Congratulations to Jesse Parent, Avery Lim, Bradly Alicea, and Anusha Sharma for heading up the “Trajectories in Cognitive Science” discussion group, held during the CogSci 2021 conference. The event happened in six parts (which we will recap) and is now on YouTube. We are also archiving the slides and reference list on the Open Science Framework (in progress).
Part I: Frontier Map and Cognitive Futures. Presenter: Jesse Parent.
The first part of the session involved an overview of Frontier Maps and the role of maps and visualizations in understanding how ideas form fields of study. Frontier Maps also enable casual learners to get an intellectual grasp on a certain area of study by learning its history and current trends.
Part II: Adjacent Futures. Presenter: Bradly Alicea.
The second talk was given by Bradly Alicea, and involved introducing the idea of Adjacent Futures, which is based on the notion of the adjacent possible. Our focus was on both the possibilities that define scientific discovery and interdisciplinary exploration and the factors (sometimes quite practical) that block combinatorial discovery that often define the boundaries of a given field.
Part III: The Place of Development in the History of CogSci. Presenters: Jesse Parent and Anusha Sharma.
This session (brought to us by Jesse Parent and Anusha Sharma) covered the rich history of developmental approaches in Cognitive Science, and how development has served as an alternative to the concept of “static adult minds”. The presentation was an in-depth presentation of the review article “The Place of Development in the History of Psychology and Cognitive Science” by Gabriella Airenti (Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 895). In the session, we explored the foundational concepts of Piaget as well as longstanding debates such as nature vs. nurture and representationalism vs. brain function.
Part IV: Neurodiversity and Cognitive Science. Presenter: Jesse Parent.
The fourth presentation was also by Jesse Parent, and covered the role of Neurodiversity in Cognitive Science. This was a short review of a book called “Neurodiversity Studies: a new critical paradigm”. Neurodiversity covers a number of alternative frameworks for understanding human cognition, including but not limited to queer, feminist, and critical race perspectives. Such perspectives contribute not only to the diversity of views in the field, but also lead to novel intellectual trajectories.
Part V: Trajectories of Interest in Developmental Psychobiology. Presenter: Avery Lim.
Avery Lim presented on a number of possible trajectories for developmental psychobiology considered broadly. This possibility space (discussed in Part II) includes building off of the study of phenomenology such as developmental critical periods or computational models of psychophysiology. A number of open questions were also posed that motivated our discussions in Part VI.
Part VI: Open Discussion!
If you are interested in discussing these topics further, you might be interested in joining the Orthogonal Lab Slack or the Computational Critical Periods Discord. You can also catch Saturday Morning NeuroSim weekly on YouTube, or get in contact to get on our mailing list and join in person.
