Academic Year 2007-2008 Seminars

MRC CENTRE FOR COGNITIVE AGEING AND COGNITIVE EPIDEMIOLOGY - Opening Symposium 11th September

Psychology Building
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
University of Edinburgh
7 George Square
Edinburgh
EH8 9JZ

The Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology officially opens on 1st September 2008 and to mark the occasion a full day opening symposium has been organised for Thursday, 11th September 2008 within the Psychology building, 7 George Square.

The symposium will involve talks from two eminent national and international speakers, Professor George Davey-Smith from the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Bristol and Professor Monique Breteler from the University Medical School in Rotterdam, alongside talks from Centre group leaders on their areas of research within the Centre. There will also be a poster session displaying the work of some of the Centre scientists.

Attendance at the symposium is free and includes a buffet lunch and an evening wine reception. However, you must register in advance as numbers are limited. Please click on the link below to find full details of the programme and how to register.

http://www.edinburghneuroscience.ed.ac.uk/MRCcentresymposium/Index.html

Wednesday, August 6th 2008, 4.00 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre S1 - Professor Miho Inoue-Murayama

Professor Miho Inoue-Murayama, Wildlife Research Center of Kyoto University

Title:
Genetic polymorphisms as the background of animal behavior

Abstract:

Various studies have uncovered associations between differences in human behavioral traits and genetic polymorphisms of neurotransmitter-related proteins: receptor, transporter and monoamine oxidase. To better understand the genetic background of animal behavior, we analyzed corresponding regions in nonhuman animals, especially primates (as the evolutionarily closest animal) and dogs (as the socially closest animal). Among nonhuman primate species, great apes, such as chimpanzees and gorillas, had dopamine receptor D4 and serotonin transporter sequences that were more similar to those of humans than monkeys. On the other hand, sequences of polymorphic regions in dopamine transporter and monoamine oxidase genes differed greatly, indicating that functional differences of these genes might affect human evolution.  In dogs, more than 400 breeds selected for different purposes show breed-specific behavior traits. Allele frequency of dopamine receptor D4 differed greatly among breeds, and a group of breeds in which long alleles were frequent tended toward higher scores in aggression-related behavioral traits than breeds with frequent short alleles. Long alleles were frequent in wolves, the ancestor of dog. We further evaluated individual behavioral traits in chimpanzees and drug detector dogs by co-operation of keepers and trainers, and investigated the association between evaluations and genotypes. The genetic polymorphism was also found in cats, chickens as well as several wild animals, and analysis of relationship with their behavior is underway.

Thursday, August 7th 2008, 5.00 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa

Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa is a primatologist who is director of the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University.

Title:
Understanding the chimpanzee mind through both field and laboratory research

Abstract:

From birth to adulthood, there is strong evidence of cognitive development in chimpanzees. That evidence has come from parallel research efforts involving controlled cognitive experiments in the laboratory and assiduous field observations in chimpanzees’ natural habitat. Recent laboratory investigations have revealed that young chimpanzees actually have better working memory than human adults. Field studies have disclosed that there is a cultural tradition of making and using tools and that these behaviors are unique to each chimpanzee community. Taken together, the study of chimpanzees may give us unique insights into the evolutionary origins of human cognition, culture, education, mother-infant relationship, etc.

Related articles (PDF):
Kinji Imanishi and 60 years of Japanese primatology
Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees

Tuesday, June 10th 2008, 4.00 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre S1 - Professor Gary Marcus

Professor Marcus is Director of the NYU Infant Language Learning Center, and Professor of Psychology at New York University.
Author of The Birth of the Mind, The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science, and editor of The Norton Psychology Reader, Marcus's research on developmental cognitive neuroscience has been published in over forty articles in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Cognition, Cognitive Psychology, and the Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

Title:
Language as Kluge

Abstract:

In fields ranging from reasoning to linguistics, the idea of humans as perfect, rational, optimal creatures is making a comeback – but should it be? Hamlet’s musings that the mind was “noble in reason ....infinite in faculty” have their counterparts in recent scholarly claims that the mind consists of an “accumulation of superlatively well-engineered designs” shaped by the process of natural selection (Tooby and Cosmides, 1995), and the 2006 suggestions of Bayesian cognitive scientists Chater, Tenenbaum and Yuille that “it seems increasingly plausible that human cognition may be explicable in rational probabilistic terms and that, in core domains, human cognition approaches an optimal level of performance”, as well as in Chomsky’s recent suggestions that language is close “to what some super-engineer would construct, given the conditions that the language faculty must satisfy”.

