Past Colloquia
Schedule for Fall 2017
September 8, 2017
Opening Session - Tamara Sumner
Director, Institute of Cognitive Science
September 15, 2017 - Distinguished Speaker Talk
Ray Jackendoff
Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy, Co-director - Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University
Title: What Can You Say Without Syntax? A Hierarchy of Grammatical Complexity
Abstract: What would a language be like which lacked syntactic structure, and which mapped directly between phonology and meaning? To explore this question, we propose a hierarchy of grammatical complexity for natural languages. Unlike the familiar Chomsky hierarchy, which deals only with uninterpreted formal languages, this hierarchy concerns the machinery available to map between sound and meaning. It ranges from languages that allow only one-word utterances to fully complex languages such as English, and includes a number of possibilities that lack recursion.
Corresponding to each of these types of grammar, we propose a set of possible interface rules that correlate linguistic structure with meaning. In particular, the interface rules allow for pragmatic elaborations of meaning beyond that provided by the individual words. As the linguistic structure becomes more complex, it offers more affordances for complex principles of interpretation. In many cases, interface rules can do the sort of work normally attributed to syntax. For instance, a rule such as “Agent First” correlates a thematic role in semantics with a linear position in linguistic expression. It can implement constraints on word order even with a grammar that lacks grammatical categories and that simply concatenates words. Crucially, it turns out that the interface rules useful for less complex languages scale up to fully complex languages as well.
This hierarchy proves useful in differentiating various linguistic and quasi-linguistic phenomena for which linguists have previously had only the binary distinction “grammar” versus “no grammar.” Examples include the early stages of language acquisition by children and adults, homesigns, emerging sign languages such as Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language and Central Taurus Sign Language, and the “perceptual strategies” found in language comprehension by normal speakers. Many peripheral constructions of English and other fully developed languages utilize only the power of lower steps in the hierarchy. Finally, some “full” languages such as Riau Indonesion and Pirahã appear only to use principles from lower domains of the hierarchy.
We conclude that the human language faculty is a palimpsest that includes many of these layers. The upper layers are more difficult to acquire and process, and possibly require the lower layers for scaffolding. It is plausible that some of of these layers represent stages in the evolution of the modern human language capacity.
September 29, 2017
Kyunghyun Cho
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Center for Data Science, New York University
October 6, 2017
Agnieszka Burzynska
Assistant Professor, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Colorado State University
Title: Modifiers of Structural and Functional Brain Aging - From Physical Activity to Occupational Exposures
Abstract: As the world’s population is aging, there is a pressing need to understand how lifestyle exposures shape the adult brain, slowing down or accelerating age-related decline. I will present our reserach on the associations of physical activity, aerobic fitness, and occupational exposures with structural and functional MRI indices of brain health, as well as results from the exercise and dance intervention study in older adults.
October 13, 2017
Michael Mozer
Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Amplifying Human Capabilities on Visual Categorization Tasks
Abstract:
We are developing methods to improve human learning and performance on challenging visual categorization tasks, e.g., bird species identification, diagnostic dermatology. Our approach involves inferring _psychological embeddings_ -- internal representations that individuals use to reason about a domain. Using predictive cognitive models that operate on an embedding, we perform surrogate-based optimization to determine efficient and effective mean of training domain novices as well as amplifying an individual's capabilities at any stage of training. Our cognitive models leverage psychological theories of: similarity judgement and generalization, contextual and sequential effects in choice, attention shifts among embedding dimensions. Rather than searching over all possible training policies, we focus our search on policy spaces motivated by the training literature, including manipulation of exemplar difficulty and the sequencing of category labels. We show that our models predict human behavior not only in the aggregate but at the level of individual learners and individual exemplars, and preliminary experiments show the benefits of surrogate-based optimization on learning and performance.
This work was performed in collaboration with Brett Roads at the University of Colorado.
October 20, 2017
Phillip Gilley
Research Associate, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: A Dynamical Systems Model of the Nervous System
Abstract:
Many key issues in neuroscience are limited by our understanding of how different parts of the nervous system interact during different states of activity, and how these interactions give rise to emergent physiological and behavioral states. Several buzzwords such as "probability machine", "oscillatory coupling", and "quantum computing" are often associated with popular models of these interactions, but there is still considerable debate about what these processes imply about brain and behavior. In this talk, I will describe a model of the nervous system that attempts to shed light on these emergent interactions and their underlying mechanisms. This model describes similarities in the anatomical and functional organization of six general classes of nervous system activity: transduction, FATS encoding, integration, cognition, executive function, and modulation; and how dynamical interactions between these different components can give rise to observable phenomena such as local field potentials, EEG/MEG, neural oscillations, and hemodynamic responses. I will discuss how these emergent phenomena may inform our understanding of the probabilistic, oscillatory, and quantum models of the brain, and will demonstrate and discuss the possible experimental and clinical applications of this and other systems models…all in less than an hour!
November 3, 2017
Robert Rupert
Professor, Philosophy, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Cognition without Persons?
Abstract:
What is cognitive science out to explain? What are its ultimate explananda? In this talk, I contrast two possibilities, arguing against the first and exploring the implications of the second. The first view, which predominates in philosophy of mind, takes the ultimate explananda of cognitive science to be personal-level capacities or properties, where the personal-level is a layer of reality populated by the states and entities we encounter in first-person reflection or delivered by common sense; here we find conscious persons with beliefs, desires, hopes, and fears. According to this view, we know – by commonsense, introspection, or pure conceptual analysis – truths about persons, and the goal of cognitive science is to explain the mechanistic grounding for these truths, the nitty-gritty processes that implement or enable personal-level abilities and experiences. On the second view, cognitive science’s goal is to explain data, in particular, data thought to be produced by thought or cognition. According to this approach, intuitions generated by reflection or given by common sense often inspire experimental designs and even entire research programs. Ultimately, however, the modeling of the data thereby collected need not vindicate the claims about persons and their abilities made by fans of the personal level – not even the claims that inspired the relevant experimental designs in the first place! I’ll work through a pair of examples trying to show how to capture what’s correct in our intuitions about the personal level, while doing without it. I conclude that, if, by definition, persons exist only at the personal level, cognitive science can do without persons as well.
November 10, 2017
Clayton Lewis
Professor, Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Toward Amodal Representations for Interactive Simulations
Abstract:
Today pedagogical simulations are developed as presentations of things and their interactions in visual form: learners carry out visually guided actions, and observe their effects visually. For learners who cannot see, designers are exploring auditory representations, using speech and/or nonlinguistic sounds. Would it be possible instead to create amodal representations of content, using neither visual nor auditory presentations, and create visual, auditory, and other presentations as needed from a more abstract form? This talk will propose that the mechanism idea, developed by Darden and colleagues [Philosophy of science, 67(1), 1-25] to describe the development of scientific knowledge, provides an approach to this goal. Simulations from the PhET project <https://phet.colorado.edu/> will be used as examples to explore the approach.
December 1, 2017
Philip Fernbach
Assistant Professor, LEEDS School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: The Knowledge Illusion
Abstract:
Humans have built hugely complex societies and technologies, but most of us don’t even know how a pen or a toilet works. How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? The answer is that we survive and thrive despite our mental shortcomings because we live in a rich community of knowledge. The key to our intelligence lies in the people and things around us. We’re constantly drawing on information and expertise stored outside our heads: in our bodies, our environment, our possessions, and the community with which we interact—and usually we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and sequenced our genome. And yet each of us is error prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant. The fundamentally communal nature of intelligence and knowledge explains why we often assume we know more than we really do, why political opinions and false beliefs are so hard to change, and why individually oriented approaches to education and management frequently fail. But our collaborative minds also enable us to do amazing things; true genius can be found in the ways we create intelligence using the world around us.
The talk will highlight research aimed at improving public discourse around divisive issues, in light of individual ignorance and distributed knowledge.
December 8, 2017
Kimberly Chiew
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Denver
Title: Motivation-cognition interactions: evidence from inside and outside the laboratory
Abstract:
Motivational influences can critically shape task performance and memory formation. Often, motivation-related changes in performance can be understood as occurring in the service of adaptive human behavior. However, the factors that modulate the effects of motivation on performance outcomes are still being understood. In the present talk, I present recent research that examines how factors including timing, information use, and motivational valence can influence cognitive performance using traditional laboratory paradigms as well as within a novel real-life exploration paradigm. I will further discuss methodological issues in investigating motivated cognition in laboratory vs. naturalistic contexts, and the importance of considering individual differences when characterizing behavioral variability within complex, real-life environments.
Schedule for Spring 2017
January 27, 2017
Aaron Clauset
Assistant Professor, Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: The Ground Truth About Metadata and Community Detection in Networks
Abstract: Community detection is one of the most common tasks in network analysis, in which we seek to decompose a network into its underlying structural modules or groups by examining only the pattern of connections in the network. The quality of community detection methods are typically evaluated by how closely the communities they find correlate with node "metadata", which are empirically observed labels on nodes, e.g., a person's ethnicity in a social network or the brain region in a connectome.
In this talk, I will present two results on community detection and node metadata. First, I'll show that it is theoretically impossible, via a No Free Lunch theorem, for one community detection algorithm to be universally better than any other. This result further implies that no community detection method can always recover the "ground truth" communities in a network. However, by using node metadata to guide the community detection process, rather than as an evaluation target, better community detection results can often be obtained. To illustrate this point, I'll introduce a Bayesian model that can learn the correlation between node metadata and network communities, if any exists. The learned correlations are interesting in their own right, and allow us to make predictions about the community membership of nodes whose network connections are unknown. After sketching the method, I'll demonstrate it on synthetic networks with known structure, where the method performs better than any algorithm can without metadata, and on real-world networks, large and small, drawn from social, biological, and technological domains. This is joint work with Leto Peel, Daniel B. Larremore, and Mark Newman.
February 3, 2017
Christopher A. Lowry
Associate Professor, Integrative Physiology, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: An Immunization Strategy for Prevention of Stress-Related Psychiatric Disorders
Abstract: Novel prevention and treatment strategies are urgently needed to reduce the burden of stress-related psychiatric disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). Both preclinical and clinical studies suggest that inflammation increases vulnerability to development of anxiety and affective disorders. Consequently, immunoregulatory strategies to decrease inflammation have potential for the prevention and treatment of these disorders. Using a murine model of chronic psychosocial stress, the chronic subordinate colony housing (CSC) model, we found immunization with a heat-killed preparation of Mycobacterium vaccae, a bioimmunomodulatory agent previously shown to activate regulatory T cells (Treg) and to increase production of anti-inflammatory cytokines, prevented development of a PTSD-like syndrome. Immunization with M. vaccae antigen induced a more proactive emotional coping style during exposure to a dominant aggressor, and, in association with suppression of proinflammatory cytokine secretion, prevented stress-induced development of spontaneous colitis and aggravation of colitis in a model of inflammatory bowel disease. Analysis suggests that the protective effects of M. vaccae immunization are due to protection from a stress-induced proinflammatory gut microbial community. Consistent with this hypothesis, protective effects of immunization were absent following Treg depletion. These data provide a hypothetical framework for development of novel strategies for prevention of stress-related psychiatric disorders in vulnerable individuals. Clinical studies investigating the microbiome and potential health benefits of treatment with immunoregulatory probiotics in Veterans with PTSD are ongoing.
February 10, 2017
Philip Weiser
Hatfield Professor of Law, Executive Director of the Silicon Flatirons Center, Faculty Director, Campus Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative, and Dean Emeritus (School of Law); University of Colorado Boulder
Topic: Why Every Academic Needs to Be An Innovator and Entrepreneur
Abstract: The changing dynamics affecting higher education call on all faculty, staff, and students to develop innovative and entrepreneurial mindsets because the world around us is changing faster than ever before. This vision is both compatible with and supportive of the traditional commitment to liberal arts education. It requires, however, that those involved in higher education recognize the changing financial pressures, the evolving employment marketplace, and the competencies that are valued in the 21st century economy and society.
For higher education to adjust and thrive in the twenty first century, it must adopt an innovation mindset in order to ensure that students will benefit from their investment in undergraduate or graduate experiences. Using the challenges faced by law schools as a case study (applications to law school declined by 40% in the wake of the Great Recession), Professor Weiser will explain how an innovation mindset can help the University of Colorado Boulder thrive as the higher education environment continues to evolve.
February 24, 2017
Keith Lohse
Assistant Professor, School of Kinesiology, Rehabilitation Informatics Lab, Auburn University
Title: Streamlining Clinical Science with Structured Data Archives: Data-Driven Insights from the Stroke Rehabilitation Literature.
Abstract: Significant recent advances in bibliometrics have focused on how to utilize text mining approaches to organize a scientific discipline based on author networks, keywords and/or references cited. While these approaches can provide very useful insights, they fail to capture important experimental data that are embedded within many scientific disciplines. A major objective of my work is to examine how experimental data can be used to organize the literature within a discipline and identify its key gaps. This approach is especially important to disciplines that rely heavily on randomized control trials (RCTs), as many of these studies have similar information architecture with common data elements (CDEs) acquired at similar times. Using stroke rehabilitation as an informative example, I will present a massively systematic review of the literature: the Centralized Open-Access Rehabilitation database for Stroke (SCOAR). Using SCOAR as an example, I will show how primary research can be supplemented by meta-scientific research, informatics, and interactive data-visualization. These tools highlight sources of systematic variability in the outcomes of medical interventions and, in turn, provide insights to practitioners and identify opportunities for future research. I hope to make this talk exciting for a broad audience as the meta-scientific approach is fruitful for anyone pursuing experimental work, and medical informatics draws on numerous ICS disciplines from information science (for ontology), to neuroscience (for the subject matter), to computer science (for our interactive visualizations).
March 10, 2017
Brett Fling
Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Neurosciences Program, Colorado State University; Director, Sensorimotor Neuroimaging Laboratory
Title: Gait and Balance - Neural Mechanisms and Markers of Neuroplasticity
Abstract: Although diagnostic assessment via clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been in use for decades, only recently have advanced MR techniques been utilized in the research setting to investigate neural mechanisms underlying gait and balance control, to identify biomarkers for disease progression, and to assess therapeutic intervention efficacy. Functional MRI (fMRI) has been used extensively in a variety of stimulus-response paradigms to identify regions of task-specific neural activity. More recently, functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI) has revealed that the brain is very active even in the absence of explicit input or output. That is to say, spontaneous fluctuations in neural activity is not random noise, but is specifically organized in the resting human brain and serves as a potentially important and revealing manifestation of spontaneous neuronal activity providing insight into the intrinsic functional architecture and topography of the brain and potential physiological correlates of disease and mobility impairment. Finally, emerging literature is making use of diffusion weighted imaging within the MR environment to identify associations between white matter microstructural integrity and locomotor control. Combining functional MR approaches with diffusion imaging allows for a comprehensive assessment of neural structure and function.
While exciting advances have been made; the study of gait and balance with MR-based methods is clearly hampered by the inability to actually stand and/or move within the MRI environment, which would allow recording brain activity evoked by actual locomotion. To address this limitation, several MR-compatible approaches have been developed to provide indirect evidence of supraspinal involvement in locomotion. These approaches have identified brain activity patterns during imagined actions such as standing, walking, and running, as well as neural activity while actually performing voluntary or passive lower limb movements inside the scanner. The latter studies have incorporated diverse levels of complexity, from the evaluation of isolated, unilateral, and repetitive ankle and knee movements to more complex tasks that require coordinated movements of multiple joints reflective of stepping or pedaling actions.
This talk will provide insight into the structural and functional brain circuitry that underlie locomotor control identified via MR-based methodologies. In addition, I will discuss recent work detailing structural and functional neural mechanisms that are, at least in part, responsible for impairments in locomotor control that accompany healthy aging and select neurologic populations including multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
April 7, 2017
Anna Spain Bradley
Associate Professor of Law; Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Diversity; University of Colorado Law School
Title: The Impact of One - How Individual Choice Shapes International Law
Abstract: International law is the product of decisions taken by nations that consent to a treaty or conform to an international norm. But international law is also a product of the choices certain individuals, empowered by their governments, make. It is formed when diplomats negotiate treaties on behalf of sovereign states. It is interpreted when international judges reach a groundbreaking judicial opinion. It is expanded when those who sit on the Security Council agree to authorize military intervention to prevent genocide. In this way, international law is more than institutional decisions. It is also the result of individual choices made by one, or a handful of people, on behalf of many. These few individuals, be they selected or elected, exercise commanding yet often concealed control over the course of international law. The Impact of One: How Individual Choice Shapes International Law is an exploration of individual choice in international law.
