May 04, 2023 at 15:30 (MEZ - in-person)
Title: Valence Sound Symbolism: Is it Driven by Pitch or by Articulatory Movements?
Speaker: Ralf Rummer (Kassel University; invited by Thomas Lachmann)
Abstract: Vowels are associated with the emotional valence of words and pseudowords. On the one hand, pseudo-words (and words) containing /i/ (vs. /o/ and /u/) are more frequently judged fitting to denote positive (vs. negative) objects and people. On the other hand, novel names invented for positive (vs. negative) objects and people contain more /i/s and fewer /o/s and /u/s. In the first part of my talk, I will present a number of studies demonstrating that this effect generalizes to different experimental paradigms and different languages (German, English, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese). The experiments reported in the second part of my talk investigated the mechanisms behind this effect. Our own studies demonstrate that articulatory movements rather than perceptual characteristics (i.e., pitch) of the vowels play a crucial role here.
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/61833515874?pwd=dkpId3Q1bHVBMHRaOUV2Q1NqQU1MQT09
May 11, 2023 at 17:00 (Special Event - Inaugural Lecture)
Title: The perks of doing non-WEIRD research: The example of investigating the effects literacy in India
Speaker: Falk Hüttig (Max Planck Institute - Nijmegen & RPTU; invited by Thomas Lachmann)
Abstract: The need for research with non-WEIRD (Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic) populations is now discussed frequently in all areas of psychology and related sciences. The usefulness of such an approach is however sometimes (often implicitly) questioned. I will present recent findings from research in India which suggest that literacy has a profound impact on people’s lives by changing mind and brain in ways that go far beyond the ability to read and the acquisition of knowledge. These findings demonstrate that a thorough grasp of how reading acquisition and proficiency enhances cognition and changes brain networks is an important prerequisite for devising effective and efficient measures to improve literacy and a more complete understanding of how mind and brain work.
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/61833515874?pwd=dkpId3Q1bHVBMHRaOUV2Q1NqQU1MQT09
May 25, 2023 at 15:30 (MEZ - Online)
Title: Wholistic Approaches to Cognition and Action
Speaker: Jay Holden (University of Cincinnati, USA; invited by Cees van Leeuwen)
Abstract: A non-reductive mode of system inference, rooted in renormalization group theory, is applied to cognitive activity. It uses coarse-graining operations to reveal dynamic patterns in dependent measures, such as response times and error rates. The framework explains several long-standing empirical puzzles in binary forced choice performance, such as binary randomness production and lexical decision tasks. Randomness production studies dating back to the 1950’s report biased sequences that alternate too often between options. Similarly, two-alternative forced-choice performances commonly express sequential effects, contingencies on prior responses, in means and error rates. Both patterns are predicted by a well-established model of bimanual coordination. Analyses reveal trade-offs between stochasticity and determinism in participant’s performances that are characteristic of nonlinear dynamical systems. The renormalization group approach establishes a close relationship between randomness production performance and two-alternative forced-choice performance, arising from the bimanual model’s successful accounts of key performance patterns reported in both tasks.