In this talk, I will I argue that this resurgent enthusiasm for rationality (in cognition) and optimality (in language) is misplaced, and that the assumption that evolution tends creatures towards“superlative adaptation” ought to be considerably tempered by recognition of what Stephen Jay Gould called “remnants of history”, or what I call evolutionary inertia. The thrust of my argument is that the mind in general, and language in particular, might be better seen as what engineers call a kluge: clumsy and inelegant, yet remarkably effective.

19th ANNUAL DREVER LECTURE

Wednesday, April 23rd 2008, 5.00 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Michael Tomasello

Professor Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig

Title:
Communication before language

Abstract:

Apes and other nonhuman primates have very little voluntary control over their vocal signals.In contrast, apes have much more voluntary control over their gestures - using them flexibly as needed, even in combination, in different communicative circumstances. Moreover, in using many gestures a signaler must be concerned about whether a recipient is attending to the gesture visually, in a way that is not necessary for vocalizations broadcast indiscriminately. For these reasons and others, human cooperative communication most likely began in the gestural modality.

An especially interesting and important gesture is pointing, which apes do not do for one another, but only for humans and only in one of its functions (requesting). Human infants use the pointing gesture spontaneously for at least three different functions from before language begins, two of them purely cooperative (sharing emotions and providing others with needed information). It is argued that the pointing gesture embodies many aspects of the human adaptation for cooperative interactions involving shared intentionality and joint attention - and so it is the best candidate we have for an immediate precursor to human language.

Wednesday, April 16th 2008, 4.00 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre S1 - Dr Todd Horowitz

Dr Todd Horowitz, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School
Dr Horowitz is a major contributor to the visual attention and memory literatures and is primarily concerned with studying how visual attention is controlled in a dynamic world. His research considers the mechanisms underlying selective attention, visual search, and object tracking. His work has appeared top journals including in Nature, Psychological Science, JEP:General, JEP:HPP, and many others. His work is funded in part by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. He has served on multiple editorial boards including Visual Cognition and Perception & Psychophysics.

Title:
Limits on Attentive Tracking

Abstract:

Much of our current understanding of visual attention is built on experimental paradigms that can be characterized as either static or as a series of brief, discontinuous snapshots. However, in our everyday environment, objects around us move smoothly, or we move with respect to the environment. Recent research has tried to capture dynamic and continuous nature of real world tasks. While it is difficult (if possible) to pay attention to multiple loci in static scenes, human observers are quite good at simultaneously attending to several independently moving objects. In such multiple object tracking tasks, observers are typically limited to tracking 3-4 objects. How is this accomplished and what is the nature of the capacity limit? In the work I will present, we take advantage of the similarities to visual working memory tasks and work done on motion perception to synthesize a new approach to attentional tracking. In one set of studies, we show that observers can track for extended periods of time, and "attentionally juggle" objects in and out of the tracked set. We then measure the timing of this process using ERPs. In a second set of studies, we demonstrate that observers use trajectory information to help track objects. The precision of this trajectory information, in turn, allows us to infer whether attentional limitations in tracking more closely resemble a "fixed slot" or a "graded resource" model.