The book charts important decision moments about challenging situations made by international institutions within the United Nations. It analyzes the role that particular individuals, serving as judges at the International Court of Justice or representatives at the U.N. Security Council, play in shaping decision outcomes that influence and are influenced by international law. The book applies insights from neuroscience to assert the importance of analyzing decision-making from a cognitive perspective about how factors like emotion and empathy can influence how people make choices. It integrates this investigation into the neurobiology of human choice with existing discourses about international law and state behavior. Drawing upon historical accounts and personal interviews, The Impact of One reveals the struggle, calculation and unconscious influences that factor into decision-making at the highest level. This analysis aims to reveal the connection between institutional decisions taken under the imprimatur of law and the people privileged to make them. For example, we readily accept that international judges are qualified to apply the law to the facts of a case but rarely question how their emotions about that case might affect their cognitive functions implicated in deciding. We understand that law, in the form of Article 42 of the U.N. Charter, permits the Security Council to authorize forceful intervention into a nation in conflict but fail to appreciate how a representative’s own history and bias might influence her vote. By clarifying the distinction between institutional choice and individual choice, The Impact of One humanizes international legal decision-making, illustrating how law is shaped by the people empowered to make it. In turn, individual choice is influenced by an array of factors from emotion to empathy that influence cognitive functions like reasoning and memory. In understanding international law through this lens of individual choice, The Impact of One calls for deeper analysis and critique of how institutions settle on who gets to decide matters of global impact and importance. Ultimately, The Impact of One aims to deepen readers’ understanding about the realities of human choice, its flaws, its potential and its instrumental role in influencing international law. The conclusion is both disruptive and meaningful - who decides matters - especially at the centers of international power and authority.
April 21, 2017
Al Kim
Associate Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: The Neurocognitive Mechanisms of On-Line Language Comprehension: the Interplay of Prediction and Integration.
Abstract: Language comprehension is a race against time, requiring comprehenders to process a rapidly arriving sequence of words (one every ~250 msec) and to perceive each word and combine it with a larger message-level representation without falling behind the input. Classic views of language comprehension envision a compositional process, in which the brain responds to each new word in the linguistic input by building a hierarchically organized representation from the bottom to the top, beginning with perceptual features and cascading up to word representations, syntactic analysis, and semantic interpretation. This view places enormous time pressure on the system to complete the bottom-to-top cascade within a short period. An increasingly influential idea about how we solve the time problem posits that we predict aspects of the future linguistic input using context, allowing faster responses when the input arrives. But the predictive solution can’t explain everything, because language is fundamentally creative, and this will cause predictions to be futile or wrong in some situations. Thus, language comprehension must be a mixture of predictive and integrative processes. I will describe event-related brain potential (ERP) studies in my lab that investigate the interplay of predictive and integrative processes during on-line sentence comprehension. We find that semantic and discourse-level processing can dominate sentence understanding in a predictive manner and also systematic limitations in the impact of predictions, which can vary as a function of the linguistic situation and individual cognitive abilities of language comprehenders.
April 25, 2017 *at 3:00 PM, Tuesday*
Andy Clark
Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, University of Edinburgh
Title: Only Predict? On the Nature, Scope and Falsifiability of Predictive Processing
Abstract: Recent work in computational and cognitive neuroscience depicts the brain as an ever-active prediction machine. In this talk, I first show how these stories encompass a wide variety of routes to adaptive response. These include rich, knowledge-driven processing, but also more ‘fast and frugal’ action-involving solutions of the kind highlighted by work in robotics and embodied cognition. The ‘predictive processing’ framework thus shows great promise as a means of both understanding and integrating many of the core information processing strategies underlying perception, thought, and action. But this leaves many questions unanswered. Can a story that posits prediction error minimization as cognitive bedrock accommodate the undoubted attractions of novelty and exploration? Is it falsifiable? What is the true scope of this story – can it really be a theory of ‘everything cognitive’?
May 5, 2017
ICS Poster Session and Mexican Fiesta
Last Day of Classes
Schedule for Fall 2016
September 2, 2016 ~ Opening Session
ICS Director, Dr. T. Sumner, Opening Speech
• Christine Brennan (SLSH/ICS), and Jennifer Jacobs (Math Education/ICS): Neural bases of language scaffolding for math abilities
• McKell Carter (Psych/ICS) and Zach Kilpatrick (Applied Math): How risky is my rival? Probabilistic inference models of decision making under social uncertainty
• Al Kim (Psych/ICS) and Mans Hulden (Ling/ICS): Harnessing computational language models to understand the neurophysiology of real-time human language processing
September 8, 2016 (Thursday), 5-6 PM
Hosted at: Colorado State University, Lory Student Center Theatre
Elizabeth Loftus
Distinguished Professor at University of California-Irvine, School of Social Ecology
FLYER
September 9, 2016
Jessica Witt
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Colorado State University
Title: Spatial Perception Is Action-Specific: Softballs Look Bigger to Batters Who Are Hitting Better Than Others
Abstract: Perception of the surrounding environment is shaped by a person’s body and ability to act within the environment. For example, hills appear steeper and distances appear farther to people who are obese, lack physical fitness, or are fatigued. Sports targets appear bigger and slower to athletes who are playing better than others. Even though the optical information processed by the eye is exactly the same, target objects look different across perceivers and across situations as a function of the perceiver’s ability to act. This research calls for changes to current theories of spatial perception to incorporate the body and its actions as an influential source of information.
September 16, 2016 - Distinguished Speaker Talk
Lucy Vanderwende
Senior Researcher, Microsoft
Title: Question Generation, More Than a Syntactic Transformation
Abstract: In this talk, I will focus on the role that questions play in human communication. Most of the data used in NLP has been WSJ and other expository text, with questions underrepresented in our data, to the extent that there are excellent parsers in existence that simply fail to parse the simplest question. The role of questions in automated tutoring systems has been explored, but only as needed for a specific domain. As we move to building NLP systems that understand and take part in general conversation, however, it is a good time to get curious about how questions are formulated and what they reveal about the underlying grounding of the conversation. I will review three related studies of question generation: determining the question focus given a sentence, question formulation with scope beyond the sentence, and question generation for images. For each of these topics, we demonstrate that question generation is not a matter of syntactic transformation, but rather presents a challenge to identify what the focus of the question should be, distinguishing what is in a question from what is understood or observed. We hope to use our study of questions to learn more about what people choose to be curious about, using only a small set of question words to explore the wide range of our experience.
September 30, 2016
INC 5 Year Anniversary Talk **NOTE LOCATION CHANGE: Center for Innovation & Creativity (1777 Exposition Dr. Bldr)
Join INC scientists as we celebrate our 5th anniversary and upgraded facilities. Dr. Marie Banich, Professor of Psychology and Executive Director of INC, will give an overview of brain imaging research at the INC. Drs. Angela Bryan, Tor Wager and McKell Carter will discuss and take questions regarding their research on aging and exercise, pain, and autism and social decision making. In addition, we will have ongoing tours of the INC facilities. Please RSVP by filling out the brief registration form: http://bit.ly/2brzGxH
October 14, 2016 - Distiguished Speaker Talk
Bill Croft
Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of New Mexico
Title: Linguistic Typology Meets Universal Dependencies - From Teaching Syntax to Annotating Digital Corpora
Abstract: Current work on universal dependency schemes in NLP do not make reference to the extensive typological research on language universals, but could benefit since many principles are shared between the two enterprises. I propose a revision of the dependency types in the Universal Dependencies scheme (UD 2014; Nivre 2015) based on the UD principles of lexicalism and content word to content word dependencies, and four principles derived from contemporary typological theory: dependencies should be based primarily on universal construction types over language-specific strategies; syntactic dependency labels should match lexical feature names for the same function; dependencies should be based on the information packaging function of constructions, not lexical semantic types; and dependencies should distinguish the “levels” of the functional dependency tree. The proposed revisions are based on a typological annotation scheme developed, and continuing to be developed, for teaching syntax to undergraduates at the University of New Mexico.
October 28, 2016
Steve Maier
Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder; Director of the Center for Neuroscience
Title: Dissecting Prefrontal Circuits That Mediate Resilience
Abstract: The ability to exert behavioral control over an adverse event both blunts the behavioral and neurochemical impact of that event, and also blunts responses to future adverse events even if they are quite different. This talk will review research (in rodents) that indicates that the resilience-inducing impact of control is mediated by three separable and distinct prefrontal circuits—a prefrontal-striatal circuit that detects control and prefrontal-brainstem (DRN) and prefrontal limbic (amygdala) circuits that uses this detection information to blunt the impact of the adverse event on stressor-sensitive brainstem and limbic structures. These prefrontal circuits utilize different and non-overlapping prefrontal cells, and control induces plasticity selectively in the prefrontal-brainstem and prefrontal limbic circuit, thereby conferring protection in the future (resilience). Other issues to be discussed include whether all sequelae of aversive events are blunted or whether there is selectivity/specificity and whether all resilience-inducing experiential variables utilize this same prefrontal circuitry.
November 4, 2016
Daniel Szafir
Assistant Professor, ATLAS Institute/Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Leveraging Cognitive Engineering for Human-Robot Interaction
Abstract: Robots hold great promise in aiding humans across a range of domains, including emergency response, manufacturing and delivery, construction, space exploration, and health and fitness. While prior research has conducted in-depth investigations into various aspects related to robotic manipulation, planning, and control theory, the field of human-robot interaction (HRI), which examines issues pertaining to collaboration, safety, and real-world use, is still quite young. This talk will advance an argument that prior work in cognitive engineering and human-computer interaction (HCI) can be an invaluable source of inspiration for researchers and practitioners seeking to develop robots that can successfully interact with users. In particular, I will present three studies within the context of the Human Action Cycle, which appears to be a promising model that can help contextualize user interactions with robots and identify when and what type of breakdowns may occur. This work will be situated within the space of aerial robots, ranging from consumer-grade quadcopters to NASA robots developed for the International Space Station, with a discussion of how cognitive engineering might inform robotics more broadly.
November 11, 2016
Rafael Frongillo
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Grading the Graders - Mechanisms for Peer Grading in Large Courses
Abstract: How should you grade the graders, review the reviewers, or score the scorers? This is a question on the minds of many instructors coping with ever-increasing enrollments both in person and online. One could try to automate the grading, as is done in many programming classes, but what about essays or even mathematical proofs, which are nuanced or inherently subjective? The solution explored in this talk is peer grading: have the students grade each other. The question then becomes, how do you grade these students on their own grading, so that they will have an incentive to give detailed and accurate feedback, but not to game the system or collude with friends?
We will see how to design peer grading mechanisms using a technique called peer prediction, where one reasons about how one grader's opinion "predicts" that of another grader. I will give an overview of peer prediction mechanisms, how they apply to peer grading, and then show a few numerical experiments that suggest which mechanisms are most likely to work well in real classrooms. We will also see how peer prediction applies to other crowdsourcing settings, such as labeling large data sets on Mechanical Turk for machine learning applications.
Schedule for Spring 2016
January 15, 2016 ~ Opening Session
Marie T. Banich
Director, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Drug Abuse and the Brain
Abstract: In this talk, I will discuss prior work that I have performed with colleagues at CU Denver on alterations in brain systems found in youth and adults who abuse substances. Following that I will discuss a new national project, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) project, which is designed to examine the development of brain systems related to substance abuse, including those responsible for cognitive control and reward processing. This project will also involve collecting a host of other data on cognitive, emotional, and social development. The project will be longitudinal in nature, spanning a 10-year time period, with data collected on over 10,000 individuals at close to 20 sites across the country. CU Boulder has been selected as one of the institutions to be involved in this landmark study, and will be doing so through a joint collaboration between the Institute of Cognitive Science and Institute for Behavioral Genetics. In particular, we, along with three other institutions, will be collecting data on twin pairs to disentangle genetic versus environmental contributions to drug abuse. The on-going design and implications of this study will be discussed.
January 22, 2016
Christine Brennan
Assistant Professor, Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Phonological grain size sensitivity in auditory cortex is related to reading skill
Abstract: Previous evidence reveals regions within the auditory cortex selectively activate based on phonological grain size (number of speech sounds presented) (DeWitt and Rauschecker, 2012). Here, we employed direct testing of phonological grain size in order to confirm and further delineate this organization. While reading impairment is associated with deficits in phonological skill, including difficulty isolating phonemes (Shaywitz et al., 1998; Temple et al., 2001), it is unknown if selective activation for grain size is related to reading skill. Since isolation of small grain units is problematic in dyslexia, reading skill may be related to selectivity of the auditory cortex, especially for small grain stimuli. In this study, we examined the relationship between grain size selectivity and reading skill. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we studied 20 typical adults under different grain size conditions. Stimuli included speech with one, two, or four phonemes. Stimuli were presented in blocks of seven trials from the same condition. During scanning, an active listening task was completed to ensure participants were awake and attending to stimuli. A timed measure of reading skill (TOWRE) was completed outside the scanner (Torgesen et al., 1999). Using SPM8, we contrasted the phonological grain size conditions. We also completed ROI analyses to examined brain-behavior correlations between activation strength and reading skill. Specifically, we compared the difference in activation for the small versus the large conditions with reading skill. We found significantly greater activation in bilateral middle superior temporal gyrus (m-STG) for 1-2 speech sounds (small grain size) and greater activation in the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), right anterior STG, and right posterior STG for 4 speech sounds (large grain size). Brain-behavior analyses revealed significant correlation of reading skill with activation for the small compared to large grain size condition (p < .01). Adults who had higher reading skill activated the mid-STG more than lower skill readers. In addition, adults with higher skill engaged the left MTG less than lower skill readers for the large compared to small grain size condition, although this trend was not statistically significant. These results further delineate the organization of the temporal cortex, revealing not only selective activation related to phonological grain size, but also that selectivity is related to reading skill. Higher reading skill was associated with stronger engagement of the m-STG, suggesting that sensitivity to single phonemes may be linked to better reading. Importantly, these results provide a link between phonological grain size sensitivity in the brain and reading skill, consistent with behavioral studies that have shown strong correlations between phoneme awareness and reading ability. The findings have implications for developmental dyslexia, a condition often associated with deficits in phonology. Future studies should investigate phonological organization in children with and without dyslexia to determine if differences in grain size representation underlie the disability.
January 29, 2016
Thomas Hills
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, UK
Title: Control and Representation in Cognitive Search
Abstract: The trade-off between exploration and exploitation is a ubiquitous feature of animal life. Neuromolecular and behavioral evidence from across species suggest the ability to mediate this trade-off originated approximately 700 million years ago in a spatial foraging behavior called area-restricted search, allowing animals to modulate foraging behavior in response to resource density. Further evidence suggests this architecture was later exapted in vertebrates to modulate attention and search in internal representations: to maintain goals in the absence of external stimuli and to look, so to speak, before we leapt. In this talk, I will present research from my lab investigating internal search using comparisons of computational models that combine quantitative representations of internal environments with control processes that can navigate these environments. The representations are derived from multiple sources, including unsupervised learning from natural language corpora, social networks, and problem representations based on solution similarity. The control processes consist of random walks and multi-stage models that include dynamic transitions between representations. Over a series of studies, this work suggests that internal search is a form of area-restricted search consistent with the principles of optimal foraging in space and is governed by individual differences in executive control. This approach offers insights into cognitive control not offered by standard proof-of-principle approaches and helps to develop both an evolutionary and process-based account of cognitive control. I will conclude by presenting applications and questions posed by this work for age-related cognitive decline and changes in lexical representation across the lifespan.
February 5, 2016
Sidney D'Mello
Assistant Professor, Joint Appointments in Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame
Title: Between Boredom and Bewilderment: Coordinating Feeling and Thinking to Optimize Learning
Abstract: We study the complex interplay between cognitive and affective states (e.g., confusion, frustration, mind wandering) during learning and leverage insights to develop technologies that coordinate what learners think and feel in addition to what they know and do. Our basic research investigates how complex mental states arise and influence learning via an analysis of interactions among the learners themselves, the learning content, and the learning activity. We then use signal processing and machine learning techniques to build computational models of mental states from facial features, body movements, peripheral physiology, eye gaze, and contextual cues in a variety of digital learning environments, both in the lab and in the wild. Finally, we close the loop by embedding our models in affect- and attention- aware technologies that increase engagement and learning by dynamically adapting to cognition and emotion. This talk will discuss our theoretical foundations, summarize key findings, and discuss our vision for the future of cyberlearning.
