Collective Memory Project

New book on Memory and Embodiment

2012-02-01T10:05:00.000Z

SabineC. Koch (Heidelberg), Thomas Fuchs (Heidelberg), Michela Summa (Heidelberg) andCornelia Müller (Frankfurt Oder) has recently published an editedinterdisciplinary volume on memory, embodiment and metaphor. This new book isthe 84 volume of the Advances in Consciousness Research series edited by Maxim I. Stamenow for John Benjamins.

Abstract

Body Memory, Metaphor andMovement is an interdisciplinaryvolume with contributions from philosophers, cognitive scientists, and movementtherapists. Part one provides the phenomenologically grounded definition ofbody memory with its different typologies. Part two follows the aim to integratephenomenology, conceptual metaphor theory, and embodiment approaches from thecognitive sciences for the development of appropriate empirical methods toaddress body memory. Part three inquires into the forms and effects oftherapeutic work with body memory, based on the integration of theory,empirical findings, and clinical applications. It focuses on trauma treatmentand the healing power of movement. The book also contributes to metaphortheory, application and research, and therefore addresses metaphor researchersand linguists interested in the embodied grounds of metaphor. Thus, it is ofparticular interest for researchers from the cognitive sciences, socialsciences, and humanities as well as clinical practitioners.

Source: John Benjamins

Workshop: Distributed Cognition and Distributed Agency

2012-01-28T08:43:00.000Z

Where: Macquarie University, Sydney

When: March 14-16 (with a day off between)

Deadline for submissions: February 10

Keynote speakers:
Amanda Barnier (Macquarie)
Erik Myin (Antwerp)
Robert Rupert (Colorado)

Call for Papers
Debates about embodied, extended, and distributed cognition now address notonly metaphysical issues about the location and boundaries of the mind, butalso broader questions about culture and cognition, agency, and the self. Thesedebates make points of contact with diverse philosophical traditions (includingphenomenology, pragmatism, and moral psychology), with diverse socialscientific fields (such as science studies, cognitive ethnography, and studiesof interaction and material culture), as well as with cognitive, social, and developmentalpsychology, and the cognitive neurosciences.

For this workshop we seek theoretical and empirically-informed papers whichfill out or broaden the conceptual tools available for understanding the natureand mechanisms of distributed or embodied cognition. We particularly welcome proposals which address the integration ofenvironmental resources (social and cultural as well as material and technological)into cognitive practices. Papers can either contribute to mainstream debatesabout cognitive integration, complementarity, and 2nd-wave extended mind, orapply these concepts to specific domains and topics, such as (but not limitedto) narrative and self, agency, embodiment and skilled movement, language and gesture,communication and interaction, memory, collective intentionality, performance,and cognitive niche construction.

Abstracts of proposed papers, of between 250 and 500 words, should be sent toMichael Kirchhoff at michael.kirchhoff@students.mq.edu.au by Friday 10thFebruary. Decisions on acceptance/ rejection will be communicated by 17thFebruary.

We anticipate scheduling longer and shorter paper sessions. In submitting yourabstract, please indicate which one you would prefer if accepted, or if eitheroption is fine. Graduate students are encouraged to submit.

There will be no registration fee for attending the conference, but advanceregistration will be required.

Enquiries to the workshop organizers: RichardMenary
(richard.menary@mq.edu.au) or John Sutton (john.sutton@mq.edu.au)

Hosts and sponsors:
CCD (Centre for Cognition and its Disorders)
CAVE (Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics)
Australian Research Council

Rolf Zwaan and Teun van Dijk on discourse, memory, cognition and action

2012-01-23T08:39:00.000Z

The issue 14 of Discursos del Caos (UPF, Barcelona) presentsa special broadcast, which consists of the conversation among researchers Rolf Zwaan and Teun van Dijk, who discuss about cognitive processes and mentalrepresentations and the role of these in the field of discourse production andcomprehension. Among other topics, talk about the situation models, the notionof affordances and cognition of narrative texts.

Source: Discursos del Casos, UPF

Must-read paper on embodied memory, perception and action

2012-01-09T18:55:00.001Z

In a previous issue ofBehavioral and Brain Sciences (vol 20, issue 1, March 1997), “What memory isfor”, an impressive and provocative article by Arthur Glenberg (available here).

The abstract begins: “Let’sstart from scratch in thinking about what memory is for, and consequently, howit works. Suppose that memory and conceptualization work in the service ofperception and action. In this case, conceptualization is the encoding ofpatterns of possible physical interaction with a three-dimensional world. Thesepatterns are constrained by the structure of the environment, the structure of ourbodies, and memory. Thus, how we perceive and conceive of the environment isdetermined by the types of bodies we have. Such a memory would not haveassociations. Instead, how concepts become related (and what it means to berelated) is determined by how separate patterns of actions can be combined giventhe constraints of our bodies. I call this combination “mesh.” To avoidhallucination, conceptualization would normally be driven by the environment,and patterns of action from memory would play a supporting, but automatic,role. A significant human skill is learning to suppress the overridingcontribution of the environment to conceptualization, thereby allowing memoryto guide conceptualization. The effort used in suppressing input from theenvironment pays off by allowing prediction, recollective memory, and languagecomprehension. I review theoretical work in cognitive science and empiricalwork in memory and language comprehension that suggest that it may be possibleto investigate connections between topics as disparate as infantile amnesia andmental-model theory.

Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science – DuCog IV: Memory control and retrieval

2012-01-07T10:00:00.000Z

Call for papers

Where: Dubrovnik,Croatia

When: May 10-13

Deadline forsubmission (posters only): February 1

The conference isopen for scholars and students doing research on all aspects of cognitivescience. The poster sessions will covervarious fields of cognitive science, but the focus will be on posters relatedto the main focus of the conference.

Keynote Speakers

Paul W. Burgess, UniversityCollege London, UK

Martin A. Conway, Universityof Leeds, UK

Ken A. Paller, NorthwesternUniversity, USA

Lars Nyberg, UmeaCenter for Functional Brain Imaging, Sweden

Invited speakers

Antonino Vallesi, InternationalSchool for Advanced Studies, Italy

Simon Hanslmayr, Universityof Konstanz, Germany

Ines Wilhelm, Universityof Lübeck, Germany

Mihály Racsmány, BudapestUniversity of Technology and Economics, Hungary

The DubrovnikConference on Cognitive Science - DuCog is a small-medium size annualconference with up to 80 participants. Every year a specific topic is coveredby keynote speakers and invited speakers.

Poster sessions

The core of theconference will consist of student research reports in the form of peerreviewed posters. The posters shall be organized around discussion groupschaired by senior scholars. Posters will be grouped around one central topic.Sessions will be chaired by a senior scholar assigned by the organizingcommittee. Poster selection will be based on quality, however in case of equalcontributions posters related to the conference's topic and from Central Europewill be preferred.

Keynote Talks

The keynote talksgiven by the keynote speakers concentrate on a given area of memory control andretrieval. The talks are not merely presentations of some specific newresearch, but a survey of the keynote’s own research, or of their fields,providing a general framework and message.

Invited speakers

Invited speakers willprovide a short talk reviewing their own recent research in the field of memorycontrol and retrieval.

New publication: Memorias compartidas, conversación de familia e interacción

2012-01-05T12:51:00.000Z

Bietti, L. (2011). Memorias compartidas, conversacion de familia e interaccion [translation by Amanda Vallejo Morales]. Discurso & Sociedad 5 (4), 749-794.

Interdisciplinary Workshop: Personal and Shared Intentions

2012-01-01T19:20:00.002Z

Where: Berlin

When: May 3-5, 2012
Deadline for submissions (posters only): February 15

Workshop Description

In recent decades, philosophers and cognitive scientists have focused intensively on various aspects of personal opposed to shared intentions and their role in individual and/or joint actions. In this workshop, we bring together scientists from different disciplines to discuss the pros and cons of traditional approaches and studies as well as novel models and experiments that shed new light on open questions and contribute fruitfully to the ongoing debate. The common theme of our workshop shall be the following question: How do personal and shared intentions interrelate, and what are the differences between them?

Possible subtopicsconcern:

Cognitive mechanisms

What are thecognitive mechanisms that underlie personal and shared intentions in individual and/or joint actions?Should we account for - joint or individual - intentional action in terms of intentions as mentalstates of individual agents on a par with beliefs and desires?

Individual vs. sharedintentional action

What are theconceptual preliminaries of ‘intention’ we need to account for in individual opposed to jointactions? Are shared intentions nothing but the sum of personal intentions, and if not, how else dothey differ? Are intentional actions irreducibly social?

What are the criteriato judge adequately whether we or another person has performed a particular actionintentionally or not? How does our belief whether we interact with a cooperative,competitive or naive partner influence our perception of humanness and the ascription ofintentions? How do we determine cooperativeness and competitiveness in interactive settings?

Moral dimension:relationship between individual and shared intentions

Is the ability to acton the basis of shared intentions a core constituent of adequate moral judgmentand moral motivation?

Which role do moraland self-referential emotions play in individual and joint actions? How doesour emotional affectedness influence our sense of agency, attribution ofintentions, and interactive behaviour patterns?

Contact:

Max Planck Institutefor Human Development

Center for AdaptiveBehavior and Cognition

E-Mail:intentions@mpib-berlin.mpg.de

Further Information:

http://www.mpibberlin.mpg.de/de/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/interdisciplinary-workshop-personal-and-shareintentions

Culture, Communication and Cognition: Explaining Cognitive-Cultural Components of Media and Communication

2011-12-26T11:20:00.001Z

Call for papers

Where: Lublin, Poland

When: 7-9, May 2012

DAVID R. OLSON
Keynote Speaker

Conference Aims and Topics
The conference is to provide a platform for aninterdisciplinary discussionof the interrelations between culture, cognition and communication, with specialattention to the cultural and cognitive roles of writing and other media.Anthropologists, communication studiesresearchers, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers and cognitive scientists areencouraged to challenge ideas concerning the cognitiveand cultural functions of communication, language and media – thereby buildingupon the work of such scholars as Innis, McLuhan, Goody, Havelock, Ong, Olson andVygotsky. Of particular interest are submissionsthat explore the interrelations between cognitive science and theories of media andcommunications, which might be pursued from anyof a number of theoretical positions, including: media ecology, medium theory andliteracy-orality theory, speech-act theory, critical discourse analysis, semioticsof culture, theory of communicative action and communicology.