Tuesday, April 8th 2008, 6.00 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre S1 - Dr Guillaume Thierry

Dr Guillaume Thierry, School of Psychology, Adeilad Brigantia, Bangor University, UK

Title:
Unconscious lexical semantic access in bilinguals

Abstract:

Whether or not the native language of bilingual individuals is active during second language comprehension and production is the subject of lively debate. Studies of bilingualism have often used a mix of first and second language words, thereby creating an artificial "dual-language" context. I will present a series of experiments which target implicit access to the first language when bilinguals read, listen to, or retrieve words exclusively in their second language. In two experiments, Chinese-English bilinguals were required to decide whether English words presented in pairs are related in meaning or not; they were unaware of the fact that half of the words concealed a phonological and/or orthographic repetition when translated into Chinese. The hidden factor generally failed to affect behavioural performance, but it significantly modulated the N400 wave of brain potentials showing that English words are automatically and unconsciously translated into Chinese. Furthermore, it is the phonological form of the Chinese equivalent which is activated, not its orthographic form. A third experiment tested repetition priming in Chinese character in the context of a production task. Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to judge whether or not the English names of two visually presented objects rhymed. In this context again, significant repetition priming indexed by the N400 ERP component indicated that the Chinese translation equivalents of the words had been activated. These findings demonstrate that native language activation is an unconscious correlate of second language comprehension and production.

Monday, March 17th 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Murray Grossman

Professor Murray Grossman, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Title:
Not Much to Count On: Impairment of Quantifiers in CBD (Corticobasal Degeneration)

Abstract:

The traditional view is that precise number knowledge depends on a lexical representation. We turn the question around - what aspects of the lexicon depend on knowledge of quantity? We investigate this question by examining quantifiers. I will present recent fMRI work and converging evidence from patients with corticobasal degeneration. Our findings are consistent with the claim that the meaning of quantifiers depends in part on number knowledge.

Monday, March 10th 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Dr Peter Naish

Dr Peter Naish, Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology, The Open University

Title:
Hypnosis: What is really happening?

Abstract:

It has always been hard to know what should be believed about the apparently strange experiences of the hypnotised. In spite of pieces of evidence that have strongly undermined various beliefs during the history of hypnosis, there has always been a tendency for the previous theory to run in tandem with the new, evidentially supported upstart. Most recently, the debate has been between the so-called 'state' and 'non-state' views: Is hypnosis an altered state of consciousness? Perhaps that could be answered better if we were sure what consciousness was in the first place!

The talk will sketch the history of hypnosis theories, then consider a phenomenon that really does seem to be an alteration in conscious awareness - a distortion in the perception of time. Parallels will be drawn with other consciousness-changing conditions (e.g. schizophrenia) which, perhaps revealingly, also produce distortions to the perception of time. On this basis, an 'altered-state-like' account of hypnosis may be appropriate - but there are still some disconcerting pieces of potentially contrary evidence!

Monday, March 3rd 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Dr Alan Collins

Dr Alan Collins, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University

Title:
Why should anyone listen? Making the case for history in psychology

Abstract:

In 1929, Edwin Boring published one of the most popular and well-known histories of psychology: A History of Experimental Psychology. It was a key publication in a career that can reasonably be described as successful: he was a Professor at Harvard and Director of its Psychology lab for 25 years, a President of the APA and editor of American Journal of Psychology (quite enough to count as markers of esteem for several Research Assessment Exercises). But, as John O’Donnell remarks, even Boring never escaped the fear that people were saying of him: ‘But anyone can write history. Can he do research?’. Without doubt, and despite the recent urgings of the BPS, there is a sense that history of psychology should at best occupy a peripheral position in the discipline, usually on the grounds that history has no necessary place within the boundaries of a science and can be undertaken by anyone.  In this talk, I will present three examples of history of psychology in an attempt to show that history can be of value and of interest to those in the discipline. I then move on to consider more general arguments for retaining history of psychology as a specialist part of the discipline.

Monday, February 25th 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Ian H Robertson

Professor Ian H Robertson, School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin

Title:
Attention, Awareness and Error: lessons from healthy and damaged brains

Abstract:

In this talk I will present data on insight into disability among a range of clinical conditions including traumatic brain injury, attention deficit disorder, and the tau-opathies, as well as in normal individuals. I will present ERP and functional imaging data pertaining to error processing and put forward the argument that insight requires sustained attention to error to maintain an accurate representation of performance.