February 9, 2016 (Tuesday)
Steven Bethard
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Title: Parsing the Language of Time
Abstract: Getting a computer to understand the timeline underlying a written narrative is a critical component of tools for review of patient medical histories, analysis of intelligence reports, and tests of reading comprehension. But human language is rarely explicit in the way that would be most convenient for a computer, and events, times, and temporal relations are often implicit, left to be inferred by the reader. In this talk, I will first present a typical computational methodology for constructing timelines from the explicit and implicit cues of language: a series of supervised machine learning components trained on example texts whose timelines have been annotated manually by humans. Then I will show how we can improve this approach by analyzing big data that has not been annotated by humans but nonetheless reveals patterns in how humans talk about time. Finally, I will present an alternative approach to inferring timelines from text that achieves better generalization through modeling the incremental and compositional nature of the language of time.
February 19, 2016
Jeremy Reynolds
Senior Data Scientist Lead, Advanced Analytics and Data Science, Information Management & Machine Learning, Microsoft
Title: Stories from Industry: How can Cognitive Science Programs enable students to succeed?
Abstract: Aspiring graduate students often wish to develop their careers through the pursuit of tenure-track faculty positions. While tenure-track positions certainly have a number of benefits, they are a) not very accessible, and b) not for everyone, even if you have access. During this talk, I will discuss my experiences in both a tenure-track faculty position and industry, and I will discuss how strong training in cognitive science and experimental methods can prepare individuals for either type of career. I will also discuss the gaps I have seen in training programs, how students may want to augment their skills to fill those gaps before entering the job market, and how mentors can support students in pursuits outside of academia.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
1:00-2:00 PM
*Talk sponsored by INC*
Cherie Marvel
Director, Cognitive Neurospsychiatric Research Laboratory (CNRLAB)
Dept. of Neurology, Div. of Cog. Neuro. Dept. of Psychiatry & Behav. Sciences Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Title: Attention-to-reward as a predictor of HIV-related risky behaviors.
Abstract: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is often contracted through reward-seeking, risky behaviors, such as needle sharing and unprotected sex. Understanding the factors that motivate an individual to engage in risky behaviors is important to limiting the spread of HIV. One's attention to reward, and conversely, one's ability to ignore that reward, may represent a potential source of vulnerability. In this talk, Dr. Marvel will present data that examines the link between attention-to-reward and HIV-related risk-taking behaviors in HIV positive individuals.
February 26, 2016
Peter Foltz
Institute of Cognitive Science Research Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Automated Analyses of Language Production in Clinical Tasks
Abstract: Language provides a window into underlying cognitive structures and mechanisms. In disorders such as schizophrenia, psychosis and bipolar disorder, abnormalities in language production and comprehension are often used as indicators to aid in the diagnosis and in understanding the underlying etiology. This talk will describe research in which we apply automated language analysis techniques to detect differences between groups of control and clinical populations. Over the past 15 years, we have collected samples of language from patients, controls, and unaffected siblings performing a range of tasks in clinical trials and neuropsychological research studies. The tasks include category fluency, logical memory, story recall, story telling, and answering open-ended questions. The analyses use corpus-based statistical models of language to examine semantic and statistical properties of responses. The results indicate that the methods can reliably detect differences in regularities in language between groups. Implications will be discussed for using the approach as a framework for measuring subtle changes in language and understanding the underlying processes that may cause these changes. Finally, I’ll talk about applying the approach for remote monitoring and treatment of cognitive functioning on mobile devices.
March 4, 2016
Frank Jäkel
Assistant Professor for Cognitive Modeling, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Germany
Title: Categorization: From Psychology to Machine Learning and Back
Abstract: The ability to categorize is fundamental for cognition—in humans and in machines. Many, if not all, so-called higher cognitive functions, like language or problem-solving, crucially depend on categorization. For this reason, research on categorization plays a central role in cognitive science and artificial intelligence alike. Hence, it is no surprise that many successful machine learning algorithms for categorization were inspired by results and insights from psychology and neuroscience. However, today machine learning is a mature field and more recent methods are usually seen to be grounded in statistics and computer science rather than in cognitive science. Kernel methods, in particular, have gained popularity in machine learning and have proved to be successful in many applied categorization problems. I will describe how similar ideas have developed in psychology and how insights from machine learning can feed back into cognitive science.
March 11, 2016
Joshua Correll
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Of Kith and Kin: Perceptual Enrichment, Expectancy, and Reciprocal Processing in Face Perception
Abstract: Race powerfully affects perceivers’ responses to faces, promoting biases in attention, classification, and memory. To account for these diverse effects, we propose a model that integrates social cognitive work with two prominent accounts of visual processing: perceptual learning and predictive coding. Our argument is that differential experience with a racial ingroup promotes both (a) perceptual enrichment, including richer, more well-integrated visual representations of ingroup relative to outgroup faces, and (b) expectancies that ingroup faces are more normative, which influence subsequent visual processing. We present evidence from three lines of research concerning predictions of the model.
March 18, 2016
John Trueswell
Professor of Psychology, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania
Title: The Role of Cognitive Flexibility in Language Processing and Language Acquisition
Abstract: Because children and adults interpret speech in real-time, rapidly making commitments to interpretation essentially on a word-by-word basis, they must learn to deal flexibly with temporary ambiguities that arise in the input. In this talk, I'll present a series of experiments that examine the relationship between language processing, language learning, and cognitive flexibility. It is found that individual differences in how well children flexibly respond to representational conflict during executive function tasks predict how well they deal with temporary syntactic ambiguity during real-time comprehension. I explore how the processing challenges associated with real-time comprehension constrain grammar learning, and might even constrain the types of grammars that arise in languages of the world. The results reveal some of the ways in which the cognitive abilities of the individual shape the linguistic-communicative system of the group.
April 1, 2016
Derek Lomas
Design Fellow at the UC San Diego Design Lab
Title: Large-Scale Online Experiments Can Accelerate the Production of Interaction Design Theory
Abstract: Each day, companies run thousands of design experiments to optimize software designs (e.g., A/B tests). What if just a fraction of these experiments were used to test generalizable theories about how and why interaction designs affect user behavior? How would this impact the field of interaction design?
To illustrate the opportunities for online theory testing, I will share several experiments investigating a classic theory in game design, that games should be neither too hard or too easy. This has been formalized as the hypothesis that “moderate difficulty will produce optimal motivation”. To test this hypothesis, I deployed thousands of variations of an online educational game to >50,000 users. Surprisingly, the results showed that low levels of difficulty consistently produced maximum motivation. Further experiments indicated that the factor of "novelty" plays a critical and rarely recognized role in maintaining player motivation. These findings show how online experiments can be used to build generalizable theories about how designs impact users.
More broadly, these results illustrate how the proliferation of large-scale online theoretical experiments could rapidly produce a large body of empirically-validated interaction design theory. How can we prepare for a "big science" of interaction design? To explore this, I share some additional experimental work with "multi-armed bandits", which suggest how artificial intelligence might participate in the future of large-scale scientific inquiry. I conclude by discussing several of the opportunities, limitations and risks of scientific theory-making in the field of design.
April 8, 2016
Anu Sharma
Professor, Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Cross-Modal Brain Changes in Hearing Loss Across the Age Spectrum
Abstract: A basic tenet of neuroplasticity is that the brain will re-organize following sensory deprivation. Auditory deprivation appears to tax the brain by changing its normal resource allocation. Compensation for the deleterious effects of hearing loss may include recruitment of alternative or additional brain networks to perform auditory tasks. Our high-density EEG experiments suggest that age-related hearing loss results in significant changes in neural resource allocation, reflecting patterns of increased listening effort, decreased cognitive reserve, which may be associated with dementia-related cognitive decline. Cross-modal plasticity is another form of cortical re-organization associated with deafness. Cross-modal plasticity occurs when an intact sensory modality recruits cortical resources from a deprived sensory modality to increase its processing capabilities as compensation for the effects of sensory deprivation. Our results suggest evidence of recruitment of higher-order auditory cortical areas by visual and somatosensory modalities in hearing loss and deafness. Cross-modal cortical re-organization is evident both in congenital deafness and in age-related mild-moderate hearing loss and shows a strong negative correlation with speech perception performance. Overall, our results suggest that compensatory cortical plasticity secondary to sensory deprivation has important neurological consequences and influences outcomes in children and adults with hearing loss.
April 22, 2016
Bob L. Sturm
Lecturer in Digital Media, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London
Title: Clever Hans, Clever Algorithms: Are Your Machine Learnings Learning What You Think?
Abstract: In machine learning, generalisation is the aim, and overfitting is the bane; but just because one avoids the latter does not guarantee the former. Of particular importance in some applications of machine learning is the “sanity" of the models learnt. In this talk I discuss one discipline in which model sanity is essential -- machine music listening — and how several hundreds of research publications may have unknowingly built, tuned, tested, compared and advertised “horses” instead of solutions. The true cautionary tale of the horse-genius Clever Hans provides the most appropriate illustration, but also ways forward.
April 29, 2016
ICS Poster Session and Mexican Fiesta, Last Day of Classes
Schedule for Fall 2015
August 28, 2015 (Opening Session)
Marie Banich, Ph.D.
Director of ICS and Professor, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience; University of Colorado Boulder
September 18 2015
Mans Hulden
Department of Linguistics, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Large-Scale Supervised Learning of Natural Language Morphology
Abstract: The learning of natural language morphology from labeled examples is a widely studied subproblem in language acquisition and natural language processing. Specific tasks in the learning of inflectional morphology, such as the acquisition of English past tense formation, for example, have received a great deal of attention both from the perspectives of cognitive modeling and computational linguistics. A long-standing debate has been whether speakers of a language generalize their previous knowledge to unseen word forms by way of analogy or by way of rule, i.e. whether regular and irregular word formation processes exhibit qualitatively different mechanisms.
In this talk, I will discuss current computational approaches to the problem of large-scale learning of morphology from labeled and unlabeled examples in a variety of typologically different languages. I will also give an overview of our recent efforts to address the problem, which show that a relatively simple model of word-similarity can yield very high accuracy rates in learning tasks across a diverse group of languages. While our model is developed mainly for purposes of practical language modeling, it can also be seen as a single model of analogical word-formation where irregulars have no special status, the implications of which I will also briefly discuss.
September 25, 2015
Daniel Everett
Dean of Arts and Sciences, Bentley University
Title: Grammar and the Culturally Articulated Unconscious
Abstract: In this talk I will explore new proposals on the notions of dark matter of the mind and culture (from Everett 2016), examine the architectonic effect of these phenomena on phonology, syntax, and social structure in Piraha. I further argue that these findings present problems for strong (naive) nativism.
October 2, 2015
Benjamin Shapiro
Atlas Institute
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Design Experiments for Distributed Computing Education with Computer Music
Abstract: Most American youth use a multitude of networked devices. Many youth make surprisingly nuanced decisions about how to use these technologies in order to protect their privacy, manage relationships, and explore alternative identities. Yet, while these technology platforms offer users some choice about how to enact social practices with them, none are plastic enough to offer youth the ability to easily construct new networked technologies of their own designs.
Simultaneously, concurrency, distributed systems, and tangible/embedded computing are key computer science topics for 21st Century students. New generations of programmers are increasingly under pressure to learn how to correctly implement concurrent algorithms and protocols, and to reason about complex, interconnected systems. CS education research has not kept pace with the need for learning about these topics in computing; we know little about how people learn these skills and concepts.
My lab has been developing constructionist approaches that allow diverse populations of students to learn about concurrency by designing and building new networked devices for communication and play. We use learning sciences theories and Design-based Research methods to design new programmable toolkits for learning and to investigate the development of student thinking in computer science through the use of these tools.
I present one strand of this work: how building tangible computer music instruments for use in group performance can create a natural context for middle-school age youth to learn about synchronizing parallel processes. I will show how we can create new frameworks for learning about concurrency by combining programming environment design with analysis of student discourse, program code, and cognitive clinical interviews in order to understand students’ emergent thinking about computing concepts, and how that emergence is anchored in prior student interests and knowledge.
October 9, 2015
Simon DeDeo
Assistant Professor,Indiana University, School of Informatics and Computing
External Professor, Santa Fe Institute
Title: The Cognitive Structure of Political Order
Abstract: From power and dominance to knowledge of social norms, facts at the group-level play a key role in the emergence of society. A crucial question for cognitive science is how individuals come to know these facts by coarse-graining their environments. New results from both human and animal studies show how the details of this process fundamentally alter the nature of the societies individuals create. The cognitive abilities of social avian species, we discover, are sufficient to lead to societies of surprising richness, while high-resolution studies of online conflict among participants of Wikipedia show how social norms—ideas of how one “ought" to behave—lead to novel features where inference is supplemented by dynamic preference change. From the first awareness and use of social fact, to the emergence of norms and their later self-assembly into networks of normative bundles, new relationships between the individual and the group lead to major transitions in observable behavior. While models of social complexity often rely on simplified accounts of individual minds, our results show that cognitive complexity matters. Our results suggest new opportunities for laboratory-level cognitive science, and have interdisciplinary implications for research at the frontiers of machine learning, and for how we might draw new science from the massive records of human interaction we gather in the big data era.
October 16, 2015
Danielle Albers Szafir
Assistant Professor of Information Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Perceptually-Driven Information Visualization
Abstract: My work looks at how we can develop an understanding of how people interpret visual representations of data and use this understanding to drive the design of interactive visualization systems that support more effective analysis at larger scales. In the first part of the talk, I will look at how we can use existing theories from visual perception to increase the scale of datasets we can visually explore across different domains. I will then discuss a series of experiments that look at how we can increase the precision with which people interpret encoded information in practice. Finally, I will talk about several open questions at the intersection of computing, data, and cognition.
October 23, 2015
Mimi Recker
Professor & Department Head
Department of Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences
Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services
Utah State University
And
Tamara Sumner
Associate Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Pedagogical Design Capacity in the Age of Peer Production
Abstract: Peer production, also referred to as the wisdom of the crowds, are the sets of network-enabled practices whereby everyday individuals reuse, remix, and share information and knowledge at an unprecedented scale. Most of us are familiar with powerful examples of peer-production such as Linux (open source software), Wikipedia (collaborative encyclopedia construction), and YouTube (video sharing).
Peer production is increasingly pervasive in education: every day millions of K12 teachers and learners search the web to select and find Open Educational Resources (OER), adapt and combine them to create new learning experiences, and share their labor with others by posting new resources. OER are teaching and learning resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under licensing schemes that allow their free use or customization by others. They encompass a multiplicity of media and resource types, such as animations, videos, scientific data, maps, images, games, simulations, and textbooks.
In this talk, we review the theory behind and empirical results from several strands of research examining teacher peer production processes, and how these processes shape the learning experiences and outcomes of their students. We provide examples of several software tools created to support teachers' peer production processes and discuss how design choices within these tools lead to significantly different outcomes, in terms of supporting teachers' capacity to make principled, learner -centered choices around curriculum adaptations. We also illustrate how data-intensive methodologies such as educational data mining and social network analysis are critical for understanding these new forms of knowledge production and knowledge sharing.
November 6, 2015
Tor Wager
Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: What’s learning got to do with it? Cognition, Computation, and Chronic Pain
Abstract: In cognitive science, learning usually refers to the acquisition of declarative knowledge. But our brains contain a rich array of learning mechanisms, many of them unconscious. Together, they are critical for virtually every aspect of life. Understanding these mechanisms can not only help us understand learning, it can help us understand and improve our social, emotional, and physical wellbeing. In this talk, I discuss several types of learning in relation to how we experience and learn to avoid pain. I first discuss the role of learning in the spinal cord vs. the “supraspinal” brain in the experience and avoidance of pain. Then, I discuss the role of conceptual processes—beliefs—in shaping pain avoidance learning. Finally, I connect work on these circuits to abnormalities in chronic pain, establishing a potential link between basic learning processes and a fundamental source of suffering in human life.
November 13, 2015
Jae-Woong Jeong
Associate Professor, Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Soft Electronics in Neuroengineering for Hard Problems in Neuroscience
Abstract: Breakthroughs in neuroscience often follow from advances in technology and methodology. Conventional electronic devices interfaced with our body for neuromedicine and neuroscience research are rigid and bulky. Biological organs and systems, by contrast, are soft, elastic and curved. The recent research and development have established the materials and manufacturing foundations for a new class of soft electronic interface technologies that overcome this fundamental mismatch in mechanics and form. These technologies enable intimate, non-invasive integration of sensors and actuators, directly with biological organs, in ways that are impossible with conventional, rigid, planar device technologies. This talk will introduce recent advances in soft electronics that can be applied for neuromedicine and neuroscience research. The talk will focus on our research on 1) skin electronics that can be integrated with the skin in a way that yields intimate, conformal contact at the electronics-skin interface, and 2) wireless optofluidic neural systems for optogenetics and in vivo pharmacology. Potential applications of soft electronics will be also discussed.
