim to promote such children’s learning, such as the curricula tested in India, contribute to efforts, in developmental cognitive science, to gain a better understanding of human minds and how they grow and learn? *Anyone not affiliated with CEU wishing to attend in-person must RSVP here<https://forms.office.com/e/h5kxsrZVDY> before 12pm on the day to get access to the lecture hall. ______________________________________________ Subscribe by sending an empty mail to talks-subscribe(a)cogsci.ceu.edu Unsubscribe by sending an empty mail to talks-unsubscribe(a)cogsci.ceu.edu

2 years, 6 months

[Koglist] [CEU Cogsci Talks] Invitation to the Doctoral Defense of Barbu Revencu at the Department of Cognitive Science, Vienna, November 9, 2 pm CET

by Gyorgyne Finta

The Department of Cognitive Science cordially invites you to the public defense of the PhD thesis Not a Pipe - STAND-FOR Relations in Human Cognition by Barbu Revencu THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2 P.M. CET| Room D001 (CEU, Quellenstrasse 51, 1100 Vienna) (Zoom: Meeting: https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/95582871844?pwd=VWRpWUovT3pPOWtISUVyZ2grR2szdz09<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/95582871844?pwd%3DVW…> Meeting ID: 955 8287 1844 Passcode: 678897 PRIMARY SUPERVISOR: Gergely Csibra (CEU) SECONDARY SUPERVISOR: Dan Sperber (CEU) Members of the Dissertation Committee: Natalie Sebanz, Chair, CEU Professor Elizabeth Spelke<https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/elizabeth-s-spelke>, External examiner, Harvard, Department of Psychology Hannes Rakoczy<https://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/de/development/team/rakoczy-hannes/hann…>, External examiner Georg-Elias-Müller-Institut für Psychologie<https://www.psych.uni-goettingen.de/de> *Anyone not affiliated with CEU wishing to attend in-person in Vienna must RSVP here<https://forms.office.com/e/dxV4Ch4ZKk> to get access to the lecture hall. ABSTRACT | Local assignments from visually available object symbols to entities under discussion underlie representational STAND-FOR relations and are ubiquitous across many forms of human communication, such as pretend play, puppet shows, diagrams, or animations (e.g., a banana stands for a phone, a puppet stands for an agent). Chapter 1 lays out a cognitive architecture that can explain how humans represent STAND-FOR relations. The architecture consists of two representational layers-one for the perceptually available symbols (object indexes), one for the entities under discussion (discourse referents)-and an assignment function that maps the object indexes to the discourse referents. Once the mappings are established, the information conveyed through the symbol object is interpreted as applying to the discourse referent. I illustrate the architecture with early object substitution pretense and argue that it provides a better and more general account of pretend play than alternative views. Chapter 2 asks whether 19-month-old infants take on-screen events to occur in the here and now or think that on-screen events are decoupled from the immediate environment. Across four experiments, I show that infants reject animation-reality crossovers but accept the depiction of the same animated environment on multiple screens. The results are consistent with the possibility that 19-month-olds interpret animations as external representations. Chapter 3 tests several components of the cognitive architecture outlined in Chapter 1. I present evidence that 15-month-old infants can map arbitrary visual symbols onto familiar discourse referents based on predicative expressions (e.g., "Look! A duck!") applied to geometric shapes (e.g., a circle). Additional experiments show (i) that infants restrict the assignments to the speaker who stipulated them; (ii) that infants use their conceptual knowledge when interpreting subsequent events involving the symbols; and (iii) that alternative explanations cannot account for the central finding. The results show that the cognitive mechanism underlying the representation of STAND-FOR relations is easily activated and available early in human ontogeny. Chapter 4 moves from infants to adults and asks whether photographs of objects undergo object recognition or symbol interpretation. I present evidence from a Stroop task indicating that adults interpret images of toys as the objects the toys are toys of-not as the toys themselves. A control experiment shows that the association between an image of a toy and the object the toy stands for is not automatic. When images of toys are displayed against the objects the toys represent, adults interpret them as depictions of toys. The results indicate that adults interpret images as symbols and compute what the images stand for even when this is irrelevant to the task at hand. Chapter 5 provides an overall summary of the empirical findings in Chapters 2-4. I then discuss a recent debate in cognitive development on the use of symbols in research-Theory of Puppets-and link it to the theoretical framework laid out in Chapter 1 and to the experiments in Chapters 2-4. I end by presenting several avenues for future research and one long-term theoretical goal of the project. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hosted by the Department of Cognitive Science ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GyörgyNÉ Finta (Réka) Department Coordinator Department of cognitive SCience --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [cid:image001.jpg@01DA0E66.2F726490] CEU GmbH - CEU Central European University private university Quellenstrasse 51, A-1100 Wien, Room D502 Office: + 36-1-887-5138 cognitivescience.ceu.edu<https://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/>| www.ceu.edu<http://www.ceu.edu/> See CEU story: www.youtube.com/ceuhungary<http://www.youtube.com/ceuhungary> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CEU is committed to energy and environmental sustainability www.ceu.hu/sustainability<http://www.ceu.hu/sustainability> ______________________________________________ Subscribe by sending an empty mail to talks-subscribe(a)cogsci.ceu.edu Unsubscribe by sending an empty mail to talks-unsubscribe(a)cogsci.ceu.edu