Monday, February 18th 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Matthew Lambon Ralph

Professor Matthew Lambon Ralph, Neuroscience & Aphasia Research Unit (NARU), The University of Manchester

Title:
Neural basis of semantic cognition

Abstract:

Semantic memory or conceptual knowledge refers to our store of knowledge pertaining to the meanings of words, objects, people and all other stimuli in our world. As such it is integral to both language and nonverbal receptive and expressive tasks. In this talk I will give an overview of our recent research that utilises multiple neuroscience methods to reveal the neural substrates for semantic cognition (semantically driven behaviour) and how this breaks down in neurological patients. These studies include new, direct comparisons of different patient groups each with semantic impairment, computational models, rTMS studies as well as fMRI. They point to a neural model of semantic cognition supported by a number of brain regions including bilateral anterior temporal lobes, prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal regions.

Monday, February 4th 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Keith Stenning

Professor Keith Stenning, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Title:
Autism: what's in it for us?

Abstract:

My day job is analysing reasoning and especially individual differences in reasoning, and for one reason or another, some work on the reasoning of autistic children emerged. This talk will present a sketch of some of the results, but the main focus is on what disciplinary contributions need to go into such a program of research, and what we might reasonably hope to emerge. Specifically, some putative interactions between logic and genetics in explaining autistic behaviour illustrate some of what may be needed to understand this particular human condition.

Monday, January 28th 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Pascal Belin

Professor Pascal Belin, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow

Title:
The cognitive neuroscience of the human voice

Abstract:

The human voice is the most important sound category of our auditory environment. The voice carries speech, but it is also an "auditory face" rich in affective and identity information. Little is known on how the processing of these different types of vocal information is organized in the human auditory cortex. In a series of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments in normal subjects, we examined the cortical processing of sounds of human voices. The results obtained suggest that: 1) Perceiving sounds of voice involves activation of "voice selective" areas of auditory cortex, mostly located in superior temporal sulcus (STS) bilaterally, much more activated by sounds of voice than by non-vocal sounds; 2) Voice selective areas in the right anterior STS are particularly involved in the paralinguistic aspects of voice perception, including speaker recognition. 3) This selectivity to voice appears to be largely species-specific, i.e., sounds of animal voices induce a much more restricted activation of STS.

These results, as well as those from more recent neuroimaging studies, suggest that the different types of vocal information could be processed in partially dissociated functional pathways, and suggest a neurocognitive model of voice perception largely similar to those proposed for face perception.

Monday, January 21st 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Dr Andy McKinlay

Dr Andy McKinlay, Psychology, The University of Edinburgh

Title:
Discourse Analysis and Identity

Abstract:

One of the central concerns of social psychology has been the study of identity: the sense of 'who we are' in the social world. Establishing and maintaining an identity is central to understanding ourselves. It is also a key component in providing us with a framework within which we make sense of our interactions with others. Traditional social psychology has explored identity in terms of cognitive processes of self-stereotyping. But more recently, qualitative social psychologists have questioned this perspective. In particular, they have criticised the assumption that processes of identity are best explained by appeal to the cognitive phenomenon of categorisation which underlies the stereotyping process. This talk will introduce two studies which typify the qualitative researcher's alternative approach. The first is a study of how the women of a remote northern fishing community construct identities in talk. The second is a study of how professional psychiatrists deal with identity concerns raised by popular media representations of their profession. The talk will conclude by arguing for a rapprochement between the two 'camps' in contemporary social psychology.

Monday, January 14th 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Marc Marschark PhD

Marc Marschark PhD., Center for Education Research Partnerships, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA & Honorary Professor, University of Edinburgh

Title:
Deaf People Are Not Hearing People Who Cannot Hear: On Language, Cognition, and Learning

Abstract:

Traditionally, language and educational placement for deaf children have been tightly intertwined (if not confused). Only recently have we also begun to pay attention to the cognitive foundations of learning by deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, how they might be related to language, and how these might differ from hearing peers. We are now on a threshold with regard to deaf education, a point at which we really are beginning to understand relations among language, information processing, cognitive development, and academic achievement (and how these might be affected by early intervention and cochlear implants among other factors). Convergent evidence from a variety of investigations and pedagogical interventions provide new insights that can serve as important guideposts for research, teaching, and the provision of support services for children who are deaf. This presentation will focus on these interactions, pointing out that because of their different experiences and early environments, deaf students have somewhat different knowledge, knowledge organization, and learning strategies than their hearing peers. As a result, they are likely to learn in different ways. Similarly, recent evidence suggests that deaf students understand less (or perhaps differently?) from signed, spoken, and printed materials than we and they generally believe. In addition to helping us understand and accommodate the needs of deaf students, such findings are informative with regard to the cumulative interaction of language, learning, and experience in human cognition.