December 4, 2015
Jason Watson
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Denver
Title: On Transitions in Cognitive Control
Abstract: Cognitive control refers to the ability to maintain task goals and guide performance, particularly in challenging, resource-intensive situations with potential for distraction or conflict. In the modern world, high levels of cognitive control are valued, and there has been an associated boom in research intended to develop training programs to enhance one's cognitive control and to resolve interference. However, there is a control dilemma, or tension that exists between exerting cognitive control and withholding it in favor of less resource-intensive automatic processes. In this framework, transitions in control are necessary for cognitive balance, where it is often important to change one's goals in response to task demands, occasionally even relying on pre-existing automatic processes, if only to conserve limited-capacity mental resources. My program of research investigates which individuals and/or what conditions support such flexible transitions in cognitive control, collecting data at both the behavioral (reaction times, accuracy) and at the psychophysiological level (event-related potentials), to gain a better theoretical understanding of how individuals may calibrate their use of controlled versus automatic processes.
Schedule for Spring 2015
January 16, 2015
Todd Gureckis, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Affiliate, Center for Data Science
New York University
TITLE: Self-directed learning: Understanding the interactions between decision making, learning, and memory”
ABSTRACT: My research explores how people learn from their interactions with the world around them. For example, how are we so good at figuring out how something works by tinkering with it? How do we formulate questions with the goal of gaining knowledge and reducing our uncertainty? How do our choices to gather information affect our memory or conceptual knowledge? Such questions strike at the heart of what makes us such an adaptable and intelligent species. In this talk, I will overview recent progress in my lab understanding how people gather information in "self-directed" learning environments (i.e., those where the learner is in control of what to learn about and when to learn it). A primary objective of my work is to develop detailed computational models of human learning, and my talk will highlight the important role that such models can play in helping to understand self-directed learning as a core aspect of human behavior. I will conclude by discussing implications of this work for education, instructional design, as well as the basic science of human learning.
January 27, 2015 *Tuesday - E214*
Jennifer S. Trueblood, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Cognitive Sciences
Affiliated Faculty
Institute of Mathematical Behavioral Sciences
University of California, Irvine
Title: The Influence of Context and Changing Information on Choice
Abstract: Everyday we make hundreds of choices. Some are seemingly trivial -- what cereal should I eat for breakfast? Others have long lasting implications -- what stock should I invest in? Despite their obvious differences, these two decisions have one important thing in common; both are sensitive to context. In this talk, I will first describe my research investigating how context influences preferences in multi-alternative, multi-attribute choice behavior. I will provide experimental evidence that context effects from consumer choice research arise in other domains such as perception. This suggests context effects are a general feature of human choice behavior and calls for a common theoretical explanation that applies across paradigms. I will present a new model called the multi-attribute Linear Ballistic Accumulator (MLBA) model as a generalized explanation of these effects.
In the second half of the talk, I will describe my work investigating the impact of changing information on choice behavior. Most past decision research has focused on “stationary” decisions where a choice is made on the basis of fixed, unchanging information. However, in the real world, many decisions are made in the face of dynamically changing information. To assess how the decision process adapts to changes of information, I developed the piecewise Linear Ballistic Accumulator (pLBA) model. I will demonstrate the model using results from a simple perceptual decision-making task, and show how early information influences the integration of later information. The talk will conclude with a discussion of future directions including research investigating the impact of changing information on context effects in multi-alternative choice and the integration of the two models, MLBA and pLBA. I will also discuss future applications of the models to health-related decision-making.
January 30, 2015
Tamar H. Gollan, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry
University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine
Hispanic Program Core Leader
UCSD Alzheimer's Disease Research Center
Title: Searching for the Language Switch: The Invasion of Executive Control into the Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism
Abstract: Switching back and forth between tasks is known to be more difficult than steadily performing a single task. From this perspective, people who speak more than one language regularly engage in a puzzling behavior often referred to as code-switching. Bilinguals spontaneously switch languages when conversing with other bilinguals, sometimes with great frequency, and even though nothing obvious compels them to do so. Experimental investigation confirms the presence of robust processing costs associated with both language switching and non-linguistic task switching but using methods that differ from naturally occurring switches in a number of critical ways. In this talk I will show that fully voluntary switching is less costly than previously assumed, sometimes even cost-free. In addition, direct comparisons between language- and task-switching, and analysis of control over unintended language switches, reveal dissociations in brain mechanisms underlying mixing in linguistic and non-linguistic domains, and preservation of control over language selection in aging. Such results imply that language control is a “special case” with modular mechanisms that have little to do with general executive control – and this seems inconsistent with reports that bilinguals might be more efficient switchers than monolinguals. I'll discuss what properties could make language special, and how a better understanding of this might help us achieve greater efficiency in switching in other domains (e.g., switching between writing a paper and checking e-mail).
February
February 3, 2015 *Tuesday - E214*
Darrell A. Worthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Cognitive Psychology
Texas A & M University
Title: Using Computational Models to Examine Age-Related Changes in Neural Activity during Decision-Making
Abstract: Decision-making is an important task that individuals of all ages must engage in on a daily basis. Extensive work suggests that the normal aging process leads to significant structural and functional declines in the frontostriatal brain networks implicated in decision-making. This can often lead to poorer performance for older adults in decision-making tasks compared to younger adults. In this talk I present two studies that use a combination of computational modeling and fMRI to identify age differences in neural activity associated with specific cognitive processes during decision-making. Study 1 shows that neural responses in striatal and medial prefrontal regions to reward prediction errors decline with age, while responses to reward outcomes are maintained. Study 2 uses a more demanding state-based decision-making task where individuals must consider how actions affect changes in their future state. In this study we find evidence of compensatory activation of lateral prefrontal regions in older adults that is related to a model based measure of how current actions affect changes in one's future state. This suggests that older adults may recruit additional brain structures during cognitively demanding decision-making tasks to achieve the same level of performance as younger adults. I end the talk by discussing future directions in decision neuroscience across the lifespan, and current work aimed at exploring how genetic differences can affect learning and decision-making.
February 6, 2015
Michael N. Jones, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Cognitive Science
Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Adjunct Professor of Informatics and Computing
Adjunct Professor, Program in Neuroscience
Affiliated Faculty, Network Science Institute
Indiana University
Title: Scaling Models of Human Semantic Abstraction
Abstract: Human semantic memory develops over a lifetime of linguistic and perceptual experience. Laboratory experiments can probe the end product of the process of semantic abstraction, or can study the process at a small scale using well-controlled stimuli. But a full understanding of the mechanisms that drive semantic abstraction requires the study of models that learn over realistic data at a scale that humans do. Indeed, the models that perform best at small scales do not readily scale up to human-scale amounts of data, and relatively “dumb but scalable” models end up generating impressively complex representations when trained on sufficient data. I will present some recent work from my lab exploring random vector accumulation models based on theories of associative memory. These models learn incrementally from linguistic corpora, making surprising predictions about semantic development, and can also integrate large-scale perceptual data from our crowdsourcing project, the NSF Semantic Pictionary Project. Because humans are both the producers and consumers of such a large amount of the data we wish mine for knowledge, models of human semantic abstraction can offer unique insights not captured by purely data-driven machine learning techniques. I will end with a few applied examples from my lab using human semantic models in clinical informatics, automated synthesis of the neuroimaging literature, optimizing passwords, and intelligent tutoring systems.
February 6, 2015 *3:00 p.m.*
Anoop Sarkar, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Computing Science
Simon Fraser University
British Columbia, Canada
Title: Interactive visualization of facts extracted from natural language text
Abstract: In natural language processing, the summarization of information in a large amount of text has typically been viewed as a type of natural language generation problem, e.g. "produce a 250 word summary of some documents based on some input query". An alternative view, which will be the focus of this talk, is to use natural language parsing to extract facts from a collection of documents and then use information visualization to provide an interactive summarization of these facts.
The first step is to extract detailed facts about events from natural language text using a predicate-centered view of events (who did what to whom, when and how). We exploit semantic roles in order to create a predicate-centric ontology for entities which is used to create a knowledge base of facts about entities and their relationship with other entities.
The next step is to use information visualization to provide a summarization of the facts in this knowledge base. The user can interact with the visualization to find summaries that have different granularities. This enables the discovery of extremely uncommon facts easily, unlike large scale "macro-reading" approaches to information extraction.
We have used this methodology to build an interactive visualization of events in human history by machine reading Wikipedia articles (available on the web at http://natlang.cs.sfu.ca/software/lensingwikipedia.html).
February 20, 2015
Elizabeth Race, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Research Associate
Memory Disorders Research Center
Boston University
TITLE: Memory, mental simulation & language: The ties that bind
ABSTRACT: From recognizing a childhood friend to reliving the moment we fell in love, our memories provide a rich tapestry of prior experiences and knowledge that lies at the core of our human experience. But memory does not simply provide a lens into the past. On the contrary, memory also offers an important window into the future. Accumulating evidence suggests that the brain continually generates predictions based on past experience and stored knowledge. These memory-based predictions provide expectations about the future that shape our thoughts, decisions, and actions. In this talk, I will discuss recent neuropsychological evidence that provides novel insight into the cognitive and neural processes that support this powerful, yet surprising, proactive use of memory. I will first discuss studies of patients with medial temporal lobe amnesia that have revealed the importance of associative processes supported by the hippocampus in the generation and flexible use of memory-based predictions when simulating the future (prospection). I will then discuss how damage to the hippocampal system not only impairs the ability to construct mental simulations, but also impairs the ability to share these mental simulations with others as well as construct integrated verbal discourse more generally. These results reveal that memory, mental simulation, and language share fundamental underlying cognitive and neural processes, and that binding functions supported by the hippocampus play a critical role in the flexible and proactive use of both memory and language. Finally, I will conclude by discussing how this novel view of memory and memory systems aligns with additional neuropsychological evidence suggesting that the medial temporal lobes support cognition beyond the long-term memory domain.
February 20, 2015 **4:00 p.m.**
Reza Shadmehr, Ph.D.
Professor of Neuroscience
Johns Hopkins University
Title: Encoding of action by the Purkinje cells of the cerebellum
Abstract: Execution of accurate movements depends critically on the cerebellum, suggesting that Purkinje cells (P-cells) may predict state of the moving body, a process called 'forward model'. Yet, this encoding has remained a long-standing puzzle. For example, during saccadic eye movement, firing of P-cells show little consistent modulation with respect to speed or direction of the moving eye, and critically, lasts longer than duration of the movement. How could the cerebellum be involved in control of saccades, its yet the firing of P-cells show activity that far outlasts the movement? Here, we analyzed P-cell discharge in the oculomotor vermis of behaving monkeys during saccadic eye movements. We found neurons that increased their activity during saccades, as well neurons that decreased their activity. When we estimated the synaptic inhibition that these two populations produced via their projections to the caudal fastigial nucleus (cFN), we uncovered a signal that precisely predicted the real-time motion of the eye, an encoding that was not present in either population alone. When we aligned the simple spike activity of each P-cell to a coordinate system that depended on that cell’s complex spike (CS) tuning, the result unmasked a pattern of inhibition at cFN that encoded saccade speed and direction via a multiplicative gain-field. Therefore, our results suggested three new ideas: reliable encoding of saccade metrics does not occur in the firing of individual P-cells, but via synchronized inputs of bursting and pausing cells onto cFN; in this encoding, speed and direction are multiplicatively represented via a gain-field; and the anatomical projections of P-cells to cFN neurons are not random, but organized by the CS tuning of the P-cells.
February 27, 2015
Max Berniker, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
College of Engineering
University of Illinois at Chicago
Adjunct Professor
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Northwestern University
TITLE: A new perspective on the internal representations of motor control and learning
ABSTRACT: The motor system generates time-varying commands to move our limbs and body. Yet how this is achieved is largely a mystery. In conventional formulations the brain relies on dynamical models of our body (forward and inverse models) and control policies that must be integrated forward in time to generate feedforward time-varying commands; thus these are representations across space, but not time. Optimal control theory tells us that a relatively small number of parameters can uniquely define an entire command and state trajectory. Building off this, we examine a new approach that directly represents both time-varying commands and the resulting state trajectories with a function; a representation across space and time. Since the output of this function includes time, it is high-dimensional and requires more parameters than a typical dynamical model. To avoid the problems of over-fitting and local minima these extra parameters introduce, we exploit recent advances in machine learning to build our function using a stacked autoencoder, or deep network. Using initial states and final target states as input, this deep network can be trained to output an accurate temporal profile of the optimal command and state trajectory for a point-to-point reach of a nonlinear limb model, even when influenced by varying force fields. In a manner that mirrors motor babble, the network can also teach itself to learn through trial and error. Lastly, we demonstrate how this network can learn to optimize a cost objective. This functional approach to motor control is a sharp departure from the standard dynamical approach, and we end by noting how it may offer new insights into many commonly observed electrophysiological phenomena, including distributed parallel encoding, preparatory activity, and temporally unaligned activity.
March 6, 2015
Stephen Becker, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Applied Mathematics
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Matrix Completion and Robust PCA: new data analysis tools
Abstract: Matrix completion is a generalization of compressed sensing that seeks to determine missing matrix entries under some (non-Bayesian) assumptions about the matrix. The technique has generated a lot of excitement due to rigorous guarantees in some case, and also due to applications to machine learning (e.g., the Netflix prize problem). This talk discusses basic matrix completion, including efficient algorithms suitable for big data, as well as an extension of matrix completion known as robust PCA, which can handle large outliers in the data. We continue with several applications: inferring the structure of chromosomes, functional imaging of the brain, removing clouds from multi-spectral satellite image data, and verifying the properties of a quantum state or a quantum gate.
March 13, 2015
Adele Goldberg, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Psychology
Princeton University
Title: Explain me this: how we Learn what not to Say
Abstract: In certain cases, linguistic formulations are semantically sensible and syntactically well-formed, and yet noticeably dispreferred (e.g., ??She disappeared the ticket; ??the afraid boy). Experimental evidence suggests that competition in context—statistical preemption—plays a key role in learning what not to say in these cases. I will also offer a proposal as to why adult second language learners seem to have more trouble avoiding these dispreferred utterances.
April 3, 2015
Ehtibar Dzhafarov, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Psychological Sciences
Purdue University
Title: Contextuality and Random Variables from Quantum Mechanics to Psychology
Abstract: Probabilistic contextuality is an abstract system-theoretic notion with applications ranging from behavioral and social systems to quantum theory (where it includes, as a special case, nonlocality). We view it as a foundational concept of probability theory because contextuality is about identity of random variables. Contextuality-by-Default means that the identity of a random variable a priori differs from one context to another, a context being defined by conditions under which it is recorded, in particular, by other random variables recorded together with it. Two random variables, R in context c and R’ in context c’ , if they are identically distributed, can sometimes be coupled (imposed a joint distribution on) so that their values differ with probability zero. If such a coupling does not exist, we say that the system involving R, R’, c, c’ (and, possibly, many other random variables in various contexts) is contextual. More generally, if R in context c and R’ in context c’ may be differently distributed, it is possible that they can be coupled so that the probability with which their values differ has the minimal value allowed by the difference in their distributions; if such a coupling does not exist, we say that the system involving R, R’, c, c’ is contextual. There are numerous mathematical tests (necessary conditions, and sometimes criteria) for determining whether a system is contextual. One of several possible measures of contextuality is based on the idea of computing the minimal probability with which R in context c may be unequal to R’ in context c’ when they are coupled.
Acknowledgments: The work has been supported by NSF grant SES-1155956 and AFOSR grant FA9550-14-1-0318. The presentation is based on joint work with Janne Kujala, with thanks to Jan-Åke Larsson, Acacio de Barros, and Gary Oas.
