Dear Cognitive Folks,
The next Fluencia Party will be on 9th February (Friday) starting at 8.00pm
in Élesztő (Tűzoltó utca close to Corvin metro station).
Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/2013110232260580/
Fluencia is a monthly organized informal "jamboree" for cogsci-,
psychology-related students (undergrads, grads), professors, researchers
from many different universities in Hungary. The idea and motivation are to
facilitate interactions, communication, collaboration among researchers
working here, get to know others and others' interests, topics, etc. And,
of course, to have some drinks and fun in a friendly environment.
Everybody is welcome to attend! If you have any further questions, do not
hesitate to ask.
All the best,
Dezso
--------------------------------------
NEMETH, Dezso (PhD)
Brain, Memory and Language Lab: http://www.memory-and-language.com
Phone: +36-1-4614500/3565, +36-1-4614500/3519
Dear all,
The CEU Department of Cognitive Science invites you to the following talk:
Moritz Köster<https://www.uni-regensburg.de/humanwissenschaften/entwicklungs-und-kognitio…> (University of Regensburg)
Title: How infants learn about their physical and social world - a dynamic developmental systems approach
Abstract: Human flexible adaptation relies on both individual learning mechanisms and the (culture-)specific learning environments we grow up in. With my research I aim to illuminate the ontogenetic foundations of this adaptation process in the infant years. I will report about infants’ neural mechanisms for the acquisition of basic physical concepts (such as object categories and physical events), focusing on the theta rhythm and predictive processing, and how these early developing concepts are shaped by social and cultural learning experiences, beginning in the first year of life. I will then further illustrate the interplay between infants’ cognitive capacities, and cultural influences in the development of early prosocial behavior and cultural learning. In summary, with a dynamic developmental systems approach, I aim to convey the origins of human flexible adaptation in early infancy, laying the ground for human cultural learning and the diversity of human development.
Date: Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Time: 4 pm (to 5:30 pm) CET
Venue: D001-Tiered* (QS Vienna) and Zoom (meeting ID: 969 2496 5784<https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/96924965784?pwd=c2duZ0dDMFdEMUthK2Mwa2wzMllEUT09>, passcode: 471712)
Chair: Gergely Csibra
*Anyone not affiliated with CEU wishing to attend in-person in Vienna must RSVP here<https://forms.office.com/e/UmqahBYTHg> to get access to the lecture hall.
Best,
Anna
______________________________________________
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Dear All,
The CEU Department of Cognitive Science and the Center for Cognitive Computation (CCC) invites you to the following two talks, both held on Monday, July 1.
1.
Time: Monday, July 1, 10.00
Speaker: Fahd Yazin, University of Edinburgh
Location: CEU Budapest site (1051 Budapest, Nádor u. 15.) N15. building, room 104.
Zoom: Meeting ID: 941 3729 1638<https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/94137291638?pwd=FXMAybMTbPTewr4ZZHhvrAauvGz32l.1> Passcode: 337577
Title: Will to Predict: How models are created which create our world
Abstract :
Where do predictions come from in the brain? How do these predictions form and shape the models of the world we construct in our mind, driving our subjective experience? Known by various names across fields—mental models, situation models, cognitive maps— I explore the nature of these world models and predictions in sculpting our subjective experience using naturalistic stimuli. Next, I uncover the mechanisms by which these models are formed and deployed for inference using an unsupervised learning task of a probabilistic virtual world.
I show how the Default-Mode Network (DMN) and specifically its Prefrontal sectors segment our environment into abstract, specialized domains - Spatial, Referential and Temporal - through a tripartite architecture, assembling top-down predictions tailored for each domain. This fragments subjective experience, which is unified globally through a multithreaded integration between its prefrontal and parietal core nodes. Computationally, the prefrontal cortex constructs these models by simulating internal data, adaptively adjusting it to match the external reality. Once built, humans compare low-dimensional summaries of these internal replicas to the external sensory information, amounting to rapid model selection.
Formalizing the origin of top-down predictions as being computationally equivalent to predictive inference through Bayesian sampling, I discuss specifically how the prefrontal cortex discovers models and model parameters jointly from the data using internally synthesized data, and generally how the DMN utilizes these to form our subjective experience.
*************************************************************************************
2.
Time: Monday, July 1., 15.00
Speaker: Gargi Majumdar, University of Hamburg
Location: CEU Budapest site (1051 Budapest, Nádor u. 15.) N15. building, room 104.
