Notre Dame Cognitive
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If you are interested in cognitive science and want to contribute to our interdisciplinary project of bringing ND cognitive scientists together, feel free to join our newly formed cognitive science group!
Students interested in cognitive science are particularly welcome!
| Day | Presentation | Title | Abstract/Reading | Remarks |
| 1/26 | Albert-László Barabási Physics ND |
The Large-Scale Organization of Metabolic Networks | Prof. Barabási will present research that he and his colleagues published in the Oct. 5 issue of the journal Nature. The article was titled, 'The Large- Scale Organization of Metabolic Networks' and was the issue's cover story. Prof. Barabási and colleagues reported evidence that the metabolic networks of cells in 43 organisms were strikingly similar to the network structures of complex nonbiological systems (e.g., the world-wide web). | For additional information click here |
| 2/9 | Ray Sepeta First-Year Studies ND |
Game theory in the particular context of programming a computer to play "Dots and Boxes" | Ray will talk about game theory in the particular context of programming a computer to play "Dots and Boxes", a well-known children's game played on a (finite) rectangular lattice of points. In this game, players take turns connecting (horizontally or vertically) adjacent points. When a connection completes a square the player labels the square with his or her initial and then makes the next move. The game ends when there are no more points to connect. The person who has initialed the most squares wins. He will also talk about the game of nim, which was thought to be related to Dots and Boxes, and the alpha-beta search procedure used to find the best move in a two-person game. | |
| 2/23 | available | |||
| 3/9 | available | |||
| 3/30 |
Scott Waters University of Illinois |
Parallel Response-Selection in Dual-Task Situation | Cross-task semantic and motor-response priming was studied with the PRP paradigm to investigate the potential parallel nature of dual-task response-selection processes. In three experiments, both tasks of a dual-task pair simultaneously primed, and were influenced by, response-selection information from the other. RT1 and RT2 were both faster when the finger used to respond to Task1 was also used to respond to Task2. This effect was observed at all SOAs for Task2, and at short SOAs for Task1. This suggests that at short SOAs, Task2 processing had progressed sufficiently to produce response-related information which could prime Task1 response-selection. Priming of Task1 response-selection from Task2 response-selection information requires Task2 response-selection to begin before Task1 response-selection is complete - that is, for Task1 and Task2 response-selection processes to operate in parallel. This is direct evidence against the concept of a response-selection bottleneck, and implies that two different task-sets can be instantiated and utilised simultaneously. | |
| 4/20 | available |