April 10, 2015
ICS Summer Research Award Recipient
Michael Mozer, Ph.D., Professor, ICS and Department of Computer Science
Adrian Ward, Senior Research Associate, Department of Marketing Scholar, Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making
Ian Smith, Ph.D. Student, Department of Computer Science
John Lynch, Ted Anderson Professor of Free Enterprise, Department of Marketing Director, Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making
April 17, 2015
ICS Summer Research Award Recipient
Lauren Durkee, Ph.D. Student, ICS and Speech, Lanuage, Hearing Sciences
Hannah Glick, Ph.D. student, ICS and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
Anu Sharma, Ph.D., ICS Fellow
Sarel van Vuuren, Ph.D., ICS Fellow
April 24, 2015
ICS Summer Research Award Recipient
James Foster, Ph.D. Student, ICS and Cognitive Psychology
Matt Jones, Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Al Kim, Professor, ICS and Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Vicky Lai, Research Staff Scientist in the Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Netherlands
May 1, 2015
- ICS Fiesta & Poster Session
Schedule for Fall 2014
September 5, 2014
Opening Session: State of the Institute
September 12, 2014
Todd Gureckis, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
New York University
Abstract
September 19, 2014
Samar Husain, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral researcher (Lehrstuhlmitarbeiter)
Vasishth Lab, Department of Linguistics
University of Potsdam
Abstract
September 26, 2014
ICS Membership Retreat
September 29, 2014 - *Monday - Room E214*
Stephen E. Palmer, Ph.D.
Professor of the Graduate School
Psychology and Cognitive Science
University of California, Berkeley
October 10, 2014
Jordan Boyd-Graber, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
October 10, 2014 - **6:00 - 7:30 PM - Duane Physics Room G125**
William Bechtel, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy and Faculty Member in the
Center for Chronobiology, Science Study Program and
Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science.
University of California, San Diego
"Networks and Dynamics: 21st Century Neuroscience"
October 11, 2014 - **5:00 - 6:30 PM - Duance Physics Room G131**
Carrie Figdor, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
University of Iowa
"On the Proper Domain of Psychological Predicates"
October 12, 2014 - **4:00 - 5:30 PM - Duane Physics G125**
Tor Wager, Ph.D.
Professor
Institute of Cognitive Science and
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of Colorado Boulder
"Role of verbal reports in studies on emotion and pain"
October 17, 2014
Tom Yeh, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
October 24, 2014
Shaun Kane, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
October 31, 2014
R. McKell Carter, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Institute of Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
November 7, 2014
ICS Summer Research Award Recipient
Katherine Phelps, Graduate Student, ICS and Department of Linguistics
Rebecca Scarborough, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics and
Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science
Lewis Harvey, Jr., Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and
Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science
Abstract
December 12, 2014
Susan Windisch Brown, Ph.D.
Research Fellow, Lablita
University of Florence
TITLE: From Visual Prototypes of Action to Metaphors: The Imagact Visual Ontology and Its Extension to Figurative Meanings
ABSTRACT: Action verbs are some of the most polysemous words, with one form often covering a wide range of physical actions, as well as extending to various figurative meanings. The range of variations within and across languages can cause trouble for second language learners and natural language processing tasks. IMAGACT is a corpus-based ontology of action concepts that makes use of the universal language of images to identify the different physical action types expressed by verbs in English, Italian, Chinese and Spanish. IMAGACT makes explicit the variation of meaning of action verbs within one language and allows comparisons of verb variations within and across languages. Because the action concepts are represented with videos, extension into new languages is easily done using competence-based judgments by native-language informants.
In the first half of this talk, I will describe the resource's rationale and infrastructure and demonstrate the types of linguistic information a user can derive from it. In the second half, I will describe the extension of this resource to figurative meanings. We first established three main categories of secondary meaning variation--metaphor, metonymy and idiom--and criteria for creating types within these categories for each verb. The criteria rely heavily on the images that compose the IMAGACT ontology of action and on widely accepted processes of meaning extension in linguistics. Although figurative language is known for its amorphous, subjective nature, we have endeavored to create a standard, justifiable process for determining figurative language types for individual verbs. We specifically highlight the benefits that IMAGACT’s representation of the primary meanings through videos brings to the understanding and annotation of secondary meanings.
Schedule for Spring 2014
January 31, 2014
Luc Steels, PhD
ICREA @ Institut Biologia Evolutiva
(UPF-CSIC) Barcelona
Abstract
February 3, 2014 - 12:00 p.m.**
Reza Shadmehr, PhD
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Professor of Neuroscience
John Hopkins University
Abstract
Hosted by Integrative Physiology
**Ramaley Building, Room C250
February 5, 2014 - 11:00 a.m.**
Karli K. Watson, PhD
Research Associate, Senior Staff
Cognitive Neuroscience
Duke University
Abstract
Hosted by Integrative Physiology and ICS
**Clare Small Building, Room 210
February 5, 2014 - 12:30 p.m.**
Michael P. Milham, MD, PhD
Child Mind Institute
New York, NY
Hosted by the Intermountain Neuroimaging Consortium
February 7, 2014
Annie Zaenen, PhD
Senior Researcher
CSLI Language and Natural Reasoning
Consulting Professor
Department of Linguistics
Stanford University
Abstract
February 14, 2014
Nisar Ahmed, PhD
Assistant Professor
Aerospace Engineering Sciences
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
February 21, 2014
Matt Jones, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
February 28, 2014
Kathryn Arehart, PhD
Professor
Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
March
March 7, 2014
March 14, 2014
Heather Pon-Barry, PhD
School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision System Engineering
Arizona State University
Abstract
April 4, 2014
Adam Anderson, PhD
Associate Professor
College of Human Ecology
Department of Human Development
Cornell University
Abstract
April 11, 2014
Philip Fernbach, PhD
Assistant Professor
Leeds School of Business
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
April 18, 2014
Julia Hockenmaier, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois
Abstract
May 2, 2014
- ICS Fiesta and Poster Session
Schedule for Fall 2013
September 6, 2013
Martha Palmer, PhD
Acting Director
Institute of Cognitive Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Welcome new students and visitors, review the opportunities for degrees and certificates in ICS, and briefly acknowledge recent achievements.
September 13, 2013
William Braynen, PhD
Post-doctoral Scholar
Department of Philosophy
Stanford University
Abstract
September 20, 2013
Octavian Popescu, PhD
Human Language Technology
Center for Information and Communication Technology
Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Provo, Italy
Abstract
September 27, 2013
ICS Brain Bag Lunch
Light refreshments will be provided
October 4, 2013
ICS Brain Bag Lunch
Light refreshments will be provided
October 11, 2013
Zygmunt Frajzyngier, PhD
Professor
Department of Linguistics
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
October 18, 2013
ICS Brain Bag Lunch
Light refreshments will be provided
October 25, 2013
Michael Mozer, PhD and Robert Lindsey
Professor and Graduate Student
Institute of Cognitive Science and Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
**Monday, October 28, 2013 - 4:00 p.m. - Room E214**
Tor Wager, PhD
Associate Professor
Institute of Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
November 1, 2013
Jessica Andrews-Hanna, PhD
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Institute of Cognitive Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
November 15, 2013
Faculty Search Candidate Talk
Thorsten Kahnt, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research
Department of Economics
University of Zurich
Abstract
*November 20, 2013, Wednesday, 4:00 p.m.*
Faculty Search Candidate Talk
McKell Carter, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Duke University
Abstract
November 22, 2013
Faculty Search Candidate Talk
Luke Chang, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Cognitive Affective Neuroscience Laboratory
University of Colorado Boulder
Abstract
*December 4, 2013, Wednesday, 4:00 p.m.*
Faculty Search Candidate Talk
Andrea Stocco, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences
University of Washington
Abstract
December 6, 2013
Faculty Search Candidate Talk
Joonkoo Park, PhD
Postdoctoral Associate
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Duke University
Abstract
Schedule Summer 2013
June 14, 2013 - 2:00 PM
Predrag Petrovic, MD, PhD
Department of Clinical Neuroscience
Karolinska Institute
Stockholm, Sweden
Title: "The Brain and Reality - from Placebo to Psychosis"
Abstract
July
July 24, 2013 - 10:30 AM - CINC Glass Conference Room (102)
Erhard Hinrichs
University of Tuebingen, Germany
Director of CLARIN ERIC
Scientific Coordinator of CLARIN-D
Title: "CLARIN: Toward an Integrated European Infrastructure for Language Resources and Technology"
Abstract: CLARIN (www.clarin.eu) is committed to establish an integrated and interoperable research infrastructure of language resources and its technology. It aims at lifting the current fragmentation, offering a stable, persistent, accessible and extendable infrastructure and thereby enabling eHumanities research.
The purpose of this talk is to give an overview of CLARIN as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) and, using Germany (CLARIN-D) as an examle, to highlight the added value that CLARIN ERIC provides to its member countries. A selection of CLARIN web applications and use cases as well as of enhanced WordNet language resources will be presented.
August 9, 2013 - 11:00 AM
Dr. Eliane Volchan
Laboratory of Neurobiology
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Title: Body and Brain Changes Associated with Invasion of Peripersonnal Space in PTSD
Abstract: Violent events increase the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our investigation of structural brain alteration in PTSD victims of urban violence revealed reduced gray matter volume in the ventral premotor cortex. This may be associated with a disruption in the dynamical modulation of the safe space around the body in those patients. Tonic immobility, characterized by profound motor inhibition, is elicited under inescapable threat in many species. To fully support the existence of tonic immobility in humans, participants exposed to violent crime listened to the script of their autobiographical trauma while biological correlates were recorded. Reports of script-induced immobility were associated with restricted area of body sway and were correlated with accelerated heart rate and diminished heart rate variability, implying that tonic immobility is preserved in humans as an involuntary defensive strategy. This study provided a measure of tonic immobility, a peritraumatic reaction for which cumulative clinical evidence had linked to the severity of the most disruptive sequelae of trauma exposure– PTSD.
Schedule for Spring 2013
January 24, 2013 (Thursday)
Michael Mozer, PhD
Professor
Institute of Cognitive Science
Department of Computer Science and
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: "Discovering Optimal Training Policies: A New Experimental Paradigm"
Abstract
Hosted by the Center for Research on Training (Muen. E214)
January 25, 2013
Dr. Daniel Hyman
Pediatric Hospitalist
Children's Hospital Colorado
Title: "Transforming a Hospital Culture - What can cognitive science teach us?"
Abstract
January 31, 2013 (Thursday)
Gary McClelland, PhD
Professor
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: "Everything you ever wanted to know about power but were afraid to ask: A unified and simplified approach to power analysis for linear models."
Abstract
Hosted by the Center for Research on Training (Muen. E214)
February 1, 2013
Tom Yeh, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: "Making GUI Automation Accessible Using Computer Vision"
Abstract
February 7, 2013 (Thursday)
Keith Lohse, PhD
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
School of Kinesiology
The University of British Columbia
Title: "Video games and rehabilitation: Using design principles to enhance patient engagement."
Abstract
Hosted by the Center for Research on Training (Muen. E214)
February 8, 2013
Keith Lohse, PhD
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
School of Kinesiology
The University of British Columbia
Title: "Neuroplasticity in the CNS as a function of motor skill learning: A systematic review and meta-analysis."
Abstract
February 15, 2013
Richard Zemel, PhD
Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Title: "Online probabilistic inference in neural populations"
Abstract
March 15, 2013
Cynthia Fisher, PhD
Professor
Psychology Department
University of Illinois
Title: "The origins of syntactic bootstrapping: A computational model"
Abstract
April 5, 2013
Steven Bethard, PhD
Institute of Cognitive Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Understanding Timelines in Natural Language Narratives
Abstract
April 12, 2013
Micheal Eisenberg, PhD
Institute of Cognitive Science
Department of Computer Science
Center for Lifelong Learning and Design
University of Colorado
William Penuel, PhD
Professor of Education
School of Education
University of Colorado
Joseph Polman, PhD
Associate Dean of Research
Professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Sciences
School of Education
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Converging on Cognition
Abstract
April 19, 2013 (3:00 p.m.)
Gael Varoquaux
Permanent Researcher, Parietal Team
INRIA
Saclay, France
Title: What can we learn of brain organization by mining resting-state?
Abstract
April 22, 2013 (4:00 PM - CLRE 104)
Lise Menn, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Department of Linguistics
University of Colorado Boulder
Jill Duffield
PhD Candidate
Department of Linguistics
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: Coming to Agreement: The Integration of Hierarchical and Sequential Structure in a Language Production Model
Abstract
April 30, 2013 (Tuesday) - 4:00 PM
Lisa Brenner, PhD
VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System
Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Title: "Traumatic Brain Injury, Comorbid Disorders and Negative Psychiatric Outcomes Among Veterans and Military Personnel"
Abstract
Hosted by the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience (E214)
May 3, 2013
ICS Fiesta and Poster Session
Schedule for Fall 2012
September 7, 2012
Opening Session: State of the Institute,
followed by ICS Fellows Meeting
September 21, 2012
Robert D. Rupert, PhD
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: "Embodiment, Consciousness, and the Massively Representational Mind"
Abstract
September 28, 2012
Laurence Steinberg, PhD
Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
Temple University
Title: "Should the Science of Adolescent Brain Development Inform Legal Policy?"
NOTE: Dr. Steinberg will be speaking in MUEN E214, on the east wing of the second floor.
Abstract
October 5, 2012
Gerhard Fisher
Professor Emeritus
Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D)
Computer Science
University of Colorado Boulder
October 8, 2012
Albert (Al) Kim
Institute of Cognitive Science
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
University of Colorado Boulder
NOTE: Dr. Kim will be speaking in MUEN E214, on the east wing of the second floor, at 4:00 pm. The talk will be part of his tenure and promotion process and a great opportunity to hear about his latest work.
October 12, 2012
Daniel Russell
Uber Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness in Mountain View
Google
Title: "What does it mean to be literate in the age of Google?"
Abstract
October 19, 2012
Caroline Denaes
University of Geneva (Switzerland)
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science
Title: "Analogical reasoning and touch screen computer as ways to offload the memory of individuals with intellectual disabilities"
Abstract
October 26, 2012
Ryan Baker, PhD
Julius and Rosa Sachs Distinguished Lecturer
Associate Professor of Human Development
Teachers College
Columbia University
Hosted by Tamara Sumner and Bill Penuel
Shared event with Computer Science and Education Department
Title: "Studying Student Disengagement with Educational Data Mining"
NOTE: Dr. Baker will be speaking in MUEN E214, on the east wing of the second floor.
Abstract
November 9, 2012
William Raymond, PhD
Assistant Director of CRT
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
AND
Esther Brown, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Spanish and Portuguise
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: "The Cumulative Effect of Reducing Environments: Instance Memory and Representaitonal Change"
Abstract
November 27, 2012
Chris R. Sims, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Center for Visual Science and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
University of Rochester
Title: "Shared Computational Foundations of Visual Memory and Visual-Motor Coordination"
NOTE: This talk is on a Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. in MUEN D428/430.
Abstract
November 30, 2012
Benjamin K. Bergen
Associate Professor
Department of Cognitive Science
University of California, San Diego
Title: "Does Language Put Simulation in the Driver's Seat?"
NOTE: Prof. Bergen will be speaking in MUEN E214, on the east wing of the second floor.
Abstract
November 30, 2012
Tal Yarkoni, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Institute of Cognitive Science
University of Colorado Boulder
Title: "Studying Natural Language (more) Naturally with fMRI: An Informatics Approach"
NOTE: This talk will be presented at 3:30 p.m. in MUEN D428/430.
Abstract
December 7, 2012
Jarrod A. Lewis-Peacock, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Research Fellow
Princeton University
Title: "The Flexible Deployment of Memory Resources"
Abstract
December 11, 2012
Elizabeth Bonawitz, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Associate
University of California, Berkeley
Title: "How Children Change Their Minds"
NOTE: This talk is on a Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. in MUEN D428/430.
Abstract
December 14, 2012
Joseph Austerweil
Post-doctoral Researcher
Department of Psychology
University of California, Berkeley
Title: "Constructing Flexible Representations"
Abstract
Schedule for Spring 2012
**Note: Talks marked with a double asterisk are not ICS talks but are approved for the ICS Topics class.
January 17, 2012
-First day of classes
January 20, 2012
-Tal Yarkoni, Ph.D.