Topics on which we would like to focus duringconference include:
- Conceptual, methodological and theoreticalproblems faced by theoriesof media and communication – technological determinism, cognitive relativism,ethnocentrism, etc.
- Media versus cultural practices
- Semiotic analyses of language, speech,discourse, metaphor, etc.
- The cognitive perspective on communicationphenomena
- Thinking through language, tools, instruments,information technologies and media
- Media and extended mind (situatedcognition)
- Human-computer communication
- Modes and models of rationality in media,communication undertakings and environments
- Cognitive Science in a historical perspective:logical empiricism and itscontribution to understanding of language and communication
- Intercultural perspectives on communication –contrastive studies on media and discourse, global communication studies,intercultural clashes andmisunderstandings

ABSTRACTS between 300 – 500 words are to beaccepted till February 29th,2012
Abstracts are double-blind peer-reviewed
Language of the presentations: English orPolish.
Are to be submitted by easy chair conference system. In order to make asubmission follow the link:
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ccc2012

Conference website: http://culturecommcog.wordpress.com/

ORGANIZERS:
* Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, MariaCurie-Sklodowska University,Poland
* Institute of Polish Culture, University ofWarsaw, Poland
* Polish Society for Cognitive Science

Body memory and the self

2011-12-22T12:33:00.001Z

In this talk given at the University of Heidelberg, ThomasFuchs claims that the basic continuity of the self does not result from thestore of explicit knowledge that we have about ourselves and about our auto-biography.Such continuity throughout time is grounded in a deeper level of our self whichbasically consists of the sedimentation and growth of an embodied memory atdifferent time-scales which remains implicitly present in every moment of ourlife.

Click here to have access to the video

Source: Body memory project, University of Heidelberg

Towards a Common Past? Conflicting Memories in Contemporary Europe

2011-12-19T19:45:00.003Z

CALL FOR PAPERS

Where: Lund, Sweden

When: May 14-16, 2012

Deadline for submission: March 1, 2012

Since the 1980s Memory Studieshave developed intensively as a creative, interdisciplinary and well-established field ofresearch. Yet the field remains fragmented: national research environments tend to focus on representationsof cultural memory within specific national contexts, and researchers comingfrom different disciplines are frequently holding on to their own theoreticaland methodological approaches. We hope that the conference will generatediscussions about the state of the art in Memory Studies as well as the futureof the research in the field. How can weconsolidate Memory Studies? What kind of new directions within the field we canidentify today? We would also like toinvolve you in the discussion on the idea of ‘European Memory’, what it is and how it relates to the memoriesof nations, regions, migrant communities and the world outside Europe. Drawingon recent theoretical insights pointing to the importance of memory migrationand mediation, the influence of new media, changing cultural contexts, andmemory as a source of transcultural ethics, the conference will explore howmemory works as a transcultural and transnational force, mainly but not solelyin Europe.

We welcome papers that aim toexplore the tension between attempts by European cultural and political elites to create someform of common European memory or at least a unitary memory ethos on one handand numerous ‘memory conflicts’, caused by divided and contested memories of oppressionand violence on the other. Understanding the conflict-provoking potential ofthis memory legacy and exploring how it may be managed in a reconciliatoryfashion constitute an acute challenge to interdisciplinary Memory Studies. We are convinced that the futureof Memory Studies lies in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary cooperation, however difficultsuch an endeavor might be. Hence we warmly welcome to our conference scholarsfrom different disciplines – the humanities, political and social sciences (includingpsychology and communication studies), history, etc.

© Lucas Bietti2008

Keynote speakers for thisthree-day conference include

Claus Leggewie – Professor ofPolitical Science at Justus-Liebig University Giessen

Daniel Levy – Associate Professorof Sociology at Stony Brook University
Leyla Neyzi, Professor of SocialAnthropology, Sabanci University in Istanbul

Jeffrey Olick, Professor ofSociology at University of Virginia

James E. Young, Professor ofEnglish and Judaic Studies at University of Massachusetts

The papers at the conference willbe presented and discussed in thematic workshops. If you are interested in participating in oneor more of the following workshops please contact the chair of the workshopdirectly (see the contact details below). If you are not sure which workshop is most suitable for your paperplease send a short abstract to the coordinator niklas.bernsand@slav.lu.se for suggestions.A selection of the papers presented at the conference will be subsequentlypublished.

WORKSHOPS

1) Remembering forced migrations and ethniccleansings in Europe (Chair: Barbara.TornquistPlewa@slav.lu.se)

2) Memory and Place in European Cities (Chair:Bo.Larsson@cfe.lu.se

3) Memory, Emotions and Politics(Chair: Tea.Sindbaek@cfe.lu.se)

4) Asymmetric memories in Europe(chair: Conny.Mithander@kau.se)

5) Transnational cultural memory(chair: John.Sundholm@kau.se)

6) Remediating memory (chair:Maria.Holmgren.Troy@kau.se)

7) Memory and LiteraryRepresentation (Chair: Alexandre.dessingue@uis.no)

8) Nordic realms of memory(Chair: Peter.Stadius@helsinki.fi)

9) Memory in News Media (Chair:Niklas.Bernsand@slav.lu.se)

Deadline

The deadline for submitting yourabstract to a Workshop Chair (with a copy to the conference coordinatorniklas.bernsand@slav.lu.se is March 1, 2012.

We look forward to seeing you inLund in 2012. Please notice that no conference fee is required.

Conference Chair: BarbaraTörnquist-Plewa (e-mail: Barbara.Tornquist-Plewa@slav.lu.se)

ConferenceCoordinator: Niklas Bernsand (e-mail :Niklas.Bernsand@slav.lu.se)

Ed Hutchins at LSE: The Cultural Practices of Cognition

2011-12-12T08:33:00.001Z

Ed Hutchins talksabout the role of history, culture and the social and material environment in cognition at the Institute of Social Psychology, LSE.

Click here to listento the Podcast

Source: Institute of Social Psychology, LSE

Important new paper on socially-distributed remembering in small groups

2011-12-10T12:07:00.001Z

In the previous issue of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences(vol 9, issue 4, December 2010), “The psychology of memory, extended cognition,and socially distributed remembering”, an excellent article by John Sutton, CeliaB. Harris, Paul G. Keil and Amanda Barnier (available here)

The abstract begins: “Thispaper introduces a new, expanded range of relevant cognitive psychologicalresearch on collaborative recall and social memory to the philosophical debateon extended and distributed cognition. We start by examining the case for extendedcognition based on the complementarity of inner and outer resources, by which neural,bodily, social, and environmental resources with disparate but complementary propertiesare integrated into hybrid cognitive systems, transforming or augmenting the natureof remembering or decision-making. Adams and Aizawa, noting this distinctive complementarityargument, say that they agree with it completely: but they describe it as “anon-revolutionary approach” which leaves “the cognitive psychology of memory asthe study of processes that take place, essentially without exception, withinnervous systems.” In response, we carve out, on distinct conceptual andempirical grounds, a rich middle ground between internalist forms ofcognitivism and radical anti-cognitivism. Drawing both on extended cognitionliterature and on Sterelny’s account of the “scaffolded mind” (this issue), wedevelop a multidimensional framework for understanding varying relationsbetween agents and external resources, both technological and social. On thisbasis we argue that, independent of any more “revolutionary” metaphysicalclaims about the partial constitution of cognitive processes by external resources,a thesis of scaffolded or distributed cognition can substantially influence or transformexplanatory practice in cognitive science. Critics also cite various empirical resultsas evidence against the idea that remembering can extend beyond skull and skin.We respond with a more principled, representative survey of the scientificpsychology of memory, focussing in particular on robust recent empiricaltraditions for the study of collaborative recall and transactive social memory.We describe our own empirical research on socially distributed remembering,aimed at identifying conditions for mnemonic emergence in collaborative groups.Philosophical debates about extended, embedded, and distributed cognition canthus make richer, mutually beneficial contact with independently motivatedresearch programs in the cognitive psychology of memory.”

New publication: Review of Cognitive Pragmatics: The Mental Processes of Communication

2011-12-05T05:50:00.001Z

Bietti. L. (2011). Review ofBruno Bara, Cognitive Pragmatics: TheMental Processes of Communication. Philosophical Psychology 1-5 iFirst [DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2011.633695]

Fifth Interdisciplinary Memory Conference: The Arts of Memory

2011-11-30T08:49:00.001Z

Where: The New School for Social Research, NYC

When April 26-27, 2012

Deadline for abstracts submissions: December 15, 2011

Playing on thetitle of the influential text of Frances Yates, The Art of Memory,(1966), where she traces the use of mnemonic techniques from the classical ageto the Enlightenment, the fifth annual NSSR Interdisciplinary Memory Conferencewill focus on contemporary arts of memory.

Participantswill discuss the arts and artifices of memory practices, both as embedded inphysical forms, such as museums and memorials, and in the enactment of memorypractices, such as truth and reconciliation processes. Interdisciplinary inscope, the conference reaches for new ways to conceptualize the arts of memorythrough the visual, tactile,textual, and synesthetic expressions of the past. Othersessions will be dedicated to a reflexive examination of the arts of memoryscholarship—the scholarly investigation of the arts of memory investigated asan art in itself. We seek papersubmissions from any and all academic disciplines, as well as from memory artspractitioners—empirical, theoretical, and methodological papers are allsolicited.

Some of thequestions this conference will address: How aredifferent memory practices oriented around different senses: sight, sound,touch, taste, and smell?; How are eventsassociated with one set of senses or practices remembered through another setof senses or practices?; How are spaces and material objects, such assites, documents, photographs, and bodies, transformed through memory practices?; How are different methods of memorydisrupted, altered, or remapped over time?; What is the relationshipbetween destruction and creation in memory practices?; Whathappens when events that seem insignificant as they unfold in the presentbecome imbued withnew significance in memory form?; What methodsdo we use as scholars to conduct research on memory practice? How do we study memory on an individual and asocio-historical scale?; Whattheoretical perspectives can shed light on methodologies of memory?;

Themes theconference will examine: Methods ofsocial remembering; Memory and thebody; Memory and thesenses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell; Memory andspace/place; Virtualmuseums, digital archives, and online memory projects; Mapping memory; Evidentiarypractices; Memory andvisual culture/cultural production;

Loss and agingof memories on a social scale; Memory andtransformation, confusion, destruction, fragmentation; Synestheticmemory; Theoreticalapproaches to the analysis of methods of memory; Researchmethods in memory studies

To submit apaper, send email to NSSRMemoryConference@gmail.com by December 15, 2011, with "2012ABSTRACT" in the subject line. Includethe following: an abstract not longer than 250 words with a tentative papertitle and a short personal resume (200 words maximum) including yourinstitutional affiliation. Decisions will be made by late January 2012. Formore information on about the 2012 conference, past conferences, and otherrelated activities, visit www.nssrmemoryconference.com.

Conflict in Memory: Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering of War, Conflict and Transition

2011-11-26T10:26:00.001Z

When: May 10-12, 2012

Where: Aarhus University, DK

Deadline for proposals: January 15, 2012

War, conflicts and transitionshave always played a significant role in defining communal identity, often withreference to events that happened centuries ago. The role of passing oncollective memories of these types of events has become even more complex in aglobalizing world, where new configurations of cosmopolitan memories challengemore locally and nationally based memories. The many aspects of societies’remembering and forgetting call for interdisciplinary cooperation. Thisconference brings together the fields of history, psychology, literature, andcultural studies and presents new research on how memories of war, conflict andtransition are passed on from generation to generation and how these processestransform and shape identities.

Confirmed keynote speakers

· Balthazar Garzon (investigative judge, Madrid)

· Alistair Thomson (Monash University,Melbourne)

· AndreasHuyssen (Columbia University)

· James Wertsch (Washington University, St.Louis)

· DortheBerntsen (Aarhus University)

· Daniel Levy (Stony Brook University)

· Anna Bull (University of Bath)

· Luisa Passserini (University of Torino)

· Tom Dunne (University College Cork)

· Willliam Hirst (New School of SocialSciences, New York)

For detailed information onworkshop themes see: http://matchpoints.au.dk/

Memory and Methodology Workshop (extended deadline January 15th, 2012)

2011-11-14T13:06:00.001Z

Where: Loughborough, UK

When: March 21-23, 2012

A workshop on Memory and Methodology will be run by Professor Mike Pickering, Dr Cristian Tileaga and Dr Emily Keightley on 21 st March 2012 as a pre-conference event before the forthcoming “Discourse - Communication – Conversation” conference, 21-23 rd March 2012, at Loughborough University.

The workshop will provide an introduction to memory studies research in the social sciences and also provide more detailed explorations of research on and using memory in a variety of different forms. The workshop will take an interdisciplinary perspective to the design of memory studies and will cover a range of methodological issues and debates including those around researching individual and collective memory, the use of ‘natural’ and interview/survey data, the application of mixed methods, the use of different approaches to data analysis.

The workshop is open to students and researchers from all disciplinary backgrounds but is particularly suitable for those from sociology, social psychology, media and cultural studies, psychology, communications studies, cultural geography, history and political sciences.

£50 / £30 concessions.

25 years of DARG, 10 years of CAMARG conference March 2012

Discourse - Communication - Conversation

For registration: http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~ssca1/DCconf2012/DC2012home.html

New publication: The commemoration of March 24th, 1976: Understanding the exceptionality of the present political discourse about the “Dirty War” in Argentina

2011-11-06T10:43:00.004Z

Bietti, L. (2011). The commemoration of March 24th, 1976: Understanding the exceptionality of the present political discourse about the “Dirty War” in Argentina. Journal of Language and Politics 10 (3), 347-371. [Doi. .1075/jlp.10.3.03bie]

Abstract

In December 2001, Argentina underwent the worst socio-economic crisis in its history. Strong criticisms were raised by society against almost all the social injustices encouraged by the policies promoted by the former governments. Forgiveness of the crimes committed by the dictatorship during the “Dirty War” which took place in the late 70’s, and reconciliation between the members of the dictatorship and society, was the position held by the post-dictatorship governments. However, the official discourse has radically changed since 2003, because of the administration of elected president Nestor Kirchner (2003–2007). The aim of this paper is to explore some of the changes in relation to the creation of two time-frames (TF1/TF2) to represent actors from the past and the present, and reinforce the current exceptionality of Néstor Kirchner’s political stance. To do this, I will analyse four political speeches given by ex- president Néstor Kirchner to commemorate the anniversary of the coup d’état of March 24th, 1976, the date which marks the beginning of the 1976–1983 military dictatorship.

Keywords: Argentina, collective memory, dictatorship, discursive strategies, Néstor Kirchner, time-frames

Distributed Thinking Symposium IV: Systemic Cognition

2011-10-26T20:14:00.000+01:00

Call for papers

Where: KingstonUniversity London

When: 19-20January 2012

Call for papers

The FourthDistributed Thinking Symposium will take place at Kingston University (PenrhynRoad Campus) on Thursday 19 January and Friday 20 January 2012. We are seekingpapers that explore cognition and language from a systemic perspective. Paperswill be accepted either as an oral presentation (30 mins) or a poster presentation(the poster session will be held on the Thursday afternoon). Abstracts shouldbe submitted to F. Vallée-Tourangeau (f.vallee-tourangeau@kingston.ac.uk)by Friday 2 December 2011.

The symposium isorganised by the Kingston Department of Psychology, the Kingston DistributedCognition Group, and the Distributed Language Group. For more information contact FrédéricVallée-Tourangeau or Stephen Cowley (s.j.cowley@herts.ac.uk).

http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/research/psychology/

https://sites.google.com/site/dcognition/

http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/dlg/

Important new paper on conversational remembering in social and cognitive psychology

2011-10-21T15:58:00.001+01:00

In the next issue of the Annual Review of Psychology (vol. 63, January 2012), “Remembering Conversations: The Social Sharing and Reshaping of Memories”, an excellentarticle by William Hirst and Gerald Echterhoff (available here)

The abstract begins: “People constantly talk about pastexperiences. Burgeoning psychological research has examined the role ofcommunication in remembering by placing rememberers in conversational settings.In reviewing this work, we first discuss the benefits of collaborativeremembering (transactive memory and collaborative facilitation) and its costs(collaborative inhibition, information sampling biases, and audience tuning).We next examine how conversational remembering affects subsequent memory. Here,we address influences on listeners’ memory through social contagion, resistanceto such influences, and then retrieval/reexposure effects on either speaker orlistener, with a focus on retrieval-induced forgetting. Extending theperspective beyond single interactions, we consider work that has explored howthe above effects can spread across networks of several individuals. We alsoexplore how a speaker’s motive to form a shared reality with listeners canmoderate conversational effects on memory. Finally, we discuss how thesevarious conversational effects may promote the formation of collective memories.”

1st International Conference on Interactivity, Language and Cognition (CILC)

2011-10-11T13:54:00.000+01:00

Where: University ofSouthern Denmark, Odense Campus

When: 12-14 September 2012 (DLG Research clusterworkshops 11 September)

Contact: Sune VorkSteffensen

Meeting email: cilc2012 [at] language.sdu.dk
Meeting URL: www.sdu.dk/cilc2012

Meeting description:
The Distributed Language Group (DLG) and theInstitute of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark,cordially invite you to take part in the 1st International Conference onInteractivity, Language and Cognition (CILC). The aim of the conference is toplace the study of human interactivity, including language and cognition, withinthe context of human culture and the life sciences. With its trans-disciplinaryagenda, CILC invites researchers from linguistics, cognitive science,psychology, anthropology, biology, etc., to address the following researchquestions:

(1) How do the interbodily dynamics of human interactivity shape languagingand in turn how does languaging shape the dynamics of human interactivity?
(2) How do linguistic, symbolicand gestural structures constrain these interbodily dynamics?
(3) How are human agency, thecultural order, technology, landscapes and ecosystems influenced by the talk,texts, and material products of human languaging?

We invite submissions of abstracts for papers andposters, presenting current research addressing Interactivity, Language andCognition, preferably related to the distributed language and cognitionmovement. Paper presentations are planned as 30-minute talks (including questions).In order to create a stimulating intellectual environment, all papers will begiven in plenary. Posters will be presented throughout the conference.

Please submit your abstract at www.sdu.dk/cilc2012.

Background:
In recent years, cognitive science has beenincreasingly influenced by a distributed approach to cognition. On thedistributed view, cognition is traced to how human beings integrate neural,bodily and extra-corporeal events and activities. Cognition goes beyond thebrain and the individual body, and its basis lies in interactivity or how agentsconnect with each other both directly and through material and symbolicartefacts. Taking this approach into the realm of human language, language isviewed as a shared activity of languaging, with emphasis falling on how themateriality of symbolic resources constrains the bodily and cognitive dynamicsof human beings.
Accordingly, a distributed approach to languageand cognition is pursued by treating languaging as pivotal to social, culturaland biological development and maintenance. Thus description and explanation oflinguistic activities are carried out with regard to verbal patterns,sociocultural practices, and, just as crucially, the real-time embodiedinteractivity that links people within their environments.

Invited speakers:
• David Kirsh(University of California at San Diego)
• Nigel Love (Universityof Cape Town)
• Bert Hodges (GordonCollege and University of Connecticut)
• Susan Duncan(University of Chicago)
• Alexander Kravchenko(Baikal National University of Economics and Law)
• Steve Thorne (PortlandState University and University of Groningen)
• Stephen Cowley(University of Hertfordshire)

Conference fees:
Registration fee for participants is 200 EURO(before 1 June 2012) and 225 EURO (no later than 15 August 2012). For Ph.D.students and participants from countries listed as ‘low economic resources
countries’ by the World Bank, the fee is 120 EURO.Fees include the conference kit, lunches and coffee breaks (conference dinneris not included).

Abstract submission: for the full Call for Papersin pdf and information on hotel reservations, conference dinner and conference tour,please check the conference website: www.sdu.dk/cilc2012.

Deadlines
January 31st, 2012: Abstract submissions
April 15th: Notice of acceptance
June 1st: Early Bird registration closes
August 15th: Registration closes

Organizing Committee
Sune Vork Steffensen (chair)
Steven Breunig
Astrid Jensen
Christian Mosbæk Johannessen
Sarah Bro Pedersen
Lone Marianne Willemoes
Stephen Cowley (University of Hertfordshire)
Paul Thibault (Agder University and Hong KongUniversity)

Scientific Committee
Natalia Abieva
Phil Carr
Hannele Dufva
Don Favareau
Paul Hopper
Timo Järvilehto
Per Linell
Robert Port
Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi
Piere Steiner
John Sutton
Fred Vallée-Tourangeau

New publication: Review of Meaning in mind and society

2011-10-09T11:00:00.003+01:00

Bietti, L. (2011). Review of Peter Harder, Meaning in Mind and Society: A Functional Contribution to the Social Turn in Cognitive Linguistics. eLanguage, September 9th.

New publication: Review of Cognitive systems and the extended mind

2011-10-09T10:54:00.005+01:00

Bietti, L. (2011). Review of Robert D. Rupert, Cognitive Systems and The Extexted Mind. eLanguage, September 30th

CLINICAL PERSPECTIVES ON AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY

2011-10-06T12:51:00.002+01:00

CONFERENCE 2012: CLINICAL PERSPECTIVES ON AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY

When: June 11-12, 2012

Where:Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Aarhus University

WELCOME

It is a great pleasure for the Center onAutobiographical Memory Research at Aarhus University to invite you toparticipate in the conference

ClinicalPerspectives on Autobiographical Memory

which takes place in Aarhus, Denmark, 11th-12th June,2012.

