coggroup October 2016

coggroup@mx1.psych.mcgill.ca

3 participants
6 discussions

[Coggroup] McGill Cognitive Area Seminar, Nov 4 2016: Professor Bratislav Misic
by Anna Zamm 03 Nov '16

03 Nov '16

Dear all, *Professor Bratislav Misic *(Montreal Neurological Institute/McConnell Brain Imaging Centre) will be speaking in our Cognitive Area Seminar this *Friday, November 4th, 3:30 - 5 PM *(Room S3/4, Stewart Biology Building, 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue). *His talk is titled, **"* *Spreading dynamics on large-scale brain networks."* For a full abstract, see below the dashed line. Please join us at this event! --------------------------------------- *Spreading dynamics on large-scale brain networks* Professor Bratislav Misic, Montreal Neurological Institute, McConnell Brain Imaging Centre The human brain is a complex network of anatomically connected and functionally interacting neuronal populations. Collective communication among these distributed elements is thought to support patterned neural activity, as well as flexible cognitive operations and complex behavior. Recent innovations in noninvasive neuroimaging have resulted in increasingly detailed maps of human brain connectivity patterns, creating a need for theoretical principles that explain how these networks shape neural communication. Here we systematically investigate how neural signaling is constrained by anatomical connectivity in meso- and macro-scale neural circuits. Using a simple model of cascade spreading, we investigate a series of scenarios where focal perturbations result in global signaling cascades that interact either cooperatively or competitively. We find that topological features, such as community structure and core-periphery organization, shape spreading patterns. Moreover, anatomical embedding potentiates sensory-motor integration and the convergence of multiple cascades towards polysensory associative areas. Altogether, these results show that the organization of brain networks shapes the functional properties of brain areas and facilitates integrative function.

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[Coggroup] Reminder: Homecoming Hebb Lecture Tomorrow: Dr. Fred Genesee
by Kayleigh-Ann Clegg 27 Oct '16

27 Oct '16

Good evening all, Please join us tomorrow at 3:30pm in the McIntyre Medical Building, Rm. 522, where McGill's own Dr. Fred Genesee will be delivering the Homecoming Hebb Lecture. We look forward to seeing you all at Dr. Genesee's talk tomorrow and for the Wine & Cheese Reception following the lecture (8th floor, Stewart Biology Building). About: https://www.mcgill.ca/psychology/fred-h-genesee Title: Early experience and language development: Lessons from studies of internationally-adopted children Abstract: The language development of internationally-adopted children is of theoretical interest because they are unique language learners. Like typical L2 learners, they have delayed exposure to their adopted language. In contrast to typical L2 learners who continue to learn and use their birth language, IA children cease exposure to the birth language upon adoption. These early language experiences raise a number of important issues about the importance of early language experiences. Do these children really lose their birth language? Does early delay in exposure to the adopted language affect competence in the adopted language? Is the pattern of acquisition of the birth language like that of first language learners, second language learners, or a hybrid pattern. If their language development deviates from native speakers, how can we explain this? This presentation will review behavioral and neuro-imaging results from a longitudinal study of the language development of internationally-adopted children from China. These results provide unique insights into the linguistic and neuro-cognitive consequences of early language learning experiences and can inform our thinking about language learning in general. Apologies for any cross-posting! Kind regards, Kayleigh Student Chair Hebb Lecture Series Committee

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[Coggroup] Homecoming Hebb Lecture next Friday the 28th: Dr. Fred Genesee
by Kayleigh-Ann Clegg 21 Oct '16

21 Oct '16

Good afternoon all, Next Friday, October 28th McGill's own Dr. Fred Genesee will be delivering the Homecoming Hebb Lecture at 3:30pm in the McIntyre Medical Building, Rm. 522. Dr. Genesee is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology. He specializes in second-language acquisition and bilingualism; in particular, his research examines the early stages of the acquisition of two languages in order to better understand this form of language acquisition and ascertain the neurocognitive limits of a child's ability to acquire language. He has carried out extensive research on alternative approaches to bilingual education, including second/foreign language immersion programs for language majority students and alternative forms of bilingual education for language minority students. In addition to his excellence in research, Dr. Genesee has also served as a consultant to parent, educational, and policy groups on issues related to second language learning in school-age children, bilingual education, and dual language learning during the preschool years, in a number of countries around the world. We are fortunate and proud to have Dr. Genesee delivering the Homecoming Hebb Lecture next Friday. We look forward to seeing you all at his talk and for the Wine & Cheese Reception following the lecture (8th floor, Stewart Biology Building). About: https://www.mcgill.ca/psychology/fred-h-genesee <https://psychology.stanford.edu/igotlib> Title: Early experience and language development: Lessons from studies of internationally-adopted children Abstract: The language development of internationally-adopted children is of theoretical interest because they are unique language learners. Like typical L2 learners, they have delayed exposure to their adopted language. In contrast to typical L2 learners who continue to learn and use their birth language, IA children cease exposure to the birth language upon adoption. These early language experiences raise a number of important issues about the importance of early language experiences. Do these children really lose their birth language? Does early delay in exposure to the adopted language affect competence in the adopted language? Is the pattern of acquisition of the birth language like that of first language learners, second language learners, or a hybrid pattern. If their language development deviates from native speakers, how can we explain this? This presentation will review behavioral and neuro-imaging results from a longitudinal study of the language development of internationally-adopted children from China. These results provide unique insights into the linguistic and neuro-cognitive consequences of early language learning experiences and can inform our thinking about language learning in general. Please feel free to circulate this announcement widely, and apologies for any cross-posting! Kind regards, Kayleigh Student Chair Hebb Lecture Series Committee