University of Colorado at Boulder, Wager Lab and ICS
Title: "Bridging the mind/brain gap with text: a novel framework for large-scale automated synthesis of functional MRI data"
Abstract:
The explosive growth of the human neuroimaging literature has led to major advances in understanding of human brain function, but has also made aggregation and synthesis of neuroimaging findings increasingly difficult. In this talk, I discuss some of the major challenges neuroimaging researchers face, and describe a novel brain mapping framework (Neurosynth) that uses text mining, meta-analysis and machine learning techniques to help address some of these challenges. The Neurosynth framework can be used to automatically conduct large-scale, high-quality neuroimaging meta-analyses, address long-standing inferential problems in the neuroimaging literature (e.g., how to infer cognitive states from distributed activity patterns), and support 'decoding' of broad cognitive states from brain activity in both entire studies and individual human subjects. I illustrate these applications with concrete examples from several domains, and introduce a web interface that provides access to the data and tools (http://neurosynth.org), before concluding with a discussion of future directions and potential avenues for integration with other tools.
February 7, 2012
-David McDonald, Ph.D
Associate Professor of The Information School, University of Washington
February 10, 2012
-Alice Healy, Ph.D.
University of Colorado at Boulder, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Title: "Specificity and Transfer of Learning"
Abstract:
Knowledge is often highly specific to the conditions of acquisition, so there is limited transfer of learning from training to testing. A series of studies is reported examining specificity and transfer of learning in three very different tasks, including digit data entry, speeded aiming, and time production. These studies address a variety of theoretical issues, including those involving mental practice, variability of practice, and task integration. Despite these differences across studies, they converge on the conclusion that specificity and transfer of learning are not mutually exclusive. That is, significant specificity can occur even when participants appear to transfer their learning from training to testing. Furthermore, the studies show that the extent of transfer and its direction (i.e., positive or negative) is largely dependent on the definition of transfer employed, the baseline level during training (i.e., start or end of training), and the dependent measure used to assess performance (e.g., initiation time or execution time).
February 17, 2012
-Kurt A. VanLehn
Arizona State University, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering.
March 2, 2012
-Dan Roth, Ph.D.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Computer Science
Title: " Learning from Natural Instructions"
Abstract
March 16, 2012
-Julia Evans, Ph.D.
San Diego State University, Director of Child Language & Cognitive Processes Lab
Title: "The impact implicit learning and development of conceptual knowledge in children with Specific Language Impairment"
Abstract:
It has recently been suggested that SLI is a domain general deficit in implicit learning. Ullman and colleagues have argued that the implicit learning impairments in SLI are restricted to procedural learning impairments and that these procedural learning deficits impact the acquisition and use of bound morphology and syntax; leaving the acquisition and use of the mental lexicon largely intact in children with SLI. In this talk I will present behavioral, EEG, and aMEG data from our lab that suggests that implicit learning deficits in SLI may extend beyond procedural learning to include other aspects of implicit learning as well; and show how these implicit learning deficits result in a qualitatively different developmental trajectory of the acquisition and use of lexical conceptual knowledge for children with SLI as compared to typically developing children.
March 23, 2012
-Jordan Boyd-Graber, Ph.D.
University of Maryland iSchool and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
Title: " Title: Making Topic Models more Human(e)"
Abstract
April 6, 2012
-Nikolaus J. Correll, Ph.D.
University of Colorado, Department of Computer Science
April 13, 2012
-Gregory Berns, MD, Ph. D.
Emory University, Professor of Neuroeconomics, Director of the Center for Neuropolicy
Title: "Neuroimaging of Brain-Culture Interactions"
Abstract:
I will present the results of two studies that examine the effects of society and culture on individual brain regions associated with decision making. 1) Sacred values, such as those associated with religious or ethnic identity, underlie many important individual and group decisions in life, and individuals typically resist attempts to trade-off their sacred values in exchange for material benefits. We utilized an experimental paradigm that used integrity as a proxy for sacredness and which paid real money to induce individuals to sell their personal values. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that values that people refused to sell (sacred values) were associated with increased activity in the left temporoparietal junction and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, regions previously associated with semantic rule retrieval. This suggests that sacred values affect behavior through the retrieval and processing of deontic rules and not through a utilitarian evaluation of costs and benefits. 2) Finally, we use neuroimaging to predict cultural popularity - something that is popular in the broadest sense and appeals to a large number of individuals. We used fMRI to measure the brain responses of a relatively small group of adolescents while listening to songs of largely unknown artists. As a measure of popularity, the sales of these songs were totaled for the three years following scanning, and brain responses were then correlated with these "future" earnings. Although subjective likability of the songs was not predictive of sales, activity within the ventral striatum was significantly correlated with the number of units sold. These results suggest that the neural responses to goods are not only predictive of purchase decisions for those individuals actually scanned, but such responses generalize to the population at large and may be used to predict cultural popularity.
April 27, 2012
-Andrew McCallum, Ph.D.
University of Massachusetts Amherst Professor, Computer Science Department
Title: "Structured Topic Models for Natural Language and Social Network Analysis"
Abstract
May 4, 2012
-ICS Fiesta and Poster Session
Schedule for Fall 2011
September 9, 2011
Opening Session, State of the Institute
--Marie Banich, Ph.D.
University of Colorado, Professor and Director, Institute of Cognitive Science
--Tammy Sumner, Ph.D.
University of Colorado, Associate Professor, Cognitive and Computer Science
--Mike Mozer, Ph.D.
University of Colorado, Professor, Computer Science
September 23, 2011
--Sean Kang, Ph.D.
University of California, San Diego, Post-doctoral Research Scholar, Department of Psychology
Title: "The Benefits of Retrieval Practice and Spacing for Learning"
Abstract:
A wealth of evidence from basic memory research has revealed two robust phenomena that have direct implications for education: (1) Testing is not a neutral event in which one's knowledge is merely assessed; the act of retrieving information from memory enhances the later retention of that information, and (2) practice that is distributed or spaced out in time (relative to practice that is crammed/massed) leads to more durable learning. However, the potential for retrieval practice and spacing to be potent learning tools has not been fully realized in practice, perhaps in part because laboratory research has often not focused enough on the sorts of concrete procedural choices that arise in real-world learning contexts. I will present new research demonstrating the utility of retrieval practice and/or spacing for learning across diverse domains (i.e., language acquisition, inductive/category learning). Importantly, the current studies were designed to better reflect realistic learning situations, and I will emphasize the potential application of these findings for improving educational practice.
September 30, 2011
--Paul Cohen, Ph.D.
University of Arizona, Professor and Director, School of Information: Science, Technology and Arts
Title: "Verb Meanings for Robots"
Abstract:
By now we know that robots can associate sensory patterns with words, thereby "grounding" word meanings. However, these patterns might not function as words in language (e.g., patterns associated with verbs might not have anything like a case structure); and they do not necessarily function as word meanings, either, in that they might be "semantically impotent," doing nothing for the robot. I will talk about what we want word meanings to do for robots (i.e., words help robots imagine scenes) and sketch some of our recent work on learning word meanings. The last part of my talk will be about nonliteral language, such as metaphor, and escaping from the "grounding" we tried so hard to achieve.Bio:
Paul Cohen is Professor of Computer Science and Director of the School of Information: Science, Technology and Arts. His research is in AI and Cognitive Science, and focuses on two broad questions: How can robots learn natural language and communicate with us in language, and how can information science and technology help to fix the problems of public education?
October 7, 2011
--Carol Seger, Ph.D.
Colorado State University, Professor, Cognitive Psychology
Title: "Decision Making and Learning in the Corticostriatal System"
Abstract:
The corticostriatal system is a recurrent network connecting basal ganglia with cortex through which the basal ganglia exert a plastic modulatory influence on cortical representations. Corticostriatal networks participate in a broad variety of cognitive processes, including executive functions, decision-making, response selection, and sequence and syntax processing. I will discuss several recent studies from my laboratory exploring the roles played by corticostriatal systems during categorization and other decision-making tasks. I will address how dopamine mediated plasticity within the corticostriatal system allows for continuous learning, which I will illustrate with studies using reinforcement learning approaches to model brain activity during category learning. If time permits, I will conclude with a discussion of how the corticostriatal system interacts with the medial temporal lobe memory system during learning and memory tasks.
October 28, 2011
--Ken Koedinger, Ph.D.
Carnegie Mellon University, Professor, Human Computer Interaction Institute
Title: "The Knowledge-Learning-Instruction (KLI) Framework: Bridging the Science-Practice Chasm to Enhance Robust Student Learning"
Abstract:
Despite the accumulation of substantial cognitive science research relevant to education, there remains confusion and controversy in the application of research to educational practice. In support of a more systematic approach, my colleagues and I in the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center (see learnlab.org) have developed the Knowledge-Learning-Instruction (KLI) framework. KLI promotes the emergence of instructional principles of high potential for generality, while explicitly identifying constraints of and opportunities for detailed analysis of the knowledge students may acquire in courses. Drawing on research across domains of science, math, and language learning, we illustrate the analyses of knowledge, learning, and instructional events that the KLI framework affords. We present a set of three coordinated taxonomies of knowledge, learning, and instruction. For example, we identify three broad classes of learning events: a) memory and fluency processes, b) induction and refinement processes, c) understanding and sense-making processes, and we show how these can lead to different knowledge changes and constraints on optimal instructional choices.
November 4, 2011
--Tor Wager, Ph.D.
Institute of Cognitive Science, Psychology & Neuroscience, University of Colorado
Title: "Shared and Divergent Representations of Physical and Emotional Pain in the Central Nervous System"
Abstract:
Pain is a subjective experience created at the intersection of somatosensation and meaning. Because of its complex origin in the central nervous system, pain has defied objective measurement, making it difficult to study its genesis and develop effective treatments. Here, I present new efforts to use machine learningtechniques to develop objective, interpretable biomarkers for pain in the human brain. I demonstrate that physical pain can be differentiated from socially induced emotional distress by fine-grained patterns of activity within both somatosensory and meaning-generation systems. The resulting biomarkers for physical and social "pain" could be used as targets for future studies of how both psychological and pharmacological treatments influence each type of distress.
November 11, 2011
--John Lynch, Ph.D.
University of Colorado, Leeds School of Business, Professor and Director of Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making
November 18, 2011
--Tamara Sumner, Donna Caccamise, Lee Becker, Les Sikos, and Michael Mozer
Institute of Cognitive Science
Title: "Findings and Recommendations from the ICS Self Study"
Abstract:
Self Study Committee: Tamara Sumner, Donna Caccamise, Lee Becker, Les Sikos, Michael MozerIn this colloquium, we will present and discuss the results and recommendations emerging from the ICS Self Study process, taking place this semester as part of the CU Academic Review Process. The recommendations include expansions to our research programs, changes to our degree and certificate programs, and changes to our communication processes. We will also review and discuss the resource requests the Institute is asking of the University, including additional faculty lines, graduate student support, administrative support, and research facilities. This process will inform the Institute's Strategic Plan, so please be sure to come and contribute your energy and ideas about how to improve the Institute.
December 2, 2011
--William Penuel, Ph.D.
University of Colorado, Professor, Educational Psychology and Learning Sciences, School of Education
Schedule for Spring 2011
**Note: Talks marked with a double asterisk are not ICS talks but are approved for the ICS Topics class.
January 13-14, 2011
-IBSC Conference
January 28, 2011
-Thomas Hauser
Director of Research Computing, University of Colorado at Boulder
**February 3, 2011
--Special Lecture Center for Research on Training (MUEN E214 12:00-1:00pm), Michael Mozer
Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder
Title: "Exploiting spacing effects for practical benefit: The Colorado optimized language training (COLT) project"
February 4, 2011
--Al Kim
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado at Boulder
**February 10, 2011
--Special Lecture Center for Research on Training (MUEN E214 12:00-1:00pm), Christopher Wickens
University of Colorado, Alion Science and Technology Corporation
Title: "Training strategies and their attention demands: A meta-analysis approach"
Abstract:
This talk is in three parts. Part 1 will address the theoretical causes of the dissociation between learning and transfer, in the context of cognitive load theory (CLT), and will show how this dissociation is reflected in a series of training strategies related to Part task training, learner control, exploratory learning, "training wheels" and adaptive training. Part 2 will describe a novel meta-analytic approach based on ratio scores, that we have applied to examine the effectiveness of these training strategies, outlining both the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, which can complement more traditional approaches. Part 3 will examine the specific applications of this approach to part task training and to learner control. If time allows, the implications of the CLT dissociation to organizational purchase of training material will be described.
February 11, 2011
--Mike Mozer & Randy O'Reilly
Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder; Professor, Department of Psychology and Neuroscienc, University of Colorado at Boulder
**February 17, 2011
--Special Lecture Center for Research on Training (MUEN E214 12:00-1:00pm), Alice Healy
University of Colorado at Boulder
Title: "Principles of Training"
Abstract:
We have been conducting experiments aimed to identify and emprically support principles of training that can provide guidelines to trainers to enhance training effectiveness. These experiments include tests of the generality across tasks of individual principles, multiple principles in a single task, principles in complex dynamic environments, and new principles.
February 18, 2011
--Leon Gmeindl
Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
Title: "Revealing the nature of spatial working memory: effects of perceptual segregation, selective attention, and neurodegeneration"
Abstract:
Leon Gmeindl, Ph.D.
Psychological & Brain Sciences
Johns Hopkins UniversityThe ability to hold in mind the locations of objects when those objects are no longer visible plays an essential role in everyday, real-world performance; for example, while driving a car, one should keep track of nearby vehicles that are currently in one’s blind spot. Despite the vital importance of this ability for supporting goal-driven behavior and visual cognition, many questions remain regarding fundamental characteristics of spatial working memory: In what form and by what mechanisms are locations maintained in working memory? Are spatial representations and mechanisms influenced by object properties? By voluntary selective attention? What limits the capacity of spatial working memory? Is it difficult to bind together space and time (e.g., serial order) in working memory? In this talk, I will provide an overview of research that my collaborators and I have conducted with both healthy adults and individuals with multiple sclerosis that begins to illuminate these fundamental characteristics of spatial working memory.
February 25, 2011
--Alessandro Moschitti
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Trento
March 4, 2011
--Aaron Clauset
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science; University of Colorado at Boulder
March 11, 2011
--Tom Mitchell
Fredkin University Professor and Department Head, Machine Learning Department School of Computer Science; Carnegie Mellon University
April 15, 2011
--Bhuvana Narasimhan & Jill Duffield
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Colorado at Boulder; Graduate Student ICS Travel Award Winner, University of Colorado at Boulder
April 29, 2011
--ICS Poster Session Fiesta
Schedule for Fall 2010
September 10, 2010
--ICS Opening Session and Fellows Meeting
September 24, 2010
--Mike Mozer
Professor, Department of Computer Science and Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado
October 8, 2010
Anna Papafragou
Associate Professor of Psychology and secondary appointment in Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware
Title: "Space in Language and Cognition"
Abstract:
The linguistic expression of space draws from and is constrained by basic, probably universal, elements of perceptual/cognitive structure. Nevertheless, there are considerable cross-linguistic differences in how these fundamental space concepts are segmented and packaged into sentences. This cross-linguistic variation has led to the question whether the language one speaks could affect the way one thinks about space - hence whether speakers of different languages differ in the way they see the world. This talk addresses this question through a series of cross-linguistic experiments comparing the linguistic and non-linguistic representation of motion and space in both adults and children. Taken together, the experiments reveal remarkable similarities in the way space is perceived, remembered and categorized despite differences in how spatial scenes are encoded cross-linguistically.
October 22, 2010
Gary Dell
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Susan Garnsey
Associate Professor and Associate Head for Graduate Affairs, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Title: "Freudian slips and aphasia: Continuity, interaction, and attention"
Abstract: Gary Dell
I'll review some things that Freud said about speech errors, and relate these to properties of paraphasias by means of a computational model of lexical access during production. It turns out that, although Freud was wrong about the most famous thing he said about speech errors, he was not far off base on other claims.Title: "Prosody and the Resolution of Temporary Ambiguity in English Sentences"
Abstract: Susan Garnsey
Many English sentences are temporarily ambiguous. For example, a sentence beginning with “The referees warned the spectators …” could continue such that the spectators were the ones getting warned (“…about getting too rowdy.”) or such that they were not (“…might get too rowdy.”). The focus of the talk will be on the role of spoken prosody in disambiguating such temporarily ambiguous sentences. In one study, spoken sentences were elicited and their prosodic properties were measured. In another, event-related brain potentials were collected while people listened to prosodically disambiguated spoken sentences. In both studies, prosody contributed and interacted with other properties of the stimulus sentences such as the lexical biases of particular verbs.