Monday, January 7th 2008, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Dr Satoru Saito

Dr Satoru Saito, Kyoto University, Japan

Title:
Exploring the role of verbal working memory in action control

Abstract:

Flexibility in human behaviour is secured by executive control, which enables us to regulate our mental activities in relation to prepotent responses or habit endogenously. In this talk, I will provide evidence for the involvement of verbal working memory in executive control that emerges through task-switching paradigms. A typical switching paradigm requires participants to repeat the same task or to switch between two tasks in separate blocks or in the same block. The cost of switching - the difference in performance between the repeated and switched trials - is thought to reflect executive demands in task switching. Our group examined the cost of switching in a variety of task-switching paradigms systematically, using an articulatory suppression technique, in order to clarify the nature of verbal executive control. The literature has suggested that serial order control and task set retrieval are possible functions of the verbal executive and we have recently extended this framework into studies on motor action control. I will discuss theoretical developments regarding the role played by verbal working memory in action control.

Monday, November 26th 2007, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Andy Clark

Professor Andy Clark, Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh

Title:
Unnoticed Seeing

Abstract:

There is now substantial evidence for preserved, and sometimes surprisingly rich, representations in some forms of 'change blindness'. But what does this mean for the elusive topic of conscious seeing? Do we visually experience, at the time of encounter, the elements that later surface in experiments revealing preserved representations, or were they merely registered in some non-conscious manner? Drawing on recent work by Fred Dretske, I shall argue that not only do we encode more than it sometimes appears, but that we experience more than we sometimes notice that we experience. Such a view can seem empirically puzzling. How can we demonstrate that experience outruns a subject's capacity to notice what they are experiencing? And if we can show this, or at any rate make it plausible that this is so, what does this tell us about the functional role of conscious perceptual experience?

Monday, November 19th 2007, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Dr Justin Williams

Dr Justin HG Williams, Senior Lecturer in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Aberdeen

Title:
Imitation vs mimicry, praxis vs contagion: Processes and mechanisms of action-copying in normality and autism

Abstract:

The most discriminating diagnostic features of autism reflect reduced enactment of mental states representations in actions such as facial expression, gesture and eye contact that convey emotion, attitude and intention. Impaired imitation ability resulting from dysfunctional mirror neurons could account for these problems. Several studies have supported this hypothesis, showing that premotor cortex is less responsive to action observation in autism. However, evidence that Broca's area mirror neurons have a specific role in imitation or joint attention is lacking. A revised model proposes that separate cross-modal, self-other translation functions of mirror neurons in parietal and premotor cortex are necessary for development to occur in three domains: 1) stimulus-driven attention to familiar action, 2) joint attention and imitation and 3) secondary representation of action. Relationships between the mirror neuron system and orbitofrontal-amygdala circuit provide reinforcement and generate a recursive developmental process. The model predicts impaired functioning in autism, reduced influence of emotional learning on motor development and a reduced 'circuit breaker' influence of social stimuli on goal-directed attention. The model may inform the development of various therapeutic strategies for treating autism including pharmacological management of social attention and approaches to social skill training.

Monday, November 12th 2007, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Stephen Reicher

Professor Stephen Reicher FRSE, Head of the School of Psychology, University of St Andrews

Title:
Beyond the banality of evil

Abstract:

In this talk I will challenge the idea - enshrined in history, philosophy as well as psychology - of the 'banality of evil'. That is, people commit extreme acts of inhumanity by ignoring the consequences of their actions. I shall argue instead that both the historical and the psychological evidence points to the fact that perpetrators actively glorify their acts. We therefore need to ask how such acts can be celebrated as virtue. As a starting point towards answering this question, I shall present a five step model of the development of collective hate.