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[Coggroup] McGill Cognitive Area Seminar, Oct 21 2016: Professor Ross Otto
by Anna Zamm 20 Oct '16

20 Oct '16

Dear all, New Psychology faculty member *Professor Ross Otto *will be speaking in our Cognitive Area Seminar this *Friday, October 21st, 3:30 - 5 PM *(Room S3/4, Stewart Biology Building, 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue). *The talk is titled, "Feeling Lucky: Unexpected but Incidental Positive Outcomes Predict Real World Gambling." * For a full abstract, see below the dashed line. Please join us at this event! --------------------------------------- *Feeling Lucky: Unexpected but Incidental Positive Outcomes Predict Real World Gambling* Ross Otto, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, McGill University Positive mood can affect a person’s tendency to gamble, possibly because positive mood fosters unrealistic optimism. At the same time, unexpected positive outcomes, often called prediction errors, influence mood. However, a linkage between positive prediction errors —the difference between expected and obtained outcomes—and consequent risk taking has yet to be demonstrated. Using a large data set of New York City lottery gambling and a model inspired by computational accounts of reward learning, we found that people gamble more when incidental outcomes in the environment (e.g., local sporting events and sunshine) are better than expected. When local sports teams performed better than expected, or a sunny day followed a streak of cloudy days, residents gambled more. The observed relationship between prediction errors and gambling was ubiquitous across the city’s socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods and was specific to sports and weather events occurring locally in New York City. Our results suggest that unexpected but incidental positive outcomes influence risk taking. Ongoing and future research in this line of work will also be discussed.

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[Coggroup] McGill Cognitive Area Seminar, Oct 14 = Social Attention: The complexities of a simple mechanism
by Anna Zamm 11 Oct '16

11 Oct '16

Dear all, Our next Cognitive Area Seminar talk will be this *Friday, October 14, 3:30 - 5 PM *(Room S3/4, Stewart Biology Building, 1205 Docteur Penfield Avenue). The talk will be given by Dr. Francesca Capozzi (post-doc, Ristic Lab), and is titled: *"Social Attention: The complexities of a simple mechanism" * For a full abstract, see below the dashed line. Please join us at this event! ----------------------- SOCIAL ATTENTION: THE COMPLEXITIES OF A SIMPLE MECHANISM Francesca Capozzi & Jelena Ristic, Department of Psychology, McGill University Social attention refers to changes in attention that occur as a result of information conveyed by other *agents*, and as such it is a fundamental building block of non-verbal communication. Social attention includes social orienting of attention in response to directional as well communicative signals conveyed by other people, such as following the gaze of another agent to look where they are looking. Currently, the field of social attention is facing the dissatisfaction due to the lack of a theoretical framework that can account for the complexity of social attention mechanisms that allow humans to interact in complex social scenarios. Building on the most recent behavioral and brain findings, we outline a perspective about how social attention depends on and influences three different levels of interdependent processes – Perception, Mentalizing, and Evaluation. In the *perception* route, the stimulus (i.e., a gazing face) and its properties (i.e., a directional gaze shift) are perceived and connected with spatial attention systems. The full social appraisal of the stimulus occurs in the *mentalizing* route, in which the perceiver attributes mental states to other agents, forming both generic mental states (e.g., the face attended is actually able to see something) and more specific mental states, such as emotions. Finally, the attribution of mental states flows through the *evaluation* route, in which the perceiver evaluates the relative importance of the social information, based on their current goals, the environment, and the number of other agents. In this novel perspective, social attention is seen as a complex mechanism which depends both on individual and contextual factors.

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[Coggroup] CogSci Speaker Series: 'Reading the Mind in the Blink of an Eye' (fwd)
by Kris Onishi 07 Oct '16

07 Oct '16

Next week SACS (Student Association of Cognitive Science) will be hosting the first event in their Speaker Series this year, with a talk by Ian Gold: 'Reading the Mind in the Blink of an Eye' Ian Gold Thursday 13 October 4:15 PM SSMU Building Madeleine Parent Room 202 [McGill, 3600 Rue McTavish] Here's a brief description from Ian: "The ability to infer the beliefs, emotions, or other mental states of others, is known as the Theory of Mind (ToM) capacity. Although there is controversy about the cognitive processes that make ToM is possible, most theories seem to presuppose that it is a rather demanding process. In contrast, the everyday use of ToM has to happen ?on the fly??automatically and rapidly?for social interaction to proceed unimpeded. In this talk, I will explore the idea that there are two forms of ToM?one that is cognitively demanding and one that is effortless?and discuss one aspect of the latter." More info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/557854761076599/ It'll be interesting, plan to be there!

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coggroup October 2016