October 29, 2010
-- Suzanne Stevenson
Professor, Department of Computer Science; Vice Dean, Teaching & Learning in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, University of Toronto
November 12, 2010
-- Anu Sharma
Professor, University of Colorado at Boulder; Adjunt Professor, University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center;
Adjuct Professor University of Texas at Dallas, Callier Center for Communication Disorders
Title: "A Critical Period for the Development of the Central Auditory Pathways"
Abstract
December 3, 2010
-- Jenny Saffran
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin
Title: "Beyond nature vs. nurture: Changing views of infant language acquisition"
Abstract:
The claim that infants can track statistical patterns in their linguistic environment, once controversial, is now widely accepted. However, the relationship between infant statistical learning and the process of language acquisition remains unclear. In this talk, I will present results from multiple lines of research that converge to support the claim that statistical learning processes play a role in at least some aspects of language acquisition, including the discovery of word boundaries in unfamiliar natural languages, mapping novel words to their referents and to lexical categories, and individual differences in native language attainment.
Schedule for Spring 2010
**Note: Talks marked with a double asterisk are not ICS talks but are approved for the ICS Topics class.
January 22, 2010
-Marie Banich Talk
Title: "The implications of developmental science for the law: Data from the MacArthur Foundation Culpability Study"
Abstract:
In this talk I will discuss a study designed to specifically examine the issue of how developmental science might inform legal reasoning as well as practice in the juvenile justice system. This study, rather than originating from a scientific question, originated from a legal one. The issue of translation between these two systems that use somewhat different approaches to reasoning will be considered. In addition data will be presented that suggests that the attainment of "adulthood" may occur much later than previously thought.
** Tuesday January 26, 2010
-10:00: Dr. Ben Shneiderman
Professor, Computer Science, University of Maryland at College Park
Title: "A National Initiative for Technology-Mediated Social/Civic Participation"
Abstract
-11:00: Clarisse Sieckenius de Sauza
Associate Professor and Founder of the Semiotic Research Group,
Department of Computer Science, at Pontifícia Universidad Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Title: " HCI design and development as a form of social participation"
Abstract
** February 12, 2010
-Dr. Candace (Candy) Sidney
Research Professor, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Abstract
February 19, 2010
-Clayton Lewis
Professor, Computer Science
Title "Dreconstructing higher education: Beyond having learning goals" ("dreconstructing is intended, not a typo)
Abstract:
University education has changed remarkably little in 800 years. Is it possible that we will see sweeping change in our lifetimes? Notoriously, the development of new technologies for creating, storing, finding, and sharing information is changing large industries in fundamental ways, through processes of disintermediation and deconstruction. From this viewpoint, current educational reform may be of marginal importance, next to questions of purpose, structure, and resource flow that we seldom consider. What do people want to learn, and why? Who will pay? Will the system of cross subsidies that supports current university structures survive increasingly open access to educational resources and services?
March 12, 2010
-Dr. Laura Michaelis & Jill Duffield
Professor and Grad Student, Linguistics Dept., Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado
Abstract
March 19, 2010
-Dr. Leysia Palen
Assistant Professor, University of Colorado
Abstract
April 2, 2010
-Sean Kang
Post-doctoral Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego
Title: "Enhancing Learning and Memory Through Testing"
Abstract:
The traditional view of (memory) tests is that they measure the amount of learning that has taken place. However, a wealth of research has demonstrated that taking a test not only assesses one's knowledge, but also changes the state of that knowledge. Specifically, receiving a test after an initial learning experience produces better retention of the material, relative to not receiving that test. This phenomenon has been dubbed the “testing effect." Several aspects of this effect which seem crucial for its practical application require further exploration: Are different test formats (recall vs. multiple-choice) equally effective? Are there metamemorial predictors of when a person would choose to self-test? Does testing have consequences for metamemory? Does producing an erroneous response on a test affect learning from feedback? I will present experiment findings that address these questions.
April 9, 2010
-Dr. Gail Ramsberger
Professor, SLHS, University of Colorado
April 23, 2010 ICS Poster Session Fiesta
Schedule for Fall 2009
**Note: Talks marked with a double asterisk are not ICS talks but are approved for the ICS Topics class.
September 11, 2009
-- ICS Opening Session and Fellows Meeting
**Monday, September, 14, 2009
-- Dr. Al Kim ICS/Department of Psychology
Psychology Colloquium Series
4:00 pm -- Muen E214
September 18, 2009
-- Alaa Ahmed
Assistant Professor, Department of Integrated Physiology, University of Colorado
Title: "Stretching the truth about Object Dynamics"
Abstract
September 25, 2009
-- Tech Transfer Discussion
David Jilk, CEO of eCortex, Dr. Brad Bernthal, Faculty, University of Colorado School of Law,
Kate Tallman, Director of Technology Transfer, and Dr. Randy O'Reilly, Professor, Psychology and Neurology.
Title: "From Lab to Entrepreneurship: The eCortex Case Study and CU Resources In Support of ICS Tech Transfer"
Abstract
October 2, 2009
-- Bhuvana Narasimhan
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Colorado
October 9, 2009
-- Katrin Erk
Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin.
Title: "Investigating Graded Meaning Representations"
Abstract
October 23, 2009
-- Tom Landauer
Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado
Title: "The Word Maturity metric: Teaching the right words to the right student at the right time"
November 6, 2009
-- Barbara Wise
Research Associate, CLEAR/ICS, University of Colorado
November 13, 2009
-- T.V. Raman
Researcher and Developer of accessible technology at Google
Title: "Eyes-Free Interaction On Mobile Devices"
Abstract
December 4, 2009
-- Dr. Michael A Eisenberg
Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado
Schedule for Fall 2008
September 5, 2008
-- ICS Membership Meeting
at British Studies Room, Norlin
September 12, 2008
-- Dr. Matt Jones
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado
Title: "Implications of Sequential Effects for Knowledge Representation and Generalization"
Abstract:
Sequential effects during learning offer a unique window on knowledge representation and perceptual and decision processes. Experiments with probabilistic category learning reveal two separate recency effects, one perceptual and the other decisional. The decisional recency effect reflects generalization of category knowledge between successive stimuli, and as such it offers clear evidence about the nature of category representations, as well as the perceptual representations of the stimuli themselves and attentional processes that mediate between these two levels. These results are all consistent with a mathematical model based on reinforcement learning and generalization. The final portion of this talk will present an extension of the model to identification tasks, and recent experiments comparing it to the dominant theory of sequential effects in that domain based on relative judgment.
September 19, 2008
-- Dr. William Schuler
Assistant Professor, CS Department, University of Minnesota, and recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
Title: "A Simple Computational Model of Interactive Language Processing"
Abstract
September 26, 2008
-- James Alexander, PhD
Senior Systems Architect, Tanberg Television
Title: "Pragmatic issues in developing Digital Television Products and Software: Where can HCI be useful?"
Abstract:
This talk will focus on the opportunities and roadblocks HCI practitioners face in large- scale software development projects, such as the delivery of Digital Television services. Based practical experience from a number product development efforts it will offer some ideas on how both individuals and HCI as a discipline can focus for the best results. After doing early Human-Computer Interaction research at CU in the 1980s, Jim Alexander has spent most of the two decades developing interactive services and software for the Internet and Digital Television industry. Prior to his joining Tandberg Television he worked for U S WEST, MediaOne, ATT Broadband, Microsoft and Echostar.
Oct 3rd, 2008
-- Dr. Elena Paducheva
Research scientist at All-Russian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow
Title: "Verb Taxonomy and Decompositional Semantics of Lexicon"
Abstract
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
-- DEFD/IBSC Open House
To be scheduled around homecoming game activities- hosted in MUEN
Oct 10th, 2008
-- SLC Mini Grant presentations (4 & 5)
4: Sumner, Healy & Martin
5: Sumiya, Colunga, & Narashimhan
Oct 17th, 2008
-- SLC Mini Grant presentations (2 & 3)
2: Kim, Palmer & Grudic
3: LeBel, Sharma, & Colunga
Thur Oct 23 & Fri Oct 24th, 2008
-- DEFD/IBSC Conference
Two Day IBSC conference at CINC
October 27, 2008
-- Dr. Anthony Wagner
3:00-5:00 p.m. MUEN D430/428 -- DEFD/IBSC
ICS speaker sponsored by physiology
November 7, 2008
-- Dr. Ned Block
Silver Professor Departments of Philosophy and Psychology New York University (hosts Ruper/Mozer)
Abstract:
The talk argues that some of the evidence that shows that the retina is not part of the physical
basis of conscious experience also shows that the body and world are not part of the physical basis of
conscious experience.
November 14, 2008
-- Dr. Michael Spivey
Associate Professor, Cornell University
Host- Al Kim
Title: "Interactions Between Language and Vision
Abstract:
In this talk, I will report on a number of findings from my lab that suggest bi- directional influences between language and vision. From visual search to speech perception, the results suggest that sometimes language can tell vision what to do, and sometimes vision can tell language what to do. Along with many other studies, these findings of fluid interaction point toward an account of perceptual/cognitive processing that can accommodate linguistic and visual processes in a common format of representation: a "continuity of mind", if you will.
Monday, December 8th, 2008
-- Thompson Schill
3:00-5:00 p.m. MUEN D430/428 -- DEFD/IBC
ICS speaker sponsored by physiology
Schedule for Spring 2008
January 25, 2008
-- Michael Eisenberg
Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Colorado
Title: "Educational Technology: Escaping from Cognitive Science"
Abstract:
The language and concerns of cognitive science, as a discipline, have had an enormous and largely positive influence on the design of educational technology. When pursued to the exclusion of other viewpoints, however, those concerns tend to limit designers' imaginations. In particular, there has been a traditional focus on "schools, skills, and screens" in the design of children's technology. This talk will describe a variety of projects that we have undertaken in the Craft Technology Laboratory here at CU. In many ways, our concerns run counter to those most strongly influenced by traditional cognitive science. Rather than focus on classroom instruction, our projects look toward the larger arena of children's lives and interests outside school. Rather than focus on skill acquisition, we try to create content-rich, motivating, and dignified activities for children. And rather than focus exclusively on desktop computers and screen-based applications, we try to explore novel ways in which technology can be incorporated into a wide range of material artifacts and settings.
February 22, 2008
-- Dr. Tamara Sumner and Sebastain de la Chica
Computer Science Department, University of Colorado
Title: "Computational Infrastructure for Personalizing Instruction"
Abstract:
A key finding from learning research is that every student brings preconceptions about how the world works to every learning situation, and that these initial understandings need to be explicitly targeted as part of an effective instructional process. We are developing a suite of sophisticated software algorithms capable of personalizing instruction based on a real-time analysis of what students understand about a particular topic. These algorithms use machine learning and natural language processing algorithms, coupled with graph analysis techniques, to automatically: (1) analyze student essays to assess current student understandings and misconceptions and (2) use these assessments to provide personalized retrieval, delivery, and presentation of educational resources drawn from digital libraries and other content repositories. We have demonstrated the feasibility of this approach for one target age group and science topic: high school plate tectonics. These algorithms are designed to be flexibly layered over collections of web-based learning materials, in effect making it possible to embed intelligent tutoring or adaptive learning capabilities into a wide variety of web-based learning environments. We will present two complementary prototypes of adaptive learning environments designed around these personalization algorithms. One of these prototypes is currently being used to evaluate how this approach to personalization impacts student learning.
February 29, 2008
-- Dr. Clayton Lewis, Professor of Computer Science, CU,
ICS Fellow, and Scientist in Residence at the Coleman Institute
Title: "Highlights from the 2008 Human-Computer Interaction Consortium (HCIC) conference, Winter Park, CO."
March 7, 2008
--Brenda Schick
Associate Professor of SLHS, University of Colorado
Title: "Theory of Mind (False Belief) and Language Development in Deaf Children"
Abstract:
An important milestone in the development of social cognitive skills in children is the acquisition of a Theory of Mind (Tom), which is the ability to represent and reason about their own and other's beliefs. When children have acquired a Tom, they are able to see events from the perspective of other individuals. For typically-developing children, there has been a great deal of theoretical debate about what causes or underlies the acquisition of Tom. By about age four, children show dramatic changes in their awareness of other people’s minds, often demonstrated by their understanding that other people may have beliefs that are wrong. However, for children who are deaf, and who do not have complete access to communication, this benchmark of development often occurs much later. I will present the results of a recent large-scale study with deaf children who have deaf parents and who have hearing parents. For the deaf children with hearing parents, we have data from children educated in ASL programs and from oral programs. These data show that language is a critical, causal variable in the development of a Tom, as shown by multiple regression analysis, even when Tom tasks that involve minimal language skills are used. I will also present data showing that a deaf child’s development of Tom is related to their mother’s ability to talk about mental state concepts, even during the early elementary years. Discussion will focus on which aspects of language are implicated in Tom abilities.
March 14, 2008
-- Mark McDaniel
Professor of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis
Title: "Improving Student Training: Importing Basic Memory Principles into the Classroom"
Abstract: I will consider some key constructs identified in basic memory research such as the total-time hypothesis, desirable difficulty, transfer-appropriate processing, and the mnemonic effects of retrieval. I develop concrete translations of those constructs for training situations (formal educational settings), and discuss our research that evaluates how these translations fare in improving learning and retention of course content. This research includes experiments conducted in college and middle school classrooms.
April 4, 2008
-- Lise Menn and GWAPA Team
Professor (Emeritus) of Linguistics, University of Colorado
Abstract: Our work focuses on assistive technologies for people with mild-to moderate aphasia and other mild language disorders in the use of the World Wide Web. This medium is particularly challenging for people with language disorders because of the amount information packed into pages, complex language, idiosyncratic terminology, complexities of page layouts, and demand for language input (such as during Web search). Nevertheless, the Web and e-mail are of tremendous value to people with aphasia, who have residual reading ability, because working off-line reduces the strain and social pressures communicating face-to-face. Our group (Alison Hilger, Ling.; Kirill Kireyev, CS; Clayton Lewis, CS; Jim Martin, CS; Lise Menn, Ling.; Gail Ramsberger, SLHS), in consultation with colleagues elsewhere, is developing ways assist people with aphasia with Web use. We interview and observe people with aphasia, documenting their successes and difficulties in using the Web. Our interdisciplinary research involves methods from linguistics, cognitive science, human-computer interaction and ethnography to study the user population and challenges they face. Based on this research we develop natural language processing technologies to facilitate reading, navigation and word production in the electronic media.
April 11, 2008
-- Dr. Nora S. Newcombe
Professor of Psychology, James H. Glackin Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Temple University
Title: "Educating Spatial Intelligence"
Abstract:
5 propositions: Spatial intelligence is important. Spatial intelligence can be improved. Specific educational techniques to foster spatial intelligence are within our grasp. There are sex-linked (and SES-linked) differences in spatial intelligence. Addressing these differences is important for social equity. Reading—on my website—Taking science seriously--
April 18, 2008
-- Dr. Zygmunt Frajzyngier
Department of Linguistics, University of Colorado
May 2, 2008
ICS Student and Membership Poster Session and Fiesta
Schedule for Fall 2007
August 20, 2007 @ 3:00
-- Kate Cain
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Fylde College, Lancaster University
Title: "Poor comprehenders' inference making difficulties: causes and consequences"
Abstract: Reading comprehension is considered the ultimate aim of reading, but some children experience significant problems with text comprehension despite age-appropriate word reading ability. Children with poor reading comprehension differ from good comprehenders in many key text-processing skills, notably inference and integration. In this talk, I will review my research investigating the inference-making difficulties experienced by poor comprehenders and examine possible sources of these difficulties: limitations in general knowledge, strategic knowledge, and memory. I will also present recent findings that shed light on the wider impacts that inference-making deficits might have on learning from text, and literacy development in general.
August 24, 2007 @ 12:00
-- Danielle S. McNamara
Associate Professor, Psychology/Institute for Intelligent Systems (IIS), University of Memphis
Title: "Scaffolding Coherence in Mind of the Reader"
Abstract:
The quality of a reader’s understanding of a text is often referred to in terms of coherence. A coherent mental representation of a text or passage indicates that the reader has generated numerous inferences to link concepts within the text to each other and to concepts in prior knowledge. Thus, one research goal is to discover methods to scaffold readers toward more coherent representations of text. In our lab, we have been approaching this goal from two perspectives: the text and the reader (see csep.psyc.memphis.edu). From the perspective of the text, we have investigated the role of text cohesion and how that influences the coherence of readers’ understanding of text. Specifically, we’ve investigated the effects of text cohesion, and how those effects depend on other factors such as readers’ abilities (e.g., knowledge, reading skill). We’ve investigated these interactive effects using both comprehension measures and eye-tracking measures, and with both young readers (ages 8-10 years) and college students. We have also developed an automated tool that assesses the cohesion of text as well as a multitude of other characteristics of text (see cohmetrix.memphis.edu). From the perspective of the reader, we have investigated the importance of reading strategies to text comprehension and the benefits of providing reading strategy training. We have developed an automated tutoring system called iSTART (Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking; see iSTARTreading.com) that helps students to learn reading strategies. The results of studies with high-school and college students show that the intervention is effective, and is most effective for students who tend to have the most trouble creating coherence from text, that is, those with less domain knowledge and those who are less skilled readers. Together, these projects show that a combined approach of increasing the cohesion of text and teaching students to engage in active reading strategies may provide a path toward coherence.
