Author: sjgray

Please join us next week on January 27th at 12:00 PM in the Wieboldt 408, Denes Scucs, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, will present his talk: Numerical development and developmental dyscalculia: Behavioural and electro-encephalography studies.

Abstract: Developmental dyscalculia (dyscalculia) is a learning difficulty thought to be specific to mathematics. The talk will summarize our behavioural and electro-encephalography (EEG) research on numerical development of typically developing children and DD. My focus will be on a major research project we carried out with more than 1000 children. We studied how working memory, attention, inhibition, spatial processing and logical reasoning skills relate to numerical development and dyscalculia in 9-year-old primary school children. The theoretical and practical significance of findings will be discussed.

Food will be provided. The room is a tentative location – it is possible that we will switch to a larger one. If this is the case, we will let you know.

Due to the University shutting down on Monday, our first Cognitive Workshop talk of the Winter Quarter with Daniel Casasanto is cancelled. Dr. Casasanto will give his talk on February 24th.

– Stephen

Please join us Thursday, November 21st for our final meeting of the fall quarter, from 12-1:30 in Beecher 101. Lunch will be provided.

Hiroki Kotabe, a doctoral student here at the University of Chicago, will present his talk: “Two studies on the Psychology of Scarcity and Enjoyment.” In addition, Hyesang Chang, another doctoral student at the University of Chicago, will present her talk: “The Role of Math Anxiety in Learning Arithmetic Facts.”

This will be a relatively informal workshop session in which data is presented and discussed.

Please join us Thursday, October 24th for our third meeting of the fall quarter, from 12-1:30 in Beecher 101. Lunch will be provided.

Carly Kontra, a doctoral student here at the University of Chicago, will present her talk: “Learning from Action & Observation: the role of expertise.”

This will be a relatively informal workshop session in which data is presented and discussed.

Hi everyone,

We have just finished planning out the Cognition Workshop Schedule. Although there is still some flexibility in speakers for some of our workshops, this year’s workshops will occur at the following dates, with each session lasting from 12:00-1:30 in Beecher 101. Throughout the year, there will be a large number of graduate students talks (at least 2 sessions per quarter), which will occur in the open time slots.

Fall Quarter 2013

Thursday, October 10th – Brooke Macnamera, Princeton University

Thursday, October 17th- Stephen Gray

Thursday, October 24th – Carly Kontra

Thursday, November 21st – Hiroki Kotobe, Hyesang Chang

Winter Quarter 2014

Monday, January 27th – Denec Szucs, University of Cambridge

Monday, February 10th – Steven Franconeri, Northwestern University

Thursday, February 20th – Student-led discussion of upcoming job application research article

Monday, March 3rd – Shoham Choshen-Hillel, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Spring Quarter 2014

Thursday, April 24th

Thursday, May 15th

Thursday, May 22nd – Ayanna Thomas, Tufts University

Thursday, May 29th

 

 

 

Please join us next Thursday, October 10th for our first meeting of the fall quarter, from 12-1:30 in Beecher 101. Lunch will be provided.

Dr. Brooke Macnamara (Princeton University) will present her talk entitled: “Skill Acquisition and Expertise Across Domains and Within Bilingualism”

Individuals vary considerably in the rate at which they acquire new skills. Traditionally, researchers investigating predictors of variance in performance focus either on general cognitive abilities or on experiential factors. In this talk, I propose that while both general cognitive abilities and experience predict performance, the more interesting questions are when and why does the relative explanatory power of these predictors vary? In other words, what moderates these relationships? I will introduce a novel variable—predictability of the task environment—and demonstrate its influence on variance in performance across domains and within bilingual processing tasks. My research also investigates the bi-directionality of the cognitive abilities–experiential factors relationship by examining cognitive enhancements resulting from bilingual experience (i.e., the bilingual advantage). I will introduce a second novel variable—bilingual management demands—and demonstrate their influence on intra-individual psychological processes. Based on my findings from studies conducted in both the laboratory and in the field, from cross-sections, longitudinal data, and meta-analyses, I conclude that 1) the relative explanatory power of general cognitive abilities and experiential factors on performance variance depends on the predictability of the task environment, and 2) the type and extent of cognitive enhancements resulting from bilingual experience depend on the type and extent of the individual’s bilingual processing demands and experience with those demands.