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/61833515874?pwd=dkpId3Q1bHVBMHRaOUV2Q1NqQU1MQT09
June 5th, 2023 at 17:15 (MEZ - in-person)
There is no colloquium on June 15th
We recommend to join the Biology colloquium on June 5th at 17:15 Uhr - Gebäude 42, Raum 110
Title: Top-down control of neocortical threat memory
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Johannes Letzkus, Institute of Physiology (University of Freiburg)
Please see details here
June 22, 2023 at 15:30 (MEZ - in-person)
Title: Cross-language structural priming as a mechanism of bilingual language use: Short-term and long-term effects
Speaker: Gerrit Jan Kootstra (Radboud University, Netherlands; invited by Shanley Allen)
Abstract: A fascinating aspect of language use is that it is adaptive: people continuously adapt and update their language use to the ongoing linguistic environment (e.g., Beckner et al., 2009; Chang & Dell, 2014). This is among other things visible in structural priming, the phenomenon whereby people’s production and interpretation of sentences is influenced by the structure of other sentences they have recently heard or produced themselves (e.g., Pickering & Ferreira, 2008). For example, when someone is asked to describe a picture of a waiter giving a drink to a customer, the choice to use a prepositional-object structure (“the waiter gives a drink to the customer”) or a double-object structure (“the waiter gives the customer a drink”) is influenced by whether the speaker has recently heard (or used) a prepositional-object structure or double-object structure. Interestingly, structural priming effects have not only been found within languages, but also between languages in bilinguals (e.g., Van Gompel & Arai, 2018). This indicates that syntactic processing in one language is influenced by people’s experience with syntactic processing in another language, and thus that cross-language structural priming may well serve as a mechanism underlying language contact phenomena, such as cross-linguistic influence in bilinguals and second language learners (Serratrice, 2016) and code-switching (Kootstra, van Hell, & Dijkstra, 2010). Another important finding is that cross-language structural priming does not only have short-term effects but also longer-term effects (e.g., Kootstra & Doedens, 2016). This suggests that cross-language structural priming may also constitute a mechanism underlying long-term effects of language contact, such as contact-induced language change (Kootstra & Şahin, 2018). In this talk, I will present a number of experimental studies, based on both bilingual adults and children and with various languages, in which this interplay between short-term and long-term priming in bilingual language use is reflected, not only in sentence production but also in sentence comprehension. These results provide insights into the potential role of cross-language structural priming as a cognitive mechanism of language contact phenomena, such as cross-linguistic influence and contact-induced language change.
References
Beckner, C., Blythe, R., Bybee, J., Christiansen, M. H., Croft, W., Ellis, N. C., Holland, J., Ke, J., Larsen-Freeman, D., & Schoenemann, T. (2009). Language Is a Complex Adaptive System: Position Paper. Language Learning, 59(December), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00533.x
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 57, Room 508
OR
Zoom Link: https://uni-kl-de.zoom.us/j/61833515874?pwd=dkpId3Q1bHVBMHRaOUV2Q1NqQU1MQT09
July 6, 2023 at 14:30
Title: Mini Conference - Cognitive Science
Speakers: Master students from Cognitive Science
Abstracts: Talks and poster presentations from various labrotations
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 86, Room 107
July 13, 2023 at 15:30
Special Event: Haaß-Talk 2023
This year, the prestigious Haass Talk is organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences. It is our great pleasure to announce one of the leading scholars in the field of psychology and law, Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus from the University of California, Irvine. As the world's leading expert on the psychology of eyewitness testimony, her groundbreaking research on the fallibility of eyewitness memories, the distortion of memories over time, and the possibility of creating false memories that cannot be distinguished from genuine ones is known to virtually every student of psychology, sociology, and law around the world. In Kaiserslautern, she will give a one-hour overview of her research over the past few decades and ask whether memory is just a fiction.
Title: The Fiction of Memory
Speaker: Elisabeth F. Loftus (University of California, Irvine)
Abstract:
For several decades, I have been manufacturing memories in unsuspecting minds. Sometimes, these techniques change details of events that someone actually experienced. Other times, the techniques create entire memories of events that never happened; they create “rich false memories.” Collectively, this work shows that people can be led to believe they did things that would have been rather implausible. They can be led to falsely believe they had experiences that would have been emotional or traumatic had they actually happened. False memories, like true ones, also have consequences for people—affecting their later thoughts, intentions, and behaviors. Can we tell true memories from false ones? In several studies, I created false memories in the minds of people, compared them to true memories, and discovered that once planted, those false memories look very much like true memories. They have similar behavioral characteristics, emotionality, and neural signatures. Considered as a whole, these findings raise important questions: If false memories can be so readily planted in the mind, do we need to think about “regulating” this mind technology? And what do these pseudomemories say about the nature of memory itself?
Thursday, July 13th 2023
HS52-207 (Chemistry Building, ground floor)
3:30-5:00 pm
Entrance starts 3:00 pm
We strongly recommend seat reservation by using the following link: Reservation
For this event please don't use the link for collquium. Please use the link below for online participation:
https://livestream.uni-kl.de/?stream=52-207
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July 20, 2023 at 14:30
Title: Mini Conference - Cognitive Science
Speakers: Master students from Cognitive Science
Abstracts: Talks and poster presentations from various labrotations
Location: RPTU - Campus Kaiserslautern, Building 86, Room 107