September 7, 2007 (SLC)
-- Margaret Burnett
Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Oregon State University
Title:"Gender HCI and End-User Programming: What About the Software?"
Abstract:
Although there have been many studies designed to understand and ameliorate the low representation of females in computing, there has been little research into how software itself fits into the picture. This talk reports the investigations we have been conducting into whether and how software and its features affect females' and males' performance in computing tasks. Our focus is on how "gender-neutral" software interacts with gender differences. Specifically, we have concentrated on software aimed at supporting everyday users doing what amounts to end-user programming. For example, what if females would be better at working with end-user programming software such as Excel, if the software were changed to take gender differences into account?
September 14, 2007
-- ICS Membership and Fellows Meeting
September 28, 2007
-- Nianwen (Bert) Xue
Research Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science - Palmer Lab
October 5, 2007
-- Ben Shneiderman
Professor of Computer Science, Founding Director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, University of Maryland
Title: "Creativity Support Tools: Accelerating Discovery & Innovation"
Abstract:
Creativity Support Tools is a research topic with high risk but potentially very high payoff. The goal is to develop improved software and user interfaces that empower diverse users in the sciences and arts to go beyond productivity and be more creative. Potential users include a combination of software and other engineers, diverse scientists, product and graphic designers, and architects, as well as writers, poets, musicians, new media artists, and many others. Enhanced interfaces could enable more effective searching of intellectual resources, improved collaboration among teams, and more rapid discovery processes. These advanced interfaces should also provide potent support in goal setting, speedier exploration of alternatives, improved understanding through visualization, and better dissemination of results (demos will be shown). For creative endeavors that require composition of novel artifacts (computer programs, engineering diagrams, symphonies, animations, artwork), enhanced interfaces could facilitate rapid exploration of alternatives, prevent unproductive choices, and enable easy backtracking. This talk provides a framework for systematic study of creativity. Two key issues are (1) Formulation of guidelines for design of creativity support tools (2) Novel research methods to assess creativity support tools.
October 12, 2007
-- Ken Forbus
Professor of Computer Science and Education at Northwestern
Title: "Steps towards human-level AI"
Abstract:
A confluence of three factors is changing the kinds of AI experiments that can be done: (1) increasing computational power, (2) off-the- shelf representational resources, and (3) steady scientific progress, both in AI and in other areas of Cognitive Science. Consequently, I believe it is time for the field to spend more of its energy experimenting with larger-scale systems, and attempting to capture larger constellations of human cognitive abilities. This talk will summarize experiments with two larger-scale systems we have built at Northwestern: (1) Learning to solve AP Physics problems, in the Companions cognitive architecture. In an evaluation conducted by the Educational Testing Service, a Companion showed it was able to transfer knowledge across multiple types of variant problems. (2) Learning by reading, using the Learning Reader prototype. Learning Reader includes a novel process, rumination, where the system improves its learning by asking itself questions about material it has read.Bio:
Kenneth D. Forbus is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Education at Northwestern University. His research interests include qualitative reasoning, analogy and similarity, sketch understanding, spatial reasoning, cognitive simulation, reasoning system design, articulate educational software, and the use of AI in computer gaming. He received his degrees from MIT (Ph.D. in 1984). He is a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the Cognitive Science Society, and the Association for Computing Machinery. He serves on the editorial boards of Cognitive Science, the AAAI Press, and on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Game Development.
October 26, 2007 (SLC)
-- SLC Student Presentations
Johanna Blumenthal, Chandra Brodje, and Claudia Folksa will be discussing the focus of their summer research funded by the Science of Learning Center Grant.
Abstract: "Evaluating Third Through Sixth Grade Students' Answers to Science Questions: A Categorization of Inference and Knowledge"
Johanna Blumenthal
This research developed a model which was intended to categorize all of the factors involved in judging conceptual equivalence between a student's answer and a provided reference answer to science questions. A corpus of student answers to various science questions was then annotated according to this model.The research includes a description of the annotation and development processes of the inference and knowledge model.Abstract: "Word Learning in Hard-of-hearing Children"
Chandra Brojde
Children are often biased in the way that they learn new words. These biases may be built from generalizations that children make based on past language experience and often help speed up word learning, in particular, they speed up vocabulary learning. For example, children who are biased to focus on shape as a way to extend words to object categories have larger vocabularies. Some populations, such as deaf and hard-of-hearing (HH) children, often have very small vocabulary sizes and do not show this shape bias. In the current study, we extended to a HH population, a training program that has previously been shown to increase non-HH children's vocabularies by several percentage points to ask whether this same training would help HH children. After training HH and non-HH children with shape-based categories, results suggest that the training program promoted vocabulary learning for the non-HH children but not the HH children. Further coding of the data showed no difference between groups in the amount of overt attention paid to the experimenter or the target trainedobjects, suggesting that HH children's small vocabularies and shape-bias are not due to differences in the amount of overt attention focused on word-object shape pairings.
Abstract: "Beyond Boundaries"
Claudia Folksa
The aim of this research is to learn how people without sight extract and process information from their built environment. Specifically, what mechanisms and systems are in play as people who are blind learn, modify or augment travel routes in their environment? Discovering what methods of learning are used will shed light on how this population acquires wayfinding and spatial navigation knowledge, and generalizes and applies this knowledge to new circumstances. The methods to be employed in the summer research experience include both quantitative and qualitative data analysis.
November 2, 2007
-- Aravind Joshi
Henry K. Salvatore Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania
Title: "Towards Discourse Meaning: Complexity Of Dependencies At The Discourse Level And At The Sentence Level"
Abstract: My overall goal will be to discuss some issues concerning the dependencies at the discourse level and at the sentence level. However, first I will briefly describe the Penn Discourse Treebank (PDTB)*, a corpus in which we annotate the discourse connectives (explicit and implicit) and their arguments together with "attributions" of the arguments and the relations denoted by the connectives, and also the senses of the connectives. I will then focus on the complexity of dependencies in terms of (a) the elements that bear the dependency relations, (b) graph theoretic properties of these dependencies such as nested and crossed dependencies, dependencies with shared arguments, and (c) attributions and their relationship to the dependencies, among others. We will compare these dependencies with those at the sentence level and discuss some issues that relate to the transition from the sentence level to the level of "immediate discourse" and propose some conjectures.
*This 1 million-word corpus is the same as the WSJ corpus used by the Penn Treebank (PTB) for syntactic annotation and by Propbank for predicate-argument annotation. PDTB 2.0 is expected to be released by LDC in early January 2008.
November 9, 2007
-- Dr. Paul M. Churchland
Valtz Chair of Philosophy University of California, San Diego, CA
November 30, 2007 (SLC)
--Michael H. Goldstein
Assistant Professor & Director, Eleanor J. Gibson Laboratory of Developmental Psychology, Cornell University
Title: "Social Responses to Babbling catalyze Speech Development and Word Learning"
Abstract
December 7, 2007
-- Rebecca Scarborough
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, University of Colorado
Schedule for Spring 2007
January 19, 2007
-- Bill Dolan (Microsoft)
Title: "Paraphrase as an emergent property of the web."
Abstract:
Many natural language processing applications require the ability to recognize when two text segments ? however superficially distinct ? overlap semantically. Question-Answering (QA), Information Extraction (IE), command-and-control, and multi- document summarization are examples of applications that need precise information about the relationship between different text segments. The last few years have seen a surge in interest in modeling these phenomena, but efforts to machine-learn paraphrase recognition/ generation models have been hampered by a lack of training data. While some datasets (e.g. parallel news articles, multiple translations of the same original text) do exist, their scale is too limited to support broad-coverage semantic models. This talk will describe some of the techniques used to model paraphrase relationships, discuss the limitations stemming from current restrictions on data size, and finally, describe a web- based data collection technique that addresses many of these limitations. Bill Dolan is a Senior Researcher and the manager of the Natural Language Processing Group at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington. He has worked on many aspects of semantic processing, including word sense disambiguation and MindNet, a large-scale lexical knowledge base built automatically from free text. His current interests include paraphrase recognition/generation and machine translation.
February 2, 2007 (SLC)
-- Edward (Joe) Redish
Professor of Physics, University of Maryland
Title: "Generalization in Physics: Perspectives from Practice and Theory"
Abstract:
Children learn many basic components of their adult knowledge by forming patterns and generalizing - grammar, counting, basic math, and physical phenomenology. The question addressed in this talk is: what role does generalization play in scientists developing new knowledge and students learning existing complex science? This talk has three parts. In the first part, I will demonstrate a pedagogical example from introductory physics that shows how generalization and specialization take turns leading in an intricate, interactive dance in the construction of new scientific knowledge. In the second part, I will show how we applied a similar process of moving between generalization and specialization to understand how students approach problem solving in introductory physics. Analyzing ethnographic data of students solving physics problems, we conclude that much of their behavior can be described by a cognitive structure we refer to as an epistemic game - a local coherence in behavior. The games they choose can be either productive or counterproductive in helping them solve a problem. In the third part, I will raise the question whether the concepts of generalizing and specializing, which were useful in describing the processes in the first two parts of the talk, are the best way to describe what students are doing as they learn. A more useful language might be to talk about activation, association, binding, and contextual framing.Brief Bio:
E. F. (Joe) Redish is a Professor of Physics and an affiliate Professor of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Maryland. For over twenty-five years he was an active researcher in theoretical nuclear physics. He always had a strong interest in teaching, and, upon discovering that a classroom was an even more complex strongly-interacting many-body system than a nucleus, switched his field of research to physics education. For more than a decade, Joe has been a leader in helping to establish a discipline-based education research community within physics. He has researched a variety of topics ranging from the implications of student expectations for their behavior in introductory physics to the difficulties advanced students have with quantum mechanics. His current interest is in building theoretical models for science education with ties to neuroscience, cognitive science, and the behavioral sciences. He is the winner of numerous awards for his education work including the Millikan Medal from the American Association of Physics Teachers, the Director's Distinguished Teaching Scholar award from the National Science Foundation, and a Distinguished Scholar- Teacher award at the University of Maryland.
February 15, 2007 (Psychology Talk held in MUEN D-430/428)
-- Jeremy Wolfe
Professor of Ophthalmology, Harvard
Title: "Visual Search: Is it a matter of life and death?"
Abstract:
Like Gaul, this talk is divided into three parts: 1) I will give an introduction to the problem of visual search and to the Guided Search model that my lab has been working on for a number of years. The details of Guided Search will be discussed in my other talk. 2) I will place the problem of search into the larger context of visual perception and show how our need to use selective attention leads to some interesting perceptual errors. 3) Finally, in an effort to convince you that my particular intellectual obsessions are, in fact, "a matter of life and death". I will discuss an important practical problem in search. Rare targets are hard to find simply because they are rare. We ask people to find rare targets in some very important tasks like airport baggage screening and routine mammography so, if low target prevalence makes search difficult, this could be a real problem.
February 16, 2007 (To be held in MUEN E-214)
-- Jeremy Wolfe
Professor of Ophthalmology, Harvard
Title: "Guided Search 5.0: Toward a "scenic" upgrade"
Abstract: Guided Search is a model of human visual search behavior. It has several core beliefs and an endless collection of details and problems. Belief One: There is a serial bottleneck between the massively parallel first stages of visual processing and the massively parallel processes that permit object recognition. Only one object (or perhaps a very few objects) can be recognized at one time. Belief Two: Access to that bottleneck is under the control of visual selective attention. Attentional process select objects at a rate of something like 20-40 objects per second. Belief Three: Selection can be guided by a limited number of attributes that are abstracted from those massively parallel first stages of visual processing. Assuming that we get beyond those basics, we will discuss: Problem One: How can we account for the distributions of reaction times. Problem Two: How do we know when to quit when we don't find a target? Problem Three: Can Guided Search, a model of highly artificial laboratory search tasks, be modified to account for search in real scenes. As a hint about why this might be hard, try to count the number of objects (the "set size") in any real scene.
February 23, 2007 (To be held in E-214)
-- Christer Samuelsson
Center for Computational Learning Systems Columbia University
"Artificial Intelligence and Machine-Learning Techniques to Market Prediction and Automatic Trading"
Abstract:
This talk will cover how the author applied Artificial Intelligence and Machine-Learning techniques to market prediction and automatic trading. It starts off with an analysis of Renaissance Technology's modus operandi ---a company that made quite a few IBM speech scientists and computational linguists very wealthy---then delves into the differences between using HMMs for ASR and for market prediction. It shows how standard alignment techniques dazzled financial professionals by inferring trade sizes from quote sizes. The talk then covers in painful mathematical detail how a physical analogy was used to model the process where market participants search for the elusive equilibrium price, which in turn gets jerked around by incoming news. It then covers in less mathematical detail an example-based machine-learning approach to market prediction, and rounds off with a quite successful attempt at automatic trading, rather than prediction, using a reinforcement-learning scheme to find appropriate trade moves. The lessons learned during two-and-a-half years are summarized into nuggets of wisdom that may be of interest to intra- and inter-day traders alike, as well as to casual investors. Caveat Auditor: this talk will not reveal any Lehman or Rennaissance trade secrets, nor how to become a millionare through automatic trading. For the latter, you must think for yourself and exploit your own insights into economics, markets, and marketmicrostructure.
March 2, 2007 (SLC)
-- Keith Holyoak
Distinguished Professor of Psychology, UCLA
Title: "Analogy in the Mind, the Brain and the Classroom"
Abstract:
Reasoning by analogy is a powerful tool for human reasoning and learning. How can it be used effectively? What are the underlying cognitive mechanisms? How do these mechanisms develop in children? How are they realized in the brain? I will survey our recent work addressing these questions, using methods spanning a range from cross-national comparisons of the use of analogies in mathematics instruction, to functional neuroimaging of reasoning with simple analogy problems.
March 16, 2007
--Noah Finkelstein
Physics Department, CU
Title: "Understanding Student Learning in Physics: The Role of Representation and Analogy"
Abstract
April 20, 2007
--Dipankar Chakravarti
Leeds School of Business
Title: "Value Construction and Bidding Behavior in Descending and Ascending Auctions."
Abstract:
We report two experiments examining how a set of motivational, cognitive and situational factors drives consumers' value construction and bidding in auctions involving real products. A motivational antecedent, bidder goals (winning the item versus acquiring it at a price consistent with their value) is examined along with two cognitive factors (a) value precision (operationally, the width of a provided price range) and (b) value salience (whether or not subjects' value for the item is pre- measured). The experiments involve a descending and an ascending auction respectively, each embedding manipulations of a situational variable (deliberation time available to the bidder at each price step). The results show that in both auction formats, winning focus bidders bid higher than value focus bidders. However, the effect is attenuated when values are more precise and/ or salient. Deliberation time effects differ across auction formats. In descending auctions, a longer time elicits higher bids from winning focus bidders but not from value focus bidders. In ascending auctions, a longer time lowers bids from value focus bidders, but not from winning focus bidders. We compare these effects across the two studies to explore the behavioral underpinnings of consumer value formation and bidding in descending and ascending auctions.
April 27, 2007
ICS Member Poster Session
May 1, 2007
--Sargur N. Srihari
University of Buffalo, The State University of New York
Title: "Computer Processing of Handwriting in Documents"
Abstract:
Handwriting is a natural means of recording personal information and continues to be used in education. Even with the ubiquity of computers, handwriting is used in forms, in legal documents and in postal addressing. Although computer recognition of handwriting seems to be a solved problem with the ubiquity of PDAs and tablet PCs—where writing is on specialized surfaces (called dynamic handwriting)—recognition of handwriting on paper documents (or static handwriting) poses numerous challenges. The talk will describe recent advances with applicability to postal address recognition, signature/writer verification and automatic scoring of responses to prompts in school testing. A system for handwriting comparison for forensics and for searching handwritten document repositories will be demonstrated.