Monday, November 5th 2007, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Etzel Cardana

Professor Etzel Cardana, University of Lund, Sweden

Title:
The "ways" to study anomalous experiences: Introspection is alive and well

Abstract:

Although introspection as a method was abandoned early in the history of psychology for reasons less evident than those offered in most history of psychology books, empirical and theoretical advances in the last few decades show that introspective methods are as robust (and limited) as other research methods. This presentation will provide a brief overview and examples of the phenomenological approach and of various concurrent and retrospective methods of introspective inquiry.

Monday, October 29th 2007, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Walter R. Boot (PhD)

Walter R. Boot (PhD), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Title:
Training and Transfer of Training: From Visual Search to Video Games

Abstract:

Broad transfer of training is the holy grail of education and learning. Practice and training often lead to large improvements in task performance, but these improvements are typically restricted to the specific tasks and stimuli trained on. Experiments will be discussed in which broad transfer of training is obtained. First, training visual search for camouflaged targets improves search in novel camouflage situations. Second, video game training appears to improve a number of diverse abilities. For example, training older adults to play a real-time strategy game resulted in improvements in a number of memory and executive control tasks. Implications and future directions will be discussed.

Monday, October 22nd 2007, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Dr Jason Rentfrow

Dr Jason Rentfrow, Social & Developmental Psychology, University of Cambridge

Title:
Geography of personality: The emergence, persistence, and expression of basic traits

Abstract:

Volumes of research clearly show that people in different parts of the world are psychologically different. While most of that work converges on the conclusion that there are geographic differences in basic personality traits, the antecedents and consequences of such differences remain unclear. Drawing from research in personality, social psychology, and other social sciences, I articulate a theory of the mechanisms through which geographic variation in basic personality traits emerge and persist within regions, and propose a model for conceptualizing the processes through which prevalent traits become expressed in geographic social indicators. Hypotheses derived from the model were tested using personality data from over a half-million U.S. residents. Results provided preliminary support for the predictions, revealing robust personality differences across the U.S., clear patterns of geographic clustering, and strong relationships between state-level personality and geographic indicators of crime, social capital, public opinion, employment, and health. For example, state-level Neuroticism was positively associated with indicators of morbidity, and state-level Openness was strongly related to indicators of creative innovation and liberal public opinion. Taken together, this work provides a guide for developing and testing hypotheses about geographic trait variation, highlights the potential advantages of including a macro-level perspective in personality and social psychology, and suggests new routes to bridging theory and research across disciplines.

Monday, October 15th 2007, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Byron Jones

Professor Byron Jones, Professor of Biobehavioral Health & Pharmacology, The Pennsylvania State University, USA

Title:
Reaching through levels of analysis: The systems genetics approach in neural and behavioral sciences

Abstract:

Recent advances in genetic techniques have led to a rapid increase in our understanding of how genes influence neurobiology and behaviour. Specific genes can be targeted for amplification or inhibition and their sequelae observed. While these techniques have provided insights into the workings of individual genes, they have been of limited value in our understanding of polygenic traits, gene-environment and gene-gene interactions. Complex traits analysis is an alternative, complementary approach to the study of genes, brain and behaviour. Complex traits analysis enables the researcher to examine traits that are influenced by many genes (and most traits are), underlying gene networks and how these genetic parameters may change as a consequence of environmental influence. Phenotypes at all levels of investigation, behavioural, neurochemical, enzyme activity, cell signalling and even gene expression can be studied within this context. At present, the materials most amenable to this analysis consist of inbred and recombinant inbred mouse and rat strains, however development of new genotyping, i.e., based on single nucleotide polymorphisms and rapid sequencing techniques will bring complex traits analysis to virtually all kinds of animals. The author will provide an example of complex traits analysis of dopamine neurobiology, pharmacology, genetics and related behaviours.

