International cognitive science workshop Feb. 17-19

4:58 p.m., Feb. 10, 2005--The University of Delaware will host the International Workshop on the Evolution of Cognition, featuring world-renowned experts on the acquisition of knowledge, from Feb. 17-19.

The event, which is sponsored by the UD cognitive science program, will open Thursday, Feb. 17, with sessions by Juliette Blevins of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig on “Convergence and Divergence in Evolutionary Phonology” at noon in Room 209, Trabant University Center. She also will present “An Overview of Evolutionary Phonology” at 4 p.m. that day in Room 108, Memorial Hall.

Blevins is noted for her work in the evolution of human sound systems and is the author of the new book Evolutionary Phonology, which describes a new theory of sound patterns that synthesizes results in historical linguistics, phonetics and phonological theory. The groundbreaking work explores the nature of sound patterns and sound change in human language over the past 8,000 years.

Sessions on Friday, Feb. 18, and Saturday, Feb. 19, will be held in Room 007, Willard Hall Education Building.

UD Provost Dan Rich will open the Friday session with opening remarks at 9:30 a.m., and will be followed by speakers Philip Lieberman of Brown University at 10 a.m. and Thomas Schoenemann of the University of Pennsylvania at 11 a.m.

Both Lieberman and Schoenemann are experts on issues concerning evolution of the human body, what changes had to take place in humans in order for them to be able to speak and what changes occurred to make cognition possible. Schoenemann is conducting research on the brain and is investigating differences in brain anatomy between humans and other primates.

Scheduled on Friday afternoon are Daniel Povinelli of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette speaking at 1:30 p.m. on “Bodily Origins of SELF: An Evolutionary Hypothesis”; Josep Call of the Max Planck Institute at 2:30 p.m. on “The Evolution of Thinking Ahead”; and Antoni Gomila of Spain’s University of the Balearic Islands at 3:30 p.m. on “The Evolution of Language: Why Ontogenesis Does Not Recapitulate Phylogenesis.”

Povinelli, the director of the Cognitive Evolution Center at UL Lafayette, studies social cognition in monkeys and apes and is the author of the book Folk Physics for Apes: The Chimpanzee’s Theory of How the World Works. He has important research that shows negative evidence on chimpanzees having a theory of mind.

Call is the co-director of the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center, and work in his lab shows chimpanzees and other primates might very well have a theory of mind, or at least know what other primates see and know about the world and how members of their same species are likely to behave.

Gomila conducts research on cognitive systems.

Opening Saturday’s session with a talk at 10 a.m. will be Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth of the University of Pennsylvania. They will discuss ”Who, Me? Baboons Infer Another Animal's Intent to Communicate” and “Social Cognition and the Origins of Language.”

Cheney and Seyfarth jointly study the communication and social behavior of nonhuman primates and are coauthors of the book How Monkeys See the World: Inside the Mind of Another Species.

Michael Arbib of the University of Southern California will discuss “Giving Vocalization a Hand in Evolving the Language-Ready Brain” at 1:30 p.m.; Colin Allen of Indiana University will discuss “Macaque Mirror Neurons: Detecting Intentions Intentionally?” at 2:30 p.m.; and Charles Yang of Yale University, who also has an adjunct appointment at UD, will speak on “Evolving an Imperfect Language” at 3:30 p.m.

Arbib is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science and director of the USC Brain Project and believes the origins of language can be traced to gestures. He is studying behavior and the brain and argues that brain mechanisms that underly perception and action were adapted for language, in primates and particularly in humans.

Allen, a philosopher, is studying cognitive ethology and philosophical theories about the origin of meaning and language. He will present evidence about mirror neurons and their possible role in a theory of mind and the development of language.

Yang is a professor of linguistics who was trained in computer science, linguistics and psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of the book Knowledge and Learning in Natural Language.

The event is free but pre-registration is requested and can be completed by logging on to the workshop web site at [www.ling.udel.edu/cogsci/evolution/].

Article by Neil Thomas

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.