The Cognitive Science Program at Villanova University offers a course of study related to intelligent systems with particular emphasis on the perspectives of cognitive psychology, computer science, philosophy and biology. An undergraduate concentration and an undergraduate minor are available to students in all of the undergraduate colleges of the University.
News and Events
Cognitive Science Colloquium
Friday, December 9th, 2011 - 3:30pm - 213 Mendel Hall
The Cognitive Science Program presents Dr. Georg Theiner, Dept. of Philosophy, Villanova University.
"Towards a Mechanistic Psychology of Group Memory: Some Programmatic Remarks".
Over the past few decades, psychology and cognitive neuroscience have made great strides in providing mechanistic accounts of mental activities – such as memory – carried out by the brain. But according to the ‘extended mind’ thesis (Clark, 2008), these accounts leave out the crucial role played by the interactive coupling of our brains with our bodies, other people, and the environment. Does ‘going extended’ imply that we have to give up on the program of mechanistic explanation in psychology (Bechtel, 2009a, 2009b, 2008)? I argue that it does not, and that we can profitably understand collective memory activities in groups, teams, and organizations as the operation of ‘supersized’ mental mechanisms. My argument focuses on the role of experimentation in the discovery of such mechanisms. In particular, I examine the underlying assumptions about the relationship between the individual and the group by which collective memory researchers identify the relevant points of intervention, and of recording the effects of those interventions, in their experimental designs.
Recent Speakers
- December 9, 2010 - Dr. Anjan Chatterjee from the University of Pennsylvania
- February 5, 2010 - Dr. Brian J. Scholl from Yale University
- October 4, 2007 - Dr. Susan Goldin-Meadow from the University of Chicago
- February 22, 2007 - Professor Paul Thagard from University of Waterloo, speaking on "Emotional Consciousness"
