THE NEWSLETTER Institute of Cognitive & Decision Sciences•http://hebb.uoregon.edu•University of Oregon•Eugene•(541)346-4941 October, 1998 Vol. 11, No. 1

ORBELL ELECTED DIRECTOR

John Orbell has been elected the new director of the Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences. John is a faculty member in the Department of Political Science whose special areas of interest are rational choice and modern political theory; experimental methods; evolutionary psychology; cooperation and trust. A graduate of University of Auckland in New Zealand, John received his Ph.D. from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was assistant professor at Ohio State University, Columbus before coming to Oregon in 1967. John was elected by members of the Institute and appointed by the Vice Provost for a three year term beginning July 1, 1998.

The Institute was started in 1987 and Douglas Hintzman served as the first director. Michael Posner served as director from 1989 to 1995 and Sarah Douglas of the Computer Science Department served as director from 1995 through 1998. We welcome John as the fourth director of the Institute.

Elected to serve with John Orbell are the four members of the executive committee; Mark Johnson, Philosophy, Holly Arrow, Psychology, Bertram Malle, Psychology and Terry Takahashi, Biology.

cesses, Bertram Malle to talk with about interpersonal FROM THE DIRECTOR..... meaning, Bill Harbaugh and Misha Myagkov to talk with about rationality and human behavior—and, of course, An institute is only justified if it produces interaction many others. Further, I’ve come to understand that all effects, multipliers that would not have happened other- those actively involved with the Institute are also following wise within a university’s separate departments. Be- problems that take them to the boundaries of their particu- cause overhead dollars generated by members of the lar disciplines, confronting to varying degrees the same Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences are not fed disciplinary problem that I confront. And I know, as a matter directly back to the Institute (but only indirectly, through of fact, that my thinking about what interests me (and what a yearly allocation from overhead funds), there is no should interest me) has been significantly influenced by all simple dollar figure we can point to as a measure of our of these people. Those are important interaction effects, contribution to the University. To get an idea of this things that wouldn’t have happened absent the Institute. Institute’s impact, therefore, we need to look at how the thinking of Institute members has been influenced by I am confident that my experiences are duplicated by their participation in the activities that it supports. those of many others. That is the only way to explain the energy that is presently being put into the Institute. We all So I’ll get personal. I’ve always followed problems know of the rapid changes in the cognitive and decision that seemed interesting to me, but that tactic has made sciences, and we all recognize that the old disciplinary it increasingly difficult to provide a satisfactory disciplin- categories are increasingly irrelevant to the substance of ary answer to the question: “What kind of political what is going on. The critical thing for an institute such as science do you do?” Since tenure, I have not worried ours is that it continues to be a place where disciplinary much about the adequacy of my answers, but there misfits—like me—can find other disciplinary misfits to talk remains the problem of finding people who share my— with. from a disciplinary perspective—oddball interests. John Orbell, Director In the context of the Institute I’ve found Tom Givón Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences and Larry Sugiyama to talk with about evolution, Holly Arrow and Mick Rothbart to talk with about group pro Report on 1998 Meet- trauma requires a truly cross-area President Dave Frohnmayer gave approach in which knowledge from gracious and thought-provoking ing on Trauma & Cog- various fields is brought to bear on welcome speeches to the present- nitive Science these complex and important is- ers and audience members. Jennifer J. Freyd sues. Increasingly scholars from psychology and related fields are Cognitive science was well rep- Traumatic events such as rape, once again seeing the fundamen- resented at the meeting. Over half childhood abuse, battering, and war tal importance of understanding of the presenters would probably often have profound impacts on the memory and awareness of trauma consider cognitive psychology their cognitions, feelings, and experi- (academic awareness of the very primary discipline. For instance, ences of those who live through topic of trauma varies over time, in Jonathan Schooler, Michael Ander- these events. The impact of trau- part as a function of political and son, and John Morton presented matic events also reverberate social movements). In July I had excellent talks on cognitive models throughout whole communities and the pleasure of contributing towards of disruptions in memory for trauma. societies (as we experienced in this current communal effort by di- Kathy Pezdek and Ira Hyman pre- this community recently with the recting the 1998 Meeting on Trauma sented data and theory on the role tragic shootings at Thurston High and Cognitive Science, an interna- of suggestibility in accuracy for trau- School). What’s more, a very large tional conference held at the Uni- matic memories. Douglas Bremner number of people and societies are versity of Oregon. I am indebted to of presented neu- impacted directly or indirectly by many able assistants including rological data showing similar profoundly traumatic events. Un- Anne DePrince of the UO and Chris changes in hippocampal structure derstanding the nature of trauma Brewin of the University of London. for some victims of childhood sexual and traumatic stress is thus a fun- I am particularly indebted to Vonda abuse as previously found for some damental challenge for psychology Evans, Institute Secretary, for her combat veterans. Robyn Fivush of and related disciplines. enormous help with this confer- Emory University discussed social ence. I am also deeply grateful to influences on children’s’ memory Both individuals and larger so- the Institute of Cognitive and Deci- for trauma. Bessel van der Kolk of cial groups may be profoundly al- sion Sciences, the Center for the Boston University presented an in- tered by traumatic exposure in a Study of Women in Society, and tellectual history of traumatic stress number of ways. One ubiquitous the Department of Psychology for studies as well as new data on the and challenging form of profound co-sponsoring the Meeting. neurobiology of trauma. I don’t alteration has to do with our knowl- think there was a single presenta- edge of trauma — our attention, The 1998 Meeting on Trauma tion out of the 14 that failed to excite perception, and memory for trauma. and Cognitive Science was a par- the audience. I know I have never Over and over we see that indi- ticularly exciting and satisfying con- had the experience of sitting for so vidual and collective awareness and ference because it involved cre- long, through so many talks, and memory for traumatic events is a ative and enthusiastic bridging be- remaining engaged and stimulated deeply perplexing and almost slip- tween cognitive, developmental, throughout. pery topic; to raise the topic of neuroscience, and clinical psy- interpersonal trauma (or large-scale chologists, with a focus on the in- There is no denying that cross- societal traumas like the Holocaust teractions between information pro- area work is hard and of course the or war-related-rape) is to raise the cessing and traumatic experience. topic of trauma is very challenging question of knowledge and belief. The presentations were rich in to both our intellectual and emo- Did this event happen? If so, what empirical data and new tional resources. Nonetheless, I happened? Do we remember it conceptualizations. believe that this meeting will prove later? If so, what sort of memory do to have been formative in this we have? How does our memory About 150 people attended the emerging area of trauma and cog- and awareness for traumatic events Meeting presentations on July 17, nitive science. While more ques- and even “mundane” events 18, and 19 in room 100 Willamette. tions were raised than answered, change as a consequence of trau- We had a mixed - but well prepared the meