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Kristian Markon (MN PhD '07 in CSPR, now a tenure track asst prof at U Iowa in the psychology dept) won the 2008 Tanaka Award for best dissertation from the Association for Research in Personality. This is a highly competitive award, and it's also of note that last year's winner was our newest PIB faculty member, Colin DeYoung.
I/O doctoral student Richard Landers was awarded the Castellan Award for the best student paper at the conference of the Society for Computers in Psychology conference in Long Beach, CA, on November 15, for his paper "TREND: A Tool for Rapid Online Research Literature Analysis and Quantification".
Dear Psychology Friends,
It's a pleasure for me to tell you that Christophe Micheyl has been elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. Chris is a research associate working with Andrew Oxenham. This is a major mark of distinction for Chris, and recognizes his major contributions to psychoacoustics.
We all congratulate Chris.
--Gordon
Dear Psychology Friends,
I'm delighted to report that Bill Iacono has been awarded the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Psychophysiological Research. He will receive the award at next year's annual meeting, which will be in Austin, TX next October.
We all congratulate Bill for his stellar achievements in psychophysiological research!
--Gordon
To be sure the card readers in Elliott Hall are able to read your U Cards, here are some card care tips from the U Card Office.
* Keep your U Card in their free protective cardsleeve, available at the U Card Office. They also offer a number of other card holders for a fee.
* Don't leave your U Card on your dashboard or in the sun.
* Don't allow your U Card's magnetic stripes to be scratched by keys, change, or other sharp objects.
* Don't allow your U Card's magnetic stripes to rest next to other cards' magnetic stripes because the U Card could de-magnetize them.
* Don't bend your U Card.
* Don't punch holes in or apply stickers to your U Card.
Wade Savage: CGSC 8000 Spring 2008, Wednesdays 1:00 – 4:00
This course will deal with a new movement in the science of perception called
"embodied (or situated) perception", one aspect of the more general movement
called "embodied cognition", which holds that perceiving and thinking are not
passive, receptive processes, but ways of responding to and acting on an
environment. One representative of this movement, Alva Noe, says that we
should think of visual perception, not as the passive reception of visual
representations, but as a way of exploring the environment, like a blind man
with a cane tapping his way along a path containing obstacles.
We will read Noe and Kevin O'Reagan's"Sensorimotor Account of Vision",
selections from Andy Clark's "Being There", Mack and Rock's "Inattentional
Blindness", among others. We will also compare embodied-perception theories
with J. J. Gibson's theory of perception. Finally, we will give some
consideration to possible implications of this new movement for theories of
thought and language.
----
Ellen Seagren, MSW, MPP
Coordinator
Center for Cognitive Sciences
University of Minnesota
75 East River Road
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Telephone: (612) 626-3570
Fax: (612) 626-7253
Email: cogsci@umn.edu
Advances in Neuroimaging: Techniques for measuring timing of cognitive processes
University of Minnesota, Spring Semester, 2008
Meeting time : 3:00 to 4:30 pm Tuesdays (Beginning January 22, 2008)
Place: 204 Elliott Hall
The ability to measure brain activity as a function of both spatial location and time is fundamental to advancing our knowledge of the relationship between neural activity and behavior. Over the past decade and a half, our understanding of brain and behavior has benefited enormously from the ability to measure spatially localized patterns of activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, although fMRI has provided an unprecedented opportunity to measure spatial activity patterns in the cortex, it is severely limited in its ability to measure temporal processing near the scale of neural events and only indirectly reflects neural activity. Further advances will require the ability to use techniques to combine high temporal resolution with good spatial resolution. This seminar will go over basic aspects of magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalography (EEG), and advanced fMRI techniques for measuring timing. In addition, we will look at human temporal information processing applications in perception, cognition, and motor control.
For information on registering, go to: advances.kersten.org
Or contact one of the following co-instructors:
Steve Engel (engel@umn.edu)
Sheng He (sheng@umn.edu)
Dan Kersten (kersten@umn.edu)
Yang Zhang (zhang470@umn.edu)
Spring 2008
Psy 8055: Cognitive Neuroscience
PRIMING, IMPLICIT MEMORY, REPETITION, AND THE BRAIN
(call # 90006)
Instructor: Chad J. Marsolek
N253 Elliott Hall
612-624-1597
chad.j.marsolek-1@umn.edu
Class: S204 Elliott Hall
Thursdays: 9:00-11:00 am
Credits: 3
Description: Recent advances in analyses of the neural bases of
cognitive functions.
One of the most thoroughly studied phenomena in human
cognition is the implicit memory effect of repetition
priming. And a ubiquitous finding in neuroscience is
that cortical activity usually differs between repeated
and non-repeated stimuli. Although some studies
indicate important relations between behavioral priming
and neural repetition effects, others do not, and
critical questions remain about the natures of these
effects. In this seminar, we will review and critically
assess recent research, with an emphasis on integrating
evidence to address whether these effects have important
purposes or utilities. What do these phenomena reflect
and why?
Readings: Journal articles and book chapters.
Questions?: Please email chad.j.marsolek-1@umn.edu.