Zoom: Meeting ID: 958 1739 2309<https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/95817392309?pwd=mRqp5ZpV4vTJlXLLN8a8M9Os3U1BY2.1> Passcode: 454588
Title: Navigating the unknown in emotion dynamics
Abstract:
An enigmatic phenomenon of the mind that drives almost all our actions and has attracted scientists and sages in its quest for centuries is emotion. Divergent views on the definition of emotion combined with various psychological and computational models have populated the field of emotion research for a long time. Most of the proposed theoretical models are yet to be exploited empirically to robustly explain our affective experiences. Combining the theoretical tenets of the Bayesian Brain hypothesis and predictive coding, I aimed to investigate whether prediction uncertainty can robustly track the temporal dynamics of complex emotions, along with formulating insights into deviations or disruptions of the process. Accordingly, using behavioral and large-scale neuroimaging data, I show how optimal representation of uncertainty can drive the temporal dynamics of our emotions. Crucially, this uncertainty naturally emerges as a continuous, hierarchical inference from the fluctuating valence while watching a movie. Extending this framework further, I explored whether age-associated idiosyncratic changes in emotional processing can stem from misrepresentation and miscomputation uncertainty. Finally, I investigated the dynamic interplay between rest and emotion and how intermittent anticipatory or ruminative resting periods change our emotional experiences.
Please, be informed that video/photo recording might take place at the event and the edited version of the video material might be published to communicate or promote CEU PU's activities. Please, find our Privacy Notice here<https://www.ceu.edu/privacy>.
Best regards,
Ildikó Varga
Department Coordinator (Budapest)
Department of Cognitive Science
[cid:f4adf602-06ae-43f0-9f96-2b79c5cbdf6d]
H-1051 Budapest
Nádor 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/>
______________________________________________
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Dear All,
The CEU Department of Cognitive Science and the Center for Cognitive Computation (CCC) invites you to the following online talk.
*Please note that this is an online event only, next Monday, starting from 3 PM.*
Speaker: Mark Ho (New York University)
Title: How do people see, simplify, and solve problems?
Abstract: Everyday life often gives us new problems to solve. For example, imagine flying back from a relaxing vacation and your return trip includes a layover in a new city. You’ve just landed at your connecting destination but learn that the next flight has been canceled. Suddenly, you need to start considering a whole new set of possibilities, constraints, and goals: When is the next flight? Would it be nice to stay a few days and explore? When do I have to be back at work? Could I take a car or train home instead? How long would that take? How much would it cost? Then, you would actually need to do something based on these considerations. Put another way, you need to come up with and then execute a novel plan.
Our capacity to flexibly plan and act in new situations (such as deciding what to do when a connecting flight gets canceled) is both quotidian and remarkable. This is because planning is an exceptionally cognitively demanding process, and yet we are able to plan successfully despite having limited attention, memory, and time. No other species and no existing artificial intelligence system can plan as flexibly, generally, and efficiently as we do on a routine basis. What explains our ability to plan?
To understand processes like planning, cognitive scientists often develop formal, mathematical models that capture general principles underlying how people think and act (similar to how Newton’s laws capture general principles underlying how physical objects interact). One of the earliest and most influential models of planning, proposed by Newell and Simon (1972), is based on the idea that people have a representation of a task (e.g., for chess, an understanding of how the pieces move and how to win) and then search for good actions to take using that representation (e.g., by simulating and evaluating different sequences of chess moves). Recently, we built on this original distinction between representing tasks and searching for actions by formulating a new theory of planning. Specifically, we propose that people not only search for good actions, but also search for good task representations via a process that we refer to as value-guided construal.
Our account of value-guided construal allows us to pose two broad questions—one conceptual and one empirical. First, the conceptual question: What makes a task representation good? We propose that a task representation is good if it is simple and planning with it leads to a successful solution. Put another way, good task representations balance utility and complexity. Our computational model allows us to quantify this tradeoff for a given task.
The second question is empirical: Do people form task representations that balance utility and complexity? Answering this question requires data, so we designed a task in which participants needed to plan how to navigate around obstacles in 2D mazes to reach a goal. We wanted to understand how they represented the mazes to plan, and so in a series of experiments, we assessed their memory of task elements after planning using post-trial questions as well as their thought process during planning using mouse tracking. Across these experiments, we found robust support for the idea that people trade off the utility and complexity of a task representation, as predicted by our account of value-guided construal.
Our results tell us whether people flexibly form task representations that trade-off utility and complexity, but they also raise intriguing questions about how people might do so. The current work does not provide a definitive answer to such questions, but we explore how it might be done in principle. For example, one could start by solving the simplest construal and only add in new details (such as obstacles) as needed. Background knowledge about a domain could also guide which details to include in a construal—for instance, in chess, knowing that the queen is the strongest piece on the board might bias one to consider construals that include it.
The human capacity to plan in novel situations is both familiar and puzzling, and understanding what makes it possible remains an important scientific challenge. The framework of value-guided construal provides a new perspective on this old question by drawing attention to the role that actively simplifying tasks plays in allowing people to more efficiently use limited cognitive resources. Our hope is that this work can serve as a starting point for further examination of the construal process itself, as well as other cognitive mechanisms that interface with planning.
Original Article:
Ho, M. K., Abel, D., Correa, C. G., Littman, M. L., Cohen, J. D., & Griffiths, T. L. (2022). People construct simplified mental representations to plan. Nature, 606(7912), 129–136. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04743-9
Time: 3 PM, Monday, June 10, 2024
Zoom: Meeting ID: 927 6894 9309<https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/92768949309?pwd=KbnyxOa7YXxwOpbmIqQkjyi8Sk11ka.1>
Passcode: 245150
Please, be informed that video/photo recording might take place at the event and the edited version of the video material might be published to communicate or promote CEU PU's activities. Please, find our Privacy Notice here<https://www.ceu.edu/privacy>.
Best regards,
Ildikó Varga
Department Coordinator (Budapest)
Department of Cognitive Science
[cid:0d0b70b8-4628-4073-b8f8-374a7ae8abc7]
H-1051 Budapest
Nádor 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/>
______________________________________________
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-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: EU funded PhD (4 years) position at the University of Trento
(Italy)
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2024 16:12:14 +0200
From: Francesco Pavani <francesco.pavani(a)unitn.it>
Dear Colleague,
I would be most grateful if you could circulate this PhD opportunity in
your Institute or among anyone that you think may be interested.
Thank you in advance
Francesco Pavani
--
*
*
*PhD Position topic:*
*Cochlear implants and spatial hearing: Enabling access to the next
dimension of hearing*
*Overview:*
A 4-year PhD position is open at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences
(CIMeC) <https://www.cimec.unitn.it/en/14/the-center> of the University
of Trento, Italy. This PhD project is part of the multidisciplinary MSCA
Doctoral Network 'CherISH' (Cochlear Implants and Spatial Hearing)
<https://cherish-network.eu>, which integrates approaches from medicine,
biomedical engineering, psychology, and neuroscience to enhance hearing
restoration in deaf individuals by combining next-generation cochlear
implant (CI) technology with innovative rehabilitation methods.
*Project Details:*
As a PhD candidate at CIMeC, you will investigate how motor actions on
sounds can influence perceptual and metacognitive experiences of sound
position, such as confidence in sound position and perceived effort in
sound localization. The research will also explore how this active
listening approach can aid in re-learning or improving sound
localization skills, particularly for cochlear implant users. You will
gain expertise in human psychophysics, experimental psychology,
cognitive neuroscience, and 3D sound technology related to auditory
virtual reality.
The project includes a *study and research period at Imperial College
London (UK) *for at least six months, under the co-supervision of Dr.
Lorenzo Picinali <https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/l.picinali>, and
offers extensive training opportunities within the international and
interdisciplinary CherISH Doctoral Network.
*Working Environment:*
You will join the Cognition Across the Senses (CAtS) team at CIMeC
<https://r1.unitn.it/cats/en/people/>, an interdisciplinary research and
teaching center in the Cognitive Neuroscience field at the University of
Trento. CIMeC is located in Rovereto, in the beautiful Trentino region
<https://www.visittrentino.info/en/experience/spring-holidays?gad_source=1&_…>
of Northern Italy.
*Qualifications and Skills:
*- A four or five-year Master's degree in Psychology, Behavioral
Sciences, Cognitive Neurosciences, Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering,
Computer Science, or Life Sciences.
- The applicant will undertake important responsibilities for all
aspects of the research project, including data collection, statistical
analysis, basic programming, and writing publications.
*Contract and Application Process:
*- *Duration: *48 months, starting approximately from 1st September 2024.
- *EU Requirement:* The doctoral candidate must not have resided or
carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Italy for more
than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the date of recruitment.
- *Application Deadline:* 28th June 2024
More details on the contract and application procedure here
<https://lavoraconnoi.unitn.it/en/research-contracts/center-mind-brain-scien…>
If you have *any questions*, please contact me (francesco.pavani(a)unitn.it).
Best regards,
Francesco Pavani
Università di Trento <http://www.unitn.it/>
*Francesco Pavani*
Professore Ordinario di Psicologia Generale
Center for Mind/Brain Sciences - CIMeC
Università degli Studi di Trento
Corso Bettini 31, 38068 Rovereto (TN), Italy
Telefono: + 39 0464 80 8674