The goal of the conference is to facilitate scientificexchange in the rapidly growing research area of autobiographical memory andpsychopathology. The conference brings together some of the most outstandingresearchers in this area, who will present their key findings, theories andperspectives on the field. In addition, we invite everyone to submit posterpresentations describing some of their most recent and exciting findingsconcerning autobiographical memory and psychopathology.

Confirmed speakersinclude :

· Dorthe Berntsen, Aarhus University

· Richard A. Bryant, University of New South Wales

· Anke Ehlers, King's College London

· Dirk Hermans, University of Leuven

· Emily A. Holmes, University of Oxford

· Richard J. McNally, Harvard University

· Michelle L. Moulds, University of New South Wales

· David C. Rubin, Duke University

· Edward R. Watkins, University of Exeter

· J. Mark G. Williams, University of Oxford

The field of autobiographical memory has growndramatically over the last decades and has demonstrated its potential innumerous ways. It has shown its relevance to the understanding of commonclinical disorders, such as depression and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Clinical psychologists commonly investigate changes inautobiographical memory as a function of psychopathology. They aim tounderstand the mechanisms underlying autobiographical memory duringpsychopathology and furthermore develop appropriate evidence-based treatmentsfor autobiographical memory deficits and psychopathology. Cognitivepsychologists have more frequently investigated autobiographical memory duringhealthy cognition. As with clinical psychologists, they seek tounderstand the mechanisms underlying autobiographical memory and developtestable models.

The goal of the conference is to enhance scientificexchange between researchers with different backgrounds but with a sharedinterest in reaching a deeper understanding of autobiographical memory inpsychopathology.

Centralthemes include:

· Overgeneralautobiographical memories and their mechanism

· Intrusive and involuntary autobiographical memories

· Trauma and autobiographical memory

· Treatmentimplications of autobiographical memory research

To register please click here

To submit your abstract please click here

- Or choose the links in the menu to the right.

5th International Conference on Cognitive Science

2011-09-29T21:31:00.002+01:00

Call for papers
5th International Conference on Cognitive Science
Where: Kaliningrad,Russia
When: June 19-23, 2012

The InterregionalAssociation for Cognitive Studies (IACS), the Interregional foundation “Centrefor the Development of Interpersonal Communication”, Institute of Psychology ofthe Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academyof Sciences, and the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute” announcethe 5th International Conference on Cognitive Science, to be held in Kaliningrad (former Königsberg) , Russia, June 19-23, 2012.
This conference succeedsthe Conferences on Cognitive Science held in Kazan' (2004), St. Petersburg(2006), Moscow (2008), and Tomsk (2010) (see the IACS website: www.cogsci.ru andthe conference website: www.conf.cogsci.ru).
The conference aims toorganize a multidisciplinary forum for scientists exploring cognition and itsevolution; intellect; thinking; perception; consciousness; knowledgerepresentation and acquisition; language as a means of cognition andcommunication; brain mechanisms of cognition, emotion and higher forms ofbehavior. Psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists, computer scientists,philosophers, anthropologists, specialists in education, artificialintelligence, neuroinformatics and cognitive ergonomics, as well as otherresearchers interested in interdisciplinary research on cognition are invitedto participate in the conference.
The conference programwill include lectures by leading experts in multidisciplinary cognitivestudies. Invited speakers are David J. Chalmers (Australian NationalUniversity), Terrence Deacon (University of California,Berkeley), Daniel C. Dennett (TuftsUniversity), Tom Givón (University of Oregon), KimmoKaski (AaltoUniversity, Helsinki), Saadi Lahlou (Instituteof Social Psychology, London), and GeorgeLakoff (Universityof California, Berkeley).
The working languages ofthe conferences are Russian and English. For all spoken presentationssimultaneous translation will be provided. In addition to sessions andworkshops with oral presentations, special attention will be given to postersessions. Accepted abstracts will be published by the beginning of theConference.
The deadline for abstractsubmission is November 15, 2011.Abstracts should be submitted online via the conference website: www.conf.cogsci.ru starting from the 15^thofSeptember. Applicants will be notified of their status by February15, 2012.
Organizers of theConference hope to cover the accommodation expenses for the participants inhigh-quality Kaliningrad hotels.
Program Committee Chair -Yuri I. Alexandrov (Institute of Psychology RAS, Moscow)
Organizing Committee Chair - Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics RAS,Moscow, and Moscow State University)
Conference Secretary - Andrey K. Krylov (Institute of Psychology RAS, Moscow)
cogsci2012@mail.ru

Collective Intentionality VIII

2011-09-24T00:14:00.000+01:00

Call for papers

When: August 28^th-31,2012

Where: University of Manchester

Background

Collective Intentionality VIII – as thename suggests! – is the eighth in a series of large-scale international eventson joint and/or cooperative action, reasoning, decision, intention, attention,and associated mental and agential phenomena, topics that impact on issues inethics and social ontology and which cross boundaries between philosophy,economics, politics and psychology. Previous events in theseries have been hosted by the Universities of Basel (2010), Berkeley(2008), Helsinki (2006), Siena (2004), Rotterdam (2002), Leipzig (2000)and Munich (1998). This will be the first in the series hosted in the UK, andwe are proud to announce that the University of Manchester has been selected tohost the event.

Confirmed invited speakers

Michael Tomasello (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig)
Michael Bratman (Philosophy, Stanford)
Margaret Gilbert (Philosophy, UC Irvine)
Wolfgang Prinz (Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig)
Raimo Tuomela (Philosophy, Helsinki)
A. J. Julius (Philosophy, UCLA)
Stephen Butterfill (Philosophy, Warwick)
Guenther Knoblich (Psychology, SOMBY, Donders, Radboud, Nijmegen)
Hans Bernhard Schmid (Philosophy, Vienna)
Peter Goldie (Philosophy, Manchester)
Alex Oliver (Philosophy, Cambridge)
Kirk Ludwig (Philosophy, Indiana)
Thomas Smith (Philosophy, Manchester)

Structure

The event will feature a keynote lecture by Professor Tomasello, plenarytalks by (among others) Professors Bratman and Gilbert, and four three-speakersymposiums: on (i) the cognitive psychology of joint action, (ii) cooperativeaction and reasoning, (iii) the logic and metaphysics of plurals andcollectivity, and (iv) the phenomenology of empathy and fellow-feeling. Inaddition, there will be parallel sessions of submitted papers by delegates.

Call for papers

We invite papers for presentation in 20 minutes. Philosophers,psychologists, economists and political theorists with research interests inthis area are warmly encouraged to submit. Please send drafts (abstracts ifpreferred), for blind review to collintviii@manchester.ac.uk by 1st June 2012. Notification of acceptance by 1st July 2012.

Registration and fees

Registration is not yet open and the conference fee not finalised. Weexpect that the fee will be low (between £60-80). This will include coffee andlunches, but exclude accommodation and the conference dinner. Please send anyenquiries to collintviii@manchester.ac.uk.

Local organizing committee:

Thomas Smith, Peter Goldie, Joel Smith (Philosophy, Manchester), PaulIbbotson (Max Planck Child Study Centre, Psychology, Manchester), StephenButterfill (Philosophy, Warwick).

International AdvisoryBoard:

Christiano Castelfranchi (ISTC-CNR, Rome), Luca Tummolini (ISTC-CNR, Rome),Frank Hindriks (Groningen), Kirk Ludwig (Indiana), Georg Meggle (Leipzig),Anthonie W.M. Meijers (Delft and Eindhoven), Seumas Miller (Australian NationalUniversity), Hans Bernhard Schmid (Vienna), David Schweikard (Munster), DeborahTollefsen (Memphis), Raimo Tuomela (Helsinki).

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Royal Institute ofPhilosophy, the SINTELNET European Network for Social Intelligence, Mindand Language, the European Journal of Philosophy, the Manchester Philosophy DA,and the Manchester School of Social Sciences.

Memory and methodology workshop

2011-09-20T22:49:00.002+01:00

When: March 21^st,2012

Where: Loughborough, UK

Memory and methodology is apre-conference workshop which will introduce participants to a range ofmethodological issues that arise in researching individual and collectivememory. These will include research design, data generation and data analysis.The workshop will be devoted to work broadly dealing with archives and texts onthe one hand, and vernacular forms of remembering on the other.

Lecturers: Sabina Mihelj, Mike Pickering, Emily Keightley, Cristian Tileaga

Registrationdeadline (for guaranteed on-campus accommodation) is November30th, 2011.

Conferenceregistration fee £90 (£60 concessions)
Pre-conference workshop fee £50 (£30 concessions)

Cognitive Ethnography and Memory

2011-09-07T17:19:00.002+01:00

Studies in cognitive ethnography (Hutchins,1995, 2010; Williams, 2006) have been applying traditional ethnographic methods(Taylor, 1994; Toren, 1996) to investigate cognitive and interactive processes betweenparticipants engaged in multimodal interactions in real-world activities(Hutchins & Nomura, 2011). Among thesemethods, cognitive ethnographers employ participant observation, interviewingand artifact analysis (Williams, 2006). These studies have been speciallyfocused on exploring collaborative processes in activities of knowledgeconstruction between experts in organization and professional settings (e.g.classrooms, flight decks, scientific laboratories and ship navigation). Thus,cognitive ethnographers examine how material (e.g. tools, technologicaldevices) and social environments (e.g. co-workers) are coordinated inmeaningful cultural activities (e.g. flying a commercial plane). Williams claimsthat ‘cognitive ethnography looks at process: at the moment-to-moment developmentof activity and its relation to sociocultural (often institutional) processes unfoldingon different time scales’ (2006: 838). The advantages of this method of inquiryfor memory research are multiple. Cognitive ethnography may provide the properanalytical tool to explore the multimodal and cognitive dimension ofcollaborative processes of memory-making in real-world settings

This approach constitutes an ecological valid method in the cognitivesciences to investigate practices of remembering. Most of the studies incognitive ethnography have been conducted in institutional settings where thecognitive, material and social activities had been previously determined by thesocial and cultural practice (e.g. navigation, teaching and flying). Fewstudies in memory research have explicitly employed cognitive ethnographic

methodologies toexplore processes of remembering. Computer scientists and neurologists (Wu etal., 2008) have investigated the cognitivestrategies that families create to struggle with amnesia in real-worldactivities.This study involved the recruitment of ten families which some of theirmembers had severe memory problems. This very interesting study explores thecommunicative strategies that families create to compensate the memoryimpairment of one of their members. These communicative strategies include theuse of technological devices (e.g. calendars, personal digital assistants(PDAs) and journals) as well as discursive practices.

The final aim of the investigation was to show how by means ofdistributed cognitive processes across participants and technological devicesfamilies may work as cognitive systems coping with amnesia (Wu et al., 2008:833). Notwithstanding, little attention has been paid to either how familymembers actually discursively interact when jointly reconstruct shared memories(Harris et al., 2011) or how the incorporation of technological devices triggerextended cognitive processes (Sutton et al., 2010) - apart from providingevidence about how beneficial such cognitive couplings across family members and technological devices may be.

References

Harris, C, Keil, P., Sutton, J, Barnier, A. & McIlwain, D. (2011).We Remember, We forget: collaborative remembering in older couples. Discourse Processes 48 (4), 267-303.

Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MITPress.

Hutchins, E. (2010). Cognitive ecology. Topics in Cognitive Science 2(4), 705-715.

Hutchins, E. & Nomura, S. (2011). Collaborative construction ofmultimodal utterances. In

J. Streek, C. Goodwin & C. LeBaron (eds.), Embodied Interaction: Language and Body in the Material World (pp.29-43). Cambridge University Press.

Sutton, J., Harris, C., Keil, P. & Barnier, A. (2010). Thepsychology of memory, extended cognition, and socially distributed remembering.Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9 (4), 521-560.

Taylor, M. (1994). Ethnography. In P. Bainster, E. Burman, I. Parker& C. Tindall (eds.), Qualitative Methods in Psychology: A Research Guide. Buckingham, PA: Open University.

Toren, C. (1996). Ethnography: theoretical background.In J.T.E. Richardson (ed.), Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Psychology and theSocial Sciences (pp. 102-112). Leicester: BPSBlackwell.

Williams, R.F. (2006). Using cognitive ethnography to study instruction.In S.A. Barab, K.E. Hay & D.T. Hickey (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th InternationalConference on Learning Sciences (vol. 2, pp. 838-844). Mahwah,NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Wu, M., Birnholts, J., Richards, B., Baeker, R. &Massimi, M. (2008). Collaborating to remember: a distributed cognition account of familiescoping with memory impairments. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI 2008 Conference on HumanFactors in Computer Systems (pp.825-834). Florence,Italy.

Conflict in Memory: Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering of War, Conflict and Transition

2011-08-25T14:13:00.002+01:00

An interdisciplinary conference

Call for papers

When: 10 – 12 May 2012

Where: Aarhus University, Denmark

Deadline for proposals: January 15, 2012

War, conflicts and transitions have always played a significant role in defining communal identity, often with reference to events that happened centuries ago. The role of passing on collective memories of these types of events has become even more complex in a globalizing world, where new configurations of cosmopolitan memories challenge more locally and nationally based memories. The many aspects of societies’ remembering and forgetting call for interdisciplinary cooperation. This conference brings together the fields of history, psychology, literature, and cultural studies and presents new research on how memories of war, conflict and transition are passed on from generation to generation and how these processes transform and shape identities.

Confirmed keynote speakers

· Dorthe Berntsen (Aarhus University)

· Anna Bull (University of Bath)

· Tom Dunne (University College Cork)

· Balthazar Garzon (investigative judge, Madrid)

· Willliam Hirst (New School of Social Sciences, New York)

· Andreas Huyssen (Columbia University)

· Daniel Levy (Stony Brook University)

· Luisa Passserini (University of Torino)

· Alistair Thomson (Monash University, Melbourne)

· James Wertsch (Washington University, St. Louis)

For detailed information on workshop themes see: http://matchpoints.au.dk/

Methods in Conversational Remembering

2011-08-13T19:25:00.003+01:00

Following the methodological perspective of discourse psychologists (Edwards & Potter, 1992) and conversation analysts (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984; Sacks, 1992), some studies in conversational remembering (Brown, Middleton & Lightfoot, 2001; Buchanan & Middleton, 1995; Middleton, 1997) were undertaken using recordings and transcriptions of naturally occurring interactions (e.g. reminiscence groups in residential homes and day care centers, and teamwork in intensive care units). That is, these interactions took place without being partially guided by prompts about memories suggested by an interviewer in accordance with specific research goals which go far beyond the situated activity. This naturalistic approach to discursive remembering undoubtedly reflects how and why people use memories in their daily lives and clearly represents a good example of an ecologically valid method for recollecting data for memory research in institutional settings. However, this method for collecting ‘naturally occurring data’ has some limitations, which are related to the degree of specificity of the tasks in which individuals reconstruct and communicate past experiences. It would only be applicable if interactions were fundamentally driven by remembering activities (e.g. reminiscence groups), because otherwise we would need a vast amount of hours of recordings in order to find processes of autobiographical and joint reconstruction of memories.

Some discursive psychologists (Potter & Hepburn, 2005) and conversation analysts (Schegloff, 1997) still believe that this sort of data collection is the most ecologically valid because, in contrast to what occurs in research interviews, participants would not have talked about the research topic, or talked about it in the way they did, without the researcher’s guidance (Taylor & Littleton, 2006: 27-8). If the research goals are directly related to the task from which natural occurring data is collected, that may be the case, but otherwise it would be implausible due to the fact that everyday life cannot be totally recorded.

References

Atkinson, J.M., J. Heritage, (eds.) (1984). Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Buchanan, K. & Middleton, D.J. (1995). Voices of experience: talk, identity and membership in reminiscence groups. Ageing & Society, 15, 457-91.

Brown, S.D., Middleton, D. & Lightfoot, G.M. (2001). Performing the past in electronic archives: Interdependencies and in the discursive and non-discursive organization of remembering. Culture & Psychology 7 (2), 123-144.

Middleton, D. (1997). Conversational remembering and uncertainty: interdependencies of experience as individual and collective concerns in team work. Journal of language and Social Psychology, 16 (4), 389-410.

Edwards, D., Middleton, D. & Potter, J. (1992). Toward a discursive psychology of remembering. The Psychologist 5, 56-60.

Potter, J. & Hepburn, A. (2005). Qualitative interviews in psychology: problems and possibilities. Qualitative Research in Psychology 2, 281-307.

Schegloff, E.A. (1997). Practices and action: boundary cases of other-initiated repair. Discourse Processes 23 (3), 499-545.

Taylor, S. & Littleton, K. (2006). Biographies in talk: A narrative-discursive research approach. Qualitative Sociology Review 2 (1), 22-38.

Interactivity: Distributed Cognition and Language Dynamics

2011-08-06T13:39:00.007+01:00

PhD course: Interactivity: Distributed Cognition and Language Dynamics

When: October 24-25

Where: Odense, Denmark

Introduction

Since the mid 1990s, a different understanding of cognition has emerged emphasising that cognition is not only an individual, cerebral activity but arises as people engage both with each other and material artefacts. Cog-nition is thus, in this view, socially, materially and historically distributed. Applying this Distributed Cognition perspective to interaction has given rise to a Distributed Language and Cognition movement. This is a naturali-sed approach to ecologically situated human co-ordination which empha-sises interactivity in problem-solving activities in, for example, workplace settings: How do humans, as biodynamic agents, do things together and make things happen drawing upon their bodies, semiotic and material artefacts, the lived environment, social normativity, and cultural values and patterns?

Content

This Ph.D. course introduces Distributed Cognition and its application to interactional phenomena. We will focus on language dynamics in various time-scales, inter-bodily dynamics (e.g. prosody and gesture), the material environment and social and symbolic constraints in interaction. Having introduced these notions, we will demonstrate various methods for investigating interactivity, distributed cognition and language in inter-actional encounters. Examples will primarily come from health interaction, but may also include other forms of organizational life. We will foster the development of a hands-on tool-box of analytical approaches that can help practitioners and theorists of human interactivity and cognition to better understand (and intervene in) workplace practices and problem-solving activities, seen as embedded in and contributing to the functioning of a distinctively human ecology.

Analysis sessions

The course includes analysis sessions using students’ own data. Partici-pants wanting to work on their own interactional data are required to pro-vide a fragment of these data. Therefore, 2-5 minutes video and sound files, as well as a reliable transcript (including an English translation), can be placed in a Dropbox set up in relation to the course.

Participants

The course is designed for Ph.D. students in linguistics, interaction studies and organizational studies. Advanced Masters Students can participate in the course.

Teachers

Stephen J. Cowley, Senior Lecturer, University of Hertfordshire

Sune V. Steffensen, Associate Professor, University of Southern Denmark

ECTS

1.5 ECTS (0.5 ECTS option submitting a 2-3 pages analysis of a data fragment after the course).

Organizer

The Doctoral Programme in Language and Communication

Venue

University of Southern Denmark, Odense Campus

Campusvej 55

DK-5230 Odense

Denmark

Costs Participation is free of charge. Expenses for meals, lodging and travel have to be covered by the participants themselves.

Accommodation www.dkhotellist.com/hotels-odense.html

Registration

By mail to Jeanet Dal (course administrator): dal@sdu.dk

NB! There is a limited number of participants!

Further information

Sune Vork Steffensen (course teacher): vork@language.sdu.dk

Jeanet Dal (course administrator): dal@sdu.dk

Dennis Day (doctoral programme leader): dennis.day@language.sdu.dk

New publication: Review of The Cognitive Life of Things. Recasting the Boundaries of the Mind.

2011-07-31T06:03:00.003+01:00

Bietti, L. (2011).Review of Lambros Malafouris and Colin Renfrew (eds.), The Cognitive Life of Things. Recasting the Boundaries of the Mind. Pragmatics & Cognition 19 (1), 141-149. [DOI: 10.1075/pc.19.1.08bie]

The Cultural Constitution of Causal Cognition

2011-07-30T08:24:00.003+01:00

The Cultural Constitution of Causal Cognition:

Setting the Stage for a Cross-Disciplinary Endeavour

Where: Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld

When: October 13 - 14, 2011

Convenors: Andrea Bender (Freiburg), Sieghard Beller (Freiburg)

The opening conference brings together scholars from different fields of the cognitive sciences to explore the interplay of culture and causal cognition. While different sciences investigate these topics respectively and in combination, the conference aims at integrating the different approaches to develop a more complex (and complete) perspective on The Cultural Constitution of Causal Cognition.

The first day of the conference is devoted to disciplinary Perspectives on Causal Cognition. In a series of talks, experts report on their discipline’s state of the art of research on causal cognition.

On the second day, we explore the potential for Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries. This includes talks on the role of Anthropology as a discipline and cultural expertise in general in the Cognitive Sciences. A panel discussion on the challenges and chances of cross-disciplinary work elaborates the institutional setting of the current scientific landscape. This more abstract lay of the land is followed by panels on particular themes that are explored from various disciplinary perspectives. A key note speech on The Cultural Nature of Causal Cognition will integrate the epistemological and heuristic challenges of studying causal cognition with special attention to cultural diversity.

The conference receives funding from the German Research Foundation.

