***Apologies for multiple postings***
(1) 1st Cognitive Area Seminar: January 16th, Stevan Harnad
(2) Information about Cognitive Area Seminar + Journal Blitz this semester
(1) The first Cognitive Area Seminar this semester will take place on January 16th, 2015 15h30-17h00 in W7/21, Stewart Biology Building:
Learned Whorfian Effects and Dimensional Reduction
Stevan Harnad (presenting the ongoing work of Xi-Wei Kang [U Southampton], Phlippe Vincent-Lamarre [UQAM, U Ottawa], Fernanda Perez Gay [UQAM, McGill] and Daniel Rivas [McGill)]
According to the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis, language influences how we perceive the world. All the well-known evidence for this (e.g., color terms, Inuit snow terms, Hopi perception of the future, Chinese perception of counterfactuals) has turned out to be false. I will present some new evidence that perceived similarity is changed by learning to sort stimuli (digital drawings of fish) into named categories ("Limfish" and "Ailfish"). Within-category similarity increases and between-category similarity decreases after successful category learning (an effect called "categorical perception" CP). This Whorfian effect is stronger the harder it is to learn the category, because fewer features co-vary with category membership, making it harder to find which features to selectively attend to and which features to ignore. Our hypothesis is that the CP effect arises from this dimensional reduction. In closing I will make some links with the symbol grounding problem of how words get their meanings.
(2) This semester, the talks will be held on Fridays 15:30-17:00 in Stewart Biology W7/21, on days when there is not a Psychology or Linguistic colloquium.
The speakers will be listed here: http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/misc/bbcseminar/
Please mark your calendars for the following days: January 16th Cognitive Area Seminar January 30th (Journal Blitz only, after Psych Department Hebb lecture) February 13th Cognitive Area Seminar February 27th Cognitive Area Seminar (followed by Journal Blitz, see below) March 27th Cognitive Area Seminar (followed by Journal Blitz, see below)
About the Journal Blitz: The Journal Blitz is an informal chance to get to know people outside your research group/department. It starts around 17:00 (after the talk) in Thompson House. We meet in to talk about articles (on any topic) we have read, presenting what we liked about them in 3-5 minutes while eating nachos and enjoying a drink.
Both the seminar and the blitz are open to students, faculty, post-docs, and whoever else who is interested.
Please forward this message to your students and other interested parties.
Esther
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