Monday, October 8th 2007, 5.00 - 6.15 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor James R Hurford

Professor James R Hurford, Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, Linguistics & English Language, University of Edinburgh

Title:
Proto-Human Cognition In Non-Human Animals

Abstract:

I will sketchily review a range of evidence from the comparative psychology literature for animal characteristics that seem to prefigure aspects of human language in some way. Topics touched upon will include object permanence, metacognition, episodic memory, competence with abstract relations, transitive inference, subitizing, ‘frame-of-reference’ systems, the where/what-dorsal/ventral separation, and global and local attention.

Monday, October 1st 2007, 5.00 - 6.30 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Julie Harris

Professor Julie Harris, The School of Psychology, University of St Andrews

Title:
How far away is it? Visual information for distance perception

Abstract:

It is commonly believed that the reason we have two eyes is to allow us to make judgements about the three-dimensional (3-D) distances between objects in the world.  In this talk I'll describe what visual information is provided by binocular vision and give a review of how binocular visual information is processed by the brain.  I'll then discuss some of my group's data on binocular distance perception which demonstrate that not only are there big biases in distance perception. Simple models of how the available perceptual information is used to see depth and distance cannot account for the highly idiosyncratic behaviours that our observers demonstrate.

Monday, September 24th 2007, 5.00 - 6.30 pm, 7 George Square, Lecture Theatre F21 - Professor Mike Anderson

Professor Mike Anderson, University of Western Australia, Perth

Title:
General intelligence and developmental disorders

Abstract:

I will present some key data that support the suggestion that there are two dimensions to general intelligence: one related to speed of processing and individual differences and the other to executive functioning and developmental change. I will then show how cognitive theories that make explicit reference to general intelligence can illuminate our understanding of developmental disorders (the specific examples used will be dyslexia and autism). The talk will be liberally laced with invective and polemic about what such an approach implies for what psychology is really about understanding the cognitive architecture of the mind.

Monday, April 30th 2007, 3 pm, 7 George Square, Room S1 - Dr Jeffrey Zacks

Dr Jeffrey Zacks, Department of Psychology, Washington University.

Bio: Jeff obtained his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1992 and his PhD from Stanford University in 1999. He is currently Associate Professor of Psychology at Washington University. He studies event structure using a combination of behavioural, computational, and neural methods. He serves on a number of editorial boards for prominent journals, and he is the recipient of the American Psychological Association: Division of Experimental Psychology Young Investigator Award in Experimental Psychology: Applied, May 2004. 

Title:
Event perception and memory: A mind-brain perspective

Abstract:

People perceive and conceive of activity in terms of discrete events, even though the world as presented to human sense organs is continuous, dynamic, and fleeting.  In this talk I will present a theory of why this occurs and what it means for understanding and memory. According to the theory, the perception of events depends on physical cues, and also on cognitive representations that capture parts, goals, and plans.  I’ll describe converging behavioral, neuropsychological, and neurophysiological data supporting the theory, and discuss some implications for attention, memory, and cognitive aging.

Wednesday, March 21st 2007 - Professor Richard Ivry, Director of the Cognition and Action Laboratory

Professor Richard Ivry, Director of the Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, will give a talk in Psychology at 4 pm on Wednesday, March 21st in Room F21.

Professor Ivry's work examines timing in skilled movement, focusing especially on the role of the cerebellum and using a combination of imaging, neuropsychological, and behavioural data. Professor Ivry is currently an action editor for the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, and Principal Investigator on a large National Institutes of Health grant to study long-term motor learning. He has served on numerous grant panels and journal editorial boards.

Title:
Cognitive Constraints on Action

Abstract:

I will address the ancient problem of why is it so difficult to rub your stomach while patting your head. While this task is somewhat difficult to control in the laboratory, variants have been well-studied in the motor control literature, designed to provide insight into our competence and limitations in the production of actions. The emphasis in this literature has been on constraints related to motor programming and execution. I will offer an alternative framework, arguing that many of the constraints arise at a more cognitive level, reflecting the manner in which the task goals are represented. This perspective allows us to see how qualitative changes can emerge, both in terms of behavior and associated neural systems, between tasks involving subtle differences in the movements themselves.