See preliminary program here

Perceptual Memory and Perceptual Imagination

2011-07-26T19:55:00.003+01:00

Perceptual Memory and Perceptual Imagination

When: 6th - 9th September 2011
Where: University of Glasgow

Keynote Speakers:

§ Gregory Currie (Nottingham)

§ Fabian Dorsch (Fribourg)

§ Robert Hopkins (Sheffield)

§ Amy Kind (Claremont McKenna College)

§ Paul Noordhof (York)

Speakers:

§ Margherita Arcangeli (Jean Nicod Institut, École Normale Supérieure) "There is More to The Content"

§ Magdalena Balcerak Jackson (Cologne) "Justification by Imagination"

§ Robert Briscoe (Ohio) "On the Uses of Make-Perceive"

§ Derek Brown (Brandon) "Infusing Perception with Imagination"

§ Dorothea Debus (York) "Memory, Imagination and Narrative"

§ Anya Farennikova (Chapel Hill) "Seeing Absences: A Role for Memory in Perception"

§ Dominic Gregory (Sheffield) "Sensory Memories and Imagistic Content"

§ Steven James (Texas at Austin) "Differentiating by Differences in Knowledge"

§ Peter King (Nottingham) "An Empirically Motivated Theory of Visual Imagery in Memory and Imagination and its Relation to Vision"

§ Richard King (Glasgow) "Aristotle on Distinguishing Between Phantasia and Memory"

§ Margaret E. Moore (Leeds) “Are Earworms Imagined or Remembered?: Classifying Involuntary Musical Imagery”

Discussants:

§ Fiona Macpherson (Glasgow)

§ Cain Todd (Fribourg/Lancaster)

§ Clare Batty (Kentucky)

Registration:

To attend the conference please register before 25th August by sending an e-mail to Umut Baysan, to whom enquiries can also be made (e.baysan.1@research.gla.ac.uk). The conference will run from the morning of 6th September to lunch time on 9th September. Please indicate which of the following you are registering for:

§ Registration fee for the whole conference - includes tea and coffee but no meals- faculty rate - £150

§ Registration fee for the whole conference - includes tea and coffee ut no meals - graduate student rate - £60

§ Registration fee for individual days of the conference - includes tea and coffee but no meals- faculty rate - £50 per day, except for the final half day, which is £25

§ Registration fee for individual days of the conference - includes tea and coffee but no meals - graduate student rate - £20 per day, except for the final half day, which is £10

§ Lunch on the 6th - £10

§ Lunch on the 7th - £10

§ Lunch on the 8th - £10

§ Lunch on the 9th - £15

§ Dinner on the 5th - £40 includes wine

§ Dinner on the 6th - £50 includes wine

§ Dinner on the 7th - £35 includes wine

§ Dinner on the 8th - £50 includes wine

§ Dinner on the 9th - £35 includes wine

Please specifiy if you require a speciai diet.

Fees are payable on arrival by cash or by cheque payable to the "University of Glasgow".

In planning your trip to Glasgow you may find our list of accommodation near the University helpful, but there are also many hotels in the city centre that are reasonably convenient.

Maps and travel details can be found here. Venue is the Glasgow University Union which is marked as "E8" on the campus map and is at 32 University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LX and found here on Google maps.

Sponsors:

We are very grateful to the Scots Philosophical Association, the Mind Association, the University of Fribourg and University of Glasgow College of Arts for funding to run the conference. Thanks also to Nik Ainley (www.shinybinary.com) for use of his image.

Conference Topic:

One important fact about our mental lives is that sensory experience comes in three central variants: perception, imagination, and memory. For instance, we may not only see the visible appearance of a person or a building, but also recall and imagine it in a visual manner. The three types of experience share certain important features which are intimately linked to their common sensory character, and many of which distinguish them from thought. Among these features are their apparent presentation of external objects or events (rather than of propositions about them), their perspectivalness or presenting the world from a certain point of view, and their their connection to one of the sense modalities such as by having some modality specific contents and phenomenal character.

But there are also important differences among the three types of sensory experiences. Most notably, there is a fundamental divide between perceptions, on the one hand, and recollections and imaginings, on the other. Perception is distinct from imagination and memory in that it presents objects with a certain sense of immediacy: when we see objects, they seem to be present directly before us in our environment; while the objects of our memory or imagination either don’t seem to exist now in front of us (although we may imagine objects in front of us) or are given to us as being located in the past or in some imagined world or in some location in this world other than that in front of us. Although there is a difference in kind between perceptual experiences, memories and imaginings this is often accompanied by certain differences in degree. Thus sensory episodes of imagining or remembering are typically less vivid and stable in their existence and nature than episodes of perceiving; while the latter appear to be less open to the influence of mental activity than the former. In addition, all three types of sensory experience play different motivational and justificatory roles; and these rational differences are at least to some extent phenomenologically salient. We are inclined and entitled to different beliefs in response to perceptions, memories and imaginings; and this is reflected by differences in what it is subjectively like to undergo these sensory experiences.

The nature of perception has always been one of the major topics in the philosophy of mind, while the opposite is true of perceptual memories and, even more so perceptual imaginings. In particular, not much attention has been paid to the similarities and differences between imagination and memory in their sensory forms, as well as to the fact that both are, from a phenomenal point of view, much closer to each other than to perception. The main aim of the conference is to remedy this situation and to get clearer about the nature of both perceptual imaginings and perceptual memories by comparing them with each other and with perceptions.

A central theme of the conference will be what makes it possible for imaginings and memories to possess the features distinctive of sensory experiences despite lacking perceptual immediacy. In relation to this issue, we will discuss the thought that imagined objects are, in some sense, external to the mind.

Another important topic will be whether perceptual imaginings and perceptual memories differ intrinsically, or just in their mental context – for instance, in how they originate in and depend on past perceptions. Our sensory imagination is not completely unconstrained. What we can visualise, say, is restricted to the visible and, arguably, to what we have seen in the past or can extrapolate from our past perceptions (c.f. Hume’s missing shade of blue). But some have thought that only our sensory recollections are inescapably particular in their presentation of objects. While we recall the appearances of specific objects which we perceived in the past by means of particular perceptions, imaginings – like depictions – allow for the presentation of generic objects and do not require any specific past acquaintance. This raises the question of how we can imagine particular objects, or to which extent particular and generic imaginings involve some form of particular or generic sensory memory. It may be helpful in this context to compare the imagination with the phenomenon of depiction.

The conference will also deal with the issue of whether there could be any other forms of sensory experience besides imaginings or memory (e.g., sensory experiences of the future); and if not, why not. Finally, we also hope to investigate interactions between memory and imaginings and perception, that may yield experiences that are amalgams of two of these experiences and which may help to explain central features of experience such as those features said to be phenomenally present as absent and effects like cognitive penetration.

Other Minds: Embodied Interaction and Higher-Order Reasoning

2011-07-12T15:38:00.002+01:00

Interdisciplinary Conference

Other Minds: Embodied Interaction and Higher-Order Reasoning

Where: Bochum, Germany

Where: September 20-21, 2011

Keynote speakers:

Max Coltheart (Sydney) & Kai Vogeley (Cologne)

Call for Posters

Please submit an abstract (approx. 200 words) by August 1, 2011 to Bochum.Conference@gmail.com

Contact:

Web: http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/philosophy/otherminds-bochum/index.html
E-mail: Bochum.Conference@gmail.com

Conflict in Memory: Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering of War, Conflict and Transition

2011-07-05T20:29:00.002+01:00

Conflict in Memory: Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering of War, Conflict and Transition

1^st Call for papers - MatchPoints Seminar 2012

When: 10 – 12 May 2012

Where: Aarhus University, Denmark

War, conflicts and transitions have always played a significant role in defining communal identity, often with reference to events that happened centuries ago. The role of passing on collective memories of these types of events has become even more complex in a globalizing world, where new configurations of cosmopolitan memories challenge more locally and nationally based memories. The many aspects of societies’ remembering and forgetting call for interdisciplinary cooperation. This conference brings together the fields of history, psychology, literature, and cultural studies and presents new research on how memories of war, conflict and transition are passed on from generation to generation and how these processes transform and shape identities.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Balthazar Garzon (investigative judge, Madrid)

Alistair Thomson (Monash University, Melbourne)

Andreas Huyssen (Columbia University)

James Wertsch (Washington University, St. Louis)

Dorthe Berntsen (Aarhus University)

Daniel Levy (Stony Brook University)

Anna Bull (University of Bath)

Luisa Passserini (University of Torino)

Tom Dunne (University College Cork)

Willliam Hirst (New School of Social Sciences, New York)

Workshop themes:

· Negotiating National and Cosmopolitan Memories

· Psychological Approaches to Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering

· Narrative Templates in Representations of Conflict and Civil Warfare

· Memory, Identity and Social Cohesion: Commemoration and Intergenerational Memory of War, Conflict and Crisis

Purposes and ideas of the workshops:

Negotiating National and Cosmopolitan Memories

Organised by Stefan Iversen and Mads Rosendahl Thomsen (contact: Mads Rosendahl Thomsen)

This section explores how cosmopolitanism has become an important topic in the study of identity formation and the changes of memories in an increasingly globalized world. The keynotes will address the Holocaust as a transnational object of memory that has had a profound influence on memory politics in terms of lawmaking, commemorative gestures and in educating new generations. The section consists of the following three sessions:

1. Transformed places

2. Politics of memory

3. Clashing memories

Psychological Approaches to Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering

Organised by Annette Bohn, Celia Harris, and Jonathan Koppel (contact: Annette Bohn)

This workshop will cover a broad range of topics concerned with social and cultural issues in memory, from collaborative memories in couples to national survey studies on memories for important public events, to the way that memories of traumatic events (personal and public) inform, and are informed by, one’s personal and social identity. The workshop will be organised in three sessions addressing the following topics:

1. Collective remembering and forgetting in small groups

2. Memories of transitions: important personal and national events

3. Trauma, identity and memory

Narrative Templates in Representations of Conflict and Civil Warfare

Organised by Hans Lauge Hansen, Francesco Caviglia, Leonardo Cecchini (contact: Leonardo Cecchini)

This workshop explores the role of narrative discourse in the intergenerational memory processes of conflict and civil warfare. The concept of narrative discourse is to be understood in its broadest sense as fictional and non-fictional representations and all the hybrid genres in between, based on linguistic, visual and corporal/physical expressions. “Conflict and civil warfare” refers to a broad range of historical events which affected individuals and groups within the same national community, like the Nazi suppression of the German opposition in the thirties, the Spanish Civil, War, Stalinism in USSR, political violence in the ’60s and ’70s, etc. What kind of social processes are required to convert communicative memory into cultural memory, what is the role of narrative in these processes, which are the generic templates employed and what is the social impact of these representations?