2 years, 6 months

[Koglist] Fwd: PhD program in Cognitive Science at Central European University in Vienna, Austria

by Gergely Csibra

Begin forwarded message: Dear colleagues, The PhD Program in Cognitive Science at Central European University (CEU), Austria invites applications for doctoral students to start in fall 2024. Our department conducts research in the areas of infant development, joint action, visual cognition and learning, behavioural economics, computational modelling of cognition and brain functioning, causality, active learning, language and cognition, and culture and cognition. We are unique in that we provide full financial coverage for our enrolled students and both an American and Austrian accredited degree at the completion of the thesis. All the information about the application process is in the attached flyer and our deadline for application is February 1, 2024. If you are aware of any finishing Masters or even very bright undergraduate students in your environment who would be interested in research of cognitive science I would like to ask you kindly to call their attention to our program. More information, including about upcoming Q&As for prospective students, can be found on our website: https://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/admission Sincerely, Jonathan F. Kominsky -- Dr. Jonathan F. Kominsky Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science PI: Causal Cognition Lab (he/him) _______________________________________________

2 years, 6 months

[Koglist] Fwd: [Cogsci Dept] BCCCD24: Registration open

by Gergely Csibra

Begin forwarded message: Dear Colleagues, Registration is now open for the 14th annual BCCCD meeting,<https://www.bcccd.org/> which will be held in person in Budapest, Hungary from January 4-6, 2024. INVITED SPEAKERS Sandra Waxman<https://psychology.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/core/profiles/sandra-wax…> (Northwestern University) Martin Giurfa<https://cbi-toulouse.fr/eng/equipe-giurfa-devaud> (Centre de Biologie Intégrative, Toulouse) Victoria Southgate<https://psychology.ku.dk/staff/academic_staff/?pure=en/persons/520019> (University of Copenhagen) Registration includes the main conference program, the opening reception on the evening of Thursday 4 January, and the rooftop mulled wine reception on the evening of Friday 5 January. Early-bird registration: Early-bird registration fees are available until 22nd November. For presenters: Those with accepted presentations MUST register before 1 December. Fee waivers for student presenters: A limited number of registration fee waivers are available for students with accepted presentations. Fee waiver applications are due by 11:59 CET on 8 November to the conference email account (bcccd(a)ceu.edu<mailto:bcccd@ceu.edu>). Your application should include your name, the abstract ID from your acceptance notification, and an attached letter from a supervisor stating that there are no other available funds to support your attendance. Applicants for the fee waiver will be notified no later than 15 November. If you plan to apply for a fee waiver, do not register until after 15 November. Instructions for how to receive the waiver will be included in the decision email, but we cannot reimburse registrations that are paid for already. Pre-conference workshops: There is an additional 40 EUR fee to attend a pre-conference workshop or tutorial. This year, we have two tutorials and two preconference workshops, all taking place in parallel on the morning of Thursday 4 January (including a catered coffee break). Tutorial: Bayesian models of science learning in Python Tutorial: Python fundamentals for eye-tracking research Workshop: The ManyBabies Project: How it works, what it contributes to developmental cognitive science, and how to get involved Workshop: Advances in infant neuroscience: What state-of-the-art imaging can reveal about the developing mind? The tutorials have limited capacity and spots will be given on a first-come-first-serve basis. Those presenting in a pre-conference workshop or tutorial do not have to pay the additional fee. Gala dinner: Continuing a popular annual tradition, there will be a gala dinner and dance party after the end of the conference on Saturday 6 January. There is an additional fee for the gala dinner. We hope you will join us for a night of celebration at the end of the conference! We look forward to seeing you in Budapest! Jonathan F. Kominsky and Magdalena Roszkowski BCCCD24 Conference chairs

2 years, 6 months

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koglist November 2023