ESCOP 2022 Satellite events

Peripersonal space (PPS) origins date back several decades, but it is only recently that the significance of the immediate surroundings of one’s body has been recognized by cognitive science. Did peripersonal space evolve as a tool for survival? What is peripersonal space for? Is there a whole-body peripersonal representation in addition to local body part-based peripersonal representations? Can we distinguish purely PPS processes from attentional ones? Is PPS a matter of temporal immediacy in addition to spatial immediacy? Are there selective deficits of PPS? What are the effects of environmental, interoceptive and social factors as the ongoing pandemic on PPS? These and other fundamental questions urge for responses. The ESCOP PPS Satellite Event will gather young researchers to present and discuss the most recent advances on PPS theoretical and empirical studies, from a plurality of domains and methodologies, paving the way for PPS research agenda in the forthcoming years.

Panel Discussion: Lessons to be learned from the pandemic (9:30-10:30 am)

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic forced scientists worldwide to change the world of work. Lockdown brought an abrupt shift to working from home, research and collaborations moved to online, and lab meetings and conferences turned into multiple window screens. Through this panel discussion, Women in Cognitive Science-Europe wants to reflect on the impact of the pandemic on scientific productivity and academic life. An international panel of four researchers across career stages will share their thoughts and experiences with online research, supervision, lab management, work-life balance, and more. What have been the positive and negative effects of living in the COVID-19 times? What lessons are we taking from the pandemic and beyond? The panel presentations will be followed by open discussion with the audience.

Speed Mentoring & Reception (10:30-11:30 am)

This part of the session will link junior researchers with senior faculty to meet for up to 20 minutes. The timing may allow up to two mentor-mentee sessions, subject to sign ups. This session will include a coffee reception. Below are the forms to register for being a Mentee or Mentor, which should be completed by 25th July 2022.
WiCS speed mentoring sessions have now taken place at various international meetings. There are several ground rules for speed mentoring:

1. this is a one-time session (i.e., the mentor is not signing on for a longer-term mentoring relationship);
2. the mentee should come with a specific question or two to guide the session and make the most of it;
3. the mentee should send the mentor a CV and the question(s) ahead of time, but not expect that the mentor will have read this information prior to the meeting; and
4. the information shared during the session is to be kept completely confidential.

Both mentors and mentees from the previous sessions have reported finding the experience to be very useful. This is a program for women and men scientists alike, for both mentors and mentees.

Registration for MENTEES: https://forms.gle/JMQJmGVpxxyX9FV2A
Registration for MENTORS: https://forms.gle/m3Cam9YdfKPrTxVJ7

Online behavioral experiments have gained popularity in the past decade to the extent that it has become a major tool for researchers in experimental cognitive psychology. Indeed, online experiments have intrinsic advantages over conventional lab-based behavioral experiments such as the ease and scale of participant recruitment, the access to specific and diverse populations, the ecological validity, or the increase of statistical power. Moving from lab-based to online research is however not trivial and present some new issues. This panel discussion will consider some of these challenges from the researchers’ point of view and discuss how these new research practices might affect the future of experimental cognitive psychology.

What kind of opportunities do Marie Sklodowska-Curie action (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships
and European Research Council (ERC) offer to young researchers in cognitive psychology?

The event is dedicated to researchers potentially interested in MSCA or ERC grants, providing them the tailored information, debunking myths, and introducing everyone to grantees and their experiences.

MSCA fellowships support researchers’ careers and foster excellence in doctoral education and postdoctoral training. The Postdoctoral Fellowships action targets researchers holding a PhD who wish to carry out their research activities abroad, acquire new skills and develop international collaborations. These grants help researchers boost their careers through international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral experience (both in academia and beyond).

ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants concern early- and mid-career scientists who have already produced excellent supervised work, and who are ready to work independently and show potential to become a research leader. Through this program, the European Research Council funds high-risk/high-gain projects with up to 2 million Euros for a period of 5 years.

Bayesian cognitive modeling using the R-package brms

This event will introduce Bayesian analysis with a particular focus on building cognitive models. Cognitive models provide a powerful tool to disentangle different cognitive processes contributing to the same observable responses. You will learn how to fit three classes of models to your own data. In a Bayesian estimation framework, we will introduce fitting multilevel linear models to trial-level data, signal detection models to choice data, and drift-diffusion models of choice-response time data. You will use RStudio and the brms R package. We will discuss parameter estimation, choice of prior distributions, and evaluation of posterior distributions. After this workshop you will feel comfortable fitting cognitive models using RStudio and brms in your future research. We expect only a basic knowledge of statistics before this workshop. You do not need a background in R programming but some familiarity with R is helpful. If possible, the participants should bring their own laptop and install r, rstudio and brms including all packages required for brms (for installing all devices).

Jacques Mehler was one of the most influential pioneers of cognitive science in Europe as well as the founding editor of the journal Cognition, leaving a lasting legacy in developmental psychology, psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience. In this session, his former colleagues, collaborators and students illustrate how their current work is shaped and influenced by Jacques’s multifaceted and highly innovative research. They look back on Jacques’s most lasting contributions and show how his ideas laid the foundations for some of the most cutting-edge, frontiers research being conducted in the field today. A series of full-length presentations and brief recollections will draw the portrait of Jacques Mehler as a highly influential scholar, an outstanding mentor and an engaged intellectual.