Memory, Identity and Social Cohesion: Commemoration and Intergenerational Memory of War, Conflict and Crisis

Organised by Michael Böss (contact: Michael Böss)

In Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (1994), the American historian John Gillis suggested a typology of commemorations based on three periods: a pre-national, a national and a post-national period. During the pre-national period, commemorations were either local or universal, and the elites and the masses tended not to share commemorative rites. The subsequent ‘national’ cult of commemoration served to unite people within territorial nation-states. This implied a degree of democratisation of official commemorative events and monuments. In the third period, there would not be a total demise, but a weakening of national commemoration. Gillis also predicted that we might be returning to the medieval pattern: Commemorations would become more local and more universal (‘global’). He also believed, however, that in order for societies to cohere, there would be a need for public commemoration. Without the identifications that commemorations help create, citizens would find it difficult to interact and cooperate. – This workshops invites papers that address both empirical cases and theoretical cases these issues with special reference to commemorations and memories of war, conflict and crisis.

Organiser: Prof. Michael Böss, Director of MatchPoints Seminar - engmb@hum.au.dk

Organising committee: Annette Bohn, Hans Lauge Hansen, Francesco Caviglia, Leonardo Cecchini, Stefan Iversen and Mads Rosendahl Thomsen

Deadlines for proposals: January 15, 2012

Conference fee: 150 EUR

For further information, see www.matchpoints.au.dk

Conference venue: Aarhus University, Søauditorierne, Bartholins Allé 3, 8000 Aarhus.

Self-Memory Systems

2011-07-01T15:57:00.003+01:00

Conway’s model of the self-memory systems (Conway, 2005; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Conway & Williams, 2008; Williams & Conway, 2009) may currently represent the most influential theory about how autobiographical memories are constructed in consciousness. Conway (2005) claims that autobiographical memory is formed by episodic memory and autobiographical knowledge, which is defined as the conceptual generic schematic knowledge of these episodic memories. Thus, autobiographical memory locates human beings in socio-historical time. The interlocking of episodic memories and autobiographical knowledge is carried out by self-networks (Williams & Conway, 2009). Within these networks, memories are networked by their relation to a person’s sense of self – more precisely, the particular version of the person’s working self, which was active when that memory was formed (Williams & Conway, 2009: 37). The link to the social world is given by the fact that self-networks necessarily extend beyond the brain because individuals or selves belong and exist in relation to social groups. Moreover, processes of autobiographical remembering must meet the criteria set by the goal of the working self. The goals are always in accordance to the demands that the person is performing (i.e. narrating the first time I was robbed). These demands are largely shaped by social groups.

References

Conway, M.A. (2005). Memory and the self. Journal of Memory and Language 53 (4), 594-628.

Conway, M. A. & Pleydell- Pearce, C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographicalmemories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review 107, 261-288.

Conway, M.A. & Williams, H.L. (2008). Autobiographical memory. In H.L. Roediger III (ed.), Cognitive Psychology of Memory. Vol 2 of Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference, 4 vols. (pp. 893-909). Oxford: Elsevier.

Williams, H. & Conway, M.A. (2009). Networks of autobiographical memories. In P. Boyer & J. Wertsch (eds.), Memory in Mind and Culture (pp.33-61). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Exograms and Memory Enhancement

2011-06-21T14:10:00.004+01:00

The neuropsychologist Merlin Donald asserts that the enhancement of the human biological memory is guided by what he calls the ‘exographic revolution’ in the human cultural and cognitive evolution. He departs from a distinction between ‘engrams’ (Odgen and Richards 1956) and ‘exograms’ (Donald 1991) in order to explain how the storage capacity of biological memory systems became enhanced throughout human cultural evolution. ‘Engrams’ are mental impressions caused by memory traces in the human mind, which are the residual trace of an adaptation made by the organism in response to a stimulus (Odgen and Richards 1956: 53), while ‘exograms’ are defined as external symbolic devices linked to the present context of remembering that allow us to extend and enhance our bio-memory systems.

Donald argues that ‘exograms’ enable human beings to manipulate complex representations by significantly augmenting the working memory capacity. In this way, non-biological memory storage (e.g., electronic media) together with the biomemory systems create the conditions for the emergence of distributed hybrid networks formed by the interwoven neural capacities and external memory devices.

Donald maintains that due to brain plasticity, the interanimation of ‘exograms’ and ‘engrams’ leads to a continuous re-formatting of distributed hybrid memory networks that triggers the updating and re-wiring of the neural apparatus. In his view, this successive series of re-wirings may have underpinned the emergence of literacy practices in human societies. Although Donald underlines the key role that the material culture has had in enhancing human bio-memory systems, he affirms that the central nervous system is still the “creative driver” (Donald 2010: 76), and thus places the brain at the center of the embodied-extended cognitive engine.

The iLens would allow for photographic memory, night vision,

binoculars and augmented reality with a heads up display.

References:

Donald, M. (1991). The Origins of the Modern Human Mind. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Donald, M. (2010). The Exographic Revolution: Neuropsychological Sequelae. In Malafouris L. & Renfrew C. (eds) The Cognitive Life of Things: Recasting the boundaries of the mind. Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute Monographs, pp.71-79.

Ogden, C. K. & Richards, I. A. (1956). The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

New publication: Joint remembering: Cognition, communication and interaction in processes of memory-making

2011-06-11T11:29:00.005+01:00

Bietti, L. (2011). Joint remembering: Cognition, communication and interaction in processes of memory-making. Memory Studies, doi: 10.1177/1750698011404986

Abstract

This article provides a new cognitive- and discourse-based theory to memory research. Despite the fact that a large proportion of studies in memory research are based on investigations of (interactional) cognitive and discourse processes, neither linguistics nor cognitive and social psychologists have proposed an integrative, interdisciplinary and discursive-based theory to memory research. In this article I explore how groups of people who did not know each other jointly coordinate the interlocking of their individual experiences during a period of dictatorship and their self-positioning in the here and now. The interlocking of autobiographical memories is performed by discourse strategies such as agreements and corrections, which are dependent on the participants’ shifting representations of the communicative interaction. The conversations were about personal experiences related to the 1976–83 military dictatorship in Argentina.

Autobiographical memory in cognitive psychology

2011-06-05T15:19:00.002+01:00

Autobiographical memory in cognitive psychology (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Welzer & Markowitsch, 2005; Williams & Conway, 2009) is an integration of features and contents from long-term memory systems – episodic memory, semantic memory and procedural memory. In functional terms, autobiographical memory operates by integrating beliefs and expectations from long-term memory systems (Markowitsch, 2008; Welzer & Markowitsch, 2005). This is why autobiographical memory is always a malleable reconstruction of the past unfolding in the present. It is largely sustained by subjective as well as culturally shared social knowledge of the world in which, naturally, a self-schema (who I was, who I am, who I will be, etc.) is also embedded.

Autobiographical memory operates to sustain a network of personal aims over the course of a person’s life. For normal healthy humans this ability to reminisce about specific past events is an integral part of our daily lives. We often take it for granted because these autobiographical memories are normally involuntary, and often without any deliberate intent to remember. However, not all humans are capable of autobiographical remembering. Indeed, autobiographical memory develops relatively late (Nelson, 2003), and is also the most fragile kind of memory, the first to be lost in Alzheimer’s disease and other debilitating neurodegenerative diseases of the mind.

References

Conway, M. A. & Pleydell- Pearce, C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review 107, 261-288.

Markowitsch, H.J. (2008). Cultural memory and the neurosciences. In A. Erll & A. Nünning (eds.), Cultural Memory Studies. An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (pp.275-283). Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.

Nelson, K. (2003). Self and social functions: Individual autobiographical memory and collective narrative. Memory, 11 (2), 125-136.

Welzer, H. & Markowitsch, H.J. (2005). Towards a bio-psycho-social model of autobiographical memory. Memory, 13, 63-78.

Williams, H. & Conway, M.A. (2009). Networks of autobiographical memories. In P. Boyer & J. Wertsch (eds.), Memory in Mind and Culture (pp.33-61). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The Practice of Memory: Time, Place, Performance

2011-06-02T16:02:00.001+01:00

Call for papers

The Practice of Memory: Time, Place, Performance

International seminar

When: 8-9 December 2011

Where: Aarhus University

The study of (social or cultural) memory often take the form of analyses of more or less "finished" expressions and works of art, architecture, literature etc. and on the creativity or intentionality imbued in them. As important as such expressions are, in this seminar we seek to shift the focus from the works of art itself, or from their representation, to the processes, practices and performances that surround, shape and derive from them. Focusing less on the finished piece and more on the acts and assemblages of meaning and potential connected to them – whether in the form of unintended uses of sites, heritage tourism, art reception, ritual performance or something else – we want to highlight not only the social dimensions of "memory" but also the circumstances and processes under which the site or expression itself is invariably produced; the work-in-progress of memorisation, so to speak.

We are proud to present as keynote speakers two major international figures in the field: Professor Mieke Bal (University of Amsterdam) and Professor Kevin Hetherington (Open University, UK).

In addition to the two keynotes, we invite papers that deal with various aspects of the doing, shaping or performing of social or cultural memory. Some subthemes that may be addressed include (but are not limited to):

· The materiality of memory: the role of relics, objects, materiality, or what Daniel Miller has termed stuff" in the stagings and collaboration of memory

· The mediation and remediation of memory: the role of various media in practices of remembering

· Memory and place, aura and hauntedness: the role, affordances and restrictions, symbolic as well as tactile, of specific locations and sites in which memorialization "takes place"

· The concept of re-enactment and the manifold processes, performances and collaborations through which past events are re-staged and re-presenced

· Memory and history: the erasure of memory and the "need" and practices of selective memory and forgetting, including the history politics of such processes

· Memorialization and affect: the staging, production and strategic uses of affect and emotionality in memory practices

· The temporalities of memory: how acts of memory often reconfigure the role (and experience) of time, attempting to somehow break, stop or even symbolically reverse time

· Memory practices and/as transformation: how aspects of learning, healing, reconciliation or other (intended or unintended) transformational outcomes for the future are related to processes of remembering

· Memory performances and the body: the embodied dimensions of memory work and perception, as theorized by such notions as (for example) "the repertoire" and "the archive" (Diana Taylor), "kinetic empathy" (Thrift) and/or "attunement" (Massumi).

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted to memory@au.dk no later than October 1, 2011.

The discursive dimension of knowledge and memory

2011-05-27T16:15:00.005+01:00

Most of the new knowledge we learnt is by means of discourse practices, i.e. mass media discourse (TV, internet, newspapers, etc) educational discourse, professional discourse, everyday conversation. Hence, situation models also have to enable language users to understand the meaning of discourse in situated communicative interactions. By discourse I mean a form of language use (spoken, written and signed) and multimodal/multimedia forms of communication. The discursive nature of knowledge becomes even more evident when the topic of the communicative situations we participate in is about non-observable/present entities (e.g. the economic downtown), fictional characters (e.g. Superman) as well as beliefs. Thus, discourse practices play a central role in the formation, reproduction, consolidation and change of cultural models on the one hand, and situation models, on the other. As result, they also affect discourse processes of memory-making as it has been demonstrated by many studies in discourse psychology, cognitive social psychology and distributed approaches in cognitive psychology.

Language users reconstruct and update cultural and situation models when engaged in communicative interactions. For instance when yesterday I told my partner who was out working that I had watched on the BBC how rescue teams could save the lives of 33 miners who were trapped for almost 70 days at 622mts below the surface, I as speaker and she as addressee were continuously reconstructing and updating situation models of the events that I was narrating. I had to discursively ‘recreate’ what I had watched (visual images, facial expressions of joy, etc.) and listened to (spoken language, sounds, etc.) and, thereby, reconstructing a situation model of those events. As addressee, she had to update and reconstruct a situation model of the story I was sharing. Naturally, our models of the events were grounded in cultural models based on socially shared knowledge about mines, rescue teams, media coverage, etc., as well as on emotional codes about traumatic situations. At the same time, this interactive process of sharing my individual memories was not only influenced by our situation models of the events and relevant socially-shared knowledge, but also by our representations of the communicative interaction that control how we accommodated our situational models and discourses to the specificities of that context.

New publication: La mente extendida

2011-05-12T19:20:00.000+01:00

Bietti, L. (2011). La mente extendida. Ciencia Cognitiva 5 (2), 31-33.

Abstract

La ‘tesis de la mente extendida’ (TME) sostiene que ciertos procesos cognitivos deben entenderse como situados, corporizados y orientados hacia el logro de objetivos concretos. Estos procesos se suelen desarrollar en situaciones de la vida real en interacción con el ambiente material y social. En estas situaciones, TME propone que el cerebro, el cuerpo y el mundo se llegan a coordinar de cierta manera que hacen que la mente literalmente se extienda hacia el mundo exterior.

Socially Distributed Remembering

2011-05-06T16:46:00.002+01:00

Approaches to socially distributed remembering in philosophy and cognitive psychology (Sutton, 2005, 2008) acknowledge that remembering often occurs in social groups (e.g. partners, friends, family members) in response to their views on our past or their own. Thus, the act of sharing memories with others is one of the most common ways to create, maintain and negotiate human relationships. These processes of sharing memories occur through a wide range of activities which play a central role in how we reconstruct and communicate our memories. These activities are embedded in social and material environments which influence our present interests and needs when engaged in processes of remembering. Hence, the social context (e.g. setting, participants, goals) in which these practices of joint remembering unfold strongly influence what and how we remember (Harris, Paterson & Kemp, 2008, p.217). Studies in constructive-collaborative remembering (Barnier et al., 2008; Sutton, 2008, Sutton et al., 2010) also indicate that collaborative remembering in small groups is situated, goal-oriented and, as expected (due to the influence exerted by the previous two features), cognitive processes involving the interplay of our brains, bodies, and the immediate physical and social environment. These studies (Harris et al., 2010) showed that under some circumstances older couples engaged in practices of collaborative remembering are able to remember information that both individuals had forgotten. Harris et al. (2010) noted that the mechanisms of collaborative facilitation which allowed better recall were driven by shared strategies, interactive cuing styles and repetition (p. 134).

The conclusions drawn from the studies reviewed above have several important implications for memory research in cognitive psychology. Firstly, they were conducted in naturalistic settings (homes of the older couples). Secondly, they demonstrated that the distributed cognition hypothesis is relevant for memory research. Thirdly, they combined quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data which is quite uncommon in cognitive psychology. I agree with one of the authors (Barnier, 2010) that their findings can have important implications for research projects on everyday remembering in specific environments; for instance to ‘explore whether remembering with intimate others can compensate for decline in an individual’s memory and may even help to protect memory when brain illness strikes’ (Barnier, 2010, p.295). In addition, these studies have demonstrated the immense value that new paradigms in cognitive sciences grounded in the distributed cognition hypothesis have in modern memory research. This new paradigm can be extremely useful to investigate not only how small groups create embodied socio-cognitive systems in multimodal interactions about past experiences, but also how we couple with technological devices in order to enhance our capacity for memory processes.

References

Barnier, A. (2010). Memories, memory studies and my iPhone: Editorial. Memory Studies 3 (4), 293-297.

Barnier, A. Sutton, J., Harris, C. & Wilson, R. (2008). A conceptual and empirical framework for the social distribution of cognition: the case of memory. Cognitive Systems Research 9 (1), 33-51.

Harris, C.B., Paterson, H.M., & Kemp, R.I. (2008). Collaborative recall and collective memory: What happens when we remember together? Memory 16, 213-230.

Harris, C., Keil, P., Sutton, J., & Barnier, A. (2010). Collaborative remembering: when can remembering with others be beneficial? In W. Christensen, E. Schier, & J. Sutton, (eds.), ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science (pp.131-134). Sydney: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science.

Harris, C., Keil, P., Sutton, J., McIlwain D.J.F. & Barnier, A.J. (in press). We remember, we forget: collaborative remembering in older couples. Discourse Processes.

Sutton, J. (2005). Memory and the extended mind: embodiment, cognition, and culture. Cognitive Processing 6 (4), 223-6.

Sutton, J. (2008). Between individual and collective memory: interaction, coordination, distribution. Social Research 75, 23-48.

Sutton, J. (2009). The feel of the world: exograms, habits, and the confusion of types of memory. In A. Kania (ed.), Philosophers on Memento (65-86). London: Routledge.

Sutton, J., Harris, C., Keil, P. & Barnier, A. (2010). The psychology of memory, extended cognition, and socially distributed remembering. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9 (4), 521-560.

International Conference on Discourse and Mass Media

2011-04-30T06:49:00.003+01:00

Call for papers

International Conference on Discourse and Mass Media / Congreso internacional de discurso y medios

Where: National Library, Buenos Aires

When: September 19-21

(for english scroll down)

La Cátedra B de Análisis de los lenguajes de los medios masivos de comunicación, de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires conjuntamente con la Asociación Internacional del Estudio del Español en Sociedad (EES-SIS), Southampton, Reino Unido, se complacen en anunciar la realización del Congreso internacional de discurso y medios. El objetivo de este Congreso es alentar una nueva lectura de los medios de comunicación a la luz de los estudios del discurso en un contexto en el que las nuevas tecnologías cobran vital importancia, al igual que los cambios socio-políticos-económicos y culturales de esta era posmoderna. Su eje fundamental es la búsqueda de la democratización de la circulación, de la producción y de los contenidos de los medios en relación con la construcción de nuevos modelos cognitivos y discursivos.

Auspicios

Departamento de Lingüística del CIAFIC-CONICET

Instituto de Lingüística, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Coordinación general: María Laura Pardo (UBA-CONICET) y Nuria Lorenzo-Dus

(Universidad de Swansea y SIS)

Mesas redondas programadas

Medios, discurso y nuevas tecnologías

Medios y discursos alternativos

Medios, discurso y multimodalidad

Medios, discurso y memoria social

Medios, discurso e ideología

Medios, discurso, teoría y metodologías de análisis

Normas para la presentación de resúmenes:

1) Los resúmenes deberán contener 300 palabras, atendiendo las siguientes normas. El título deberá estar centrado, en mayúsculas, letra Times New Roman, tamaño 12, negrita. En la línea siguiente deben incluir el nombre y apellidos del autor y su vinculación institucional. Después de saltar una línea, se incluirá el texto, escrito en letra Times New Roman, tamaño 12, normal, sin pie de página, referencias bibliográficas, símbolos fonéticos o caracteres extraños a la norma de Microsoft Word.

2) Los autores no deben identificarse en el cuerpo del texto para que el proceso de evaluación no se vea comprometido. Después del resumen, por favor saltear una línea e incluir hasta cuatro palabras clave.

3) El resumen debe incluir las siguientes partes:

• Contextualización

• Objetivos

• Marco teórico

• Metodología

• Principales resultados

• Conclusión

4) Los resúmenes deben ser enviados por vía electrónica a: discursoymedios@gmail.com hasta el 31 de mayo.

-------------------

International Conference on Discourse and Mass Media

Where: National Library, Buenos Aires

When: September 19-21

The Chair B Analysis of the language of mass media, from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Buenos Aires in conjunction with the International Association for Study of Spanish in Society (SIS-SIS), Southampton, United Kingdom are pleased to announce the International Congress of speech and media. The objective of this symposium is to encourage a new reading of the media in light of studies of speech in a context in which new technologies loom large as the socio-political-economic and cultural rights postmodern era. Its cornerstone is the pursuit of democratization of the use, production and media content in connection with the construction of new cognitive models and discourse.

Auspices
Department of Linguistics CIAFIC-CONICET
Institute of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Buenos Aires
General Coordinator: Maria Laura Pardo (UBA-CONICET) and Nuria Lorenzo-Dus (University of Swansea and SIS)

Roundtables scheduled
Media discourse and new technologies
Alternative Media and speeches
Media, speech and multimodality
Media, Discourse and social memory
Media discourse and ideology
Media discourse, theory and analysis methodologies

Rules for submission of abstracts:
1) Abstracts should contain 300 words, meeting the following standards. The title should be centered in capital letters, Times New Roman, size 12 bold. On the next line should include the name of the author and his institutional linkage. After skipping a line, include the text, written in Times New Roman, size 12, normal, without footnotes, references bibliographic phonetic symbols or foreign characters to the standard Microsoft Word.
2) The authors should not identify the body of the text so that the process assessment is not compromised. After the summary, please skip a line and include up to four keywords.
3) The abstract should include the following parts:
• Contextualization
• Objectives
• Theoretical framework
• Methodology
• Main results
• Conclusion
4) The abstract should be sent electronically to: discursoymedios@gmail.com until 31 May.

Jens Brockmeier: Remapping memory

2011-04-22T17:23:00.006+01:00

In this Podcast Jens Brockmeier (Manitoba and FU Berlin) talks about his latest paper in Culture & Psychology ‘After the archive: remapping memory’. A must read article for anyone interested in current debates in memory studies.

Abstract

In this paper I make the case that the notion of memory—the very idea that there is a particular capacity that enables us to remember, to store, and to recall experiences and knowledge, and that in doing so constitutes an essential part of our existence—is in the midst of dissolving. I explore this dissolution of ‘memory’ as an epistemological and cultural paradigm shift. This shift can be observed in a broad spectrum of scientific and scholarly developments and, moreover, in literary, artistic, and public discourses. What all of these have challenged is the idea of memory as storage, an archive. I review four areas of research whose results and debates have fuelled this ‘memory crisis’: the social and cultural, the technological, the literary and the artistic, and the biological and cognitive. At the same time, we find in all these fields emerging perspectives that reach beyond the idea of memory as an archive, offering visions of more open, fleeting, social and cultural practices of remembering and forgetting.