11 Sep
2013
11 Sep
'13
10:15 p.m.
Dear all,
We are happy to announce that our seminar series will resume next week. The
first talk will by given by:
Michael Ramscar (Tübingen University)
Date: Note that exceptionally the talk will take place on THURSDAY,
September 19, 2013, 5 PM
Location: Cognitive Development Center, Hattyú u. 14, 3rd floor
Title: Nonlinear dynamics of lifelong learning
As adults age, their reaction times slow across a range of psychometric
tests. This has been widely taken to show that cognitive
information-processing capacities decline over the course of adulthood. I
will show that these response patterns, which are typically taken as
evidence for (and measures of) declining cognitive-processing capacities,
arise naturally out of basic principles of learning. These basic, formal
learning principles both correctly identify the pattern of performance
exhibited by very young children in word learning tasks (which can differ
greatly from that of young adults) as well successfully predicting that
older adults will exhibit far greater sensitivity to fine-grained
properties of test stimuli than younger adults. Taken together, the
findings I present show that the patterns of change observed in cognitive
performance across the lifespan simply reflect the consequences of learning
from the kind of statistical distributions that typify human experience.
Once the information-processing loads are inevitably imposed by learning
from this experience are controlled for, it appears that the performance
changes that are usual taken as evidence of innate abilities in infants, or
declining cognitive capacities in older adults, support little more than
the unsurprising idea that the way individuals choose between or recalls
items will be affected by the number of items there are and what an
individual has already learned about them. I will consider the
implications of this for our scientific and cultural understanding of
lifelong cognitive development.
PLEASE NOTE: Our seminar room has a limited capacity. Please arrive early
to ensure you get a seat. The talk will begin promptly at 5.
Cognitive Science Events at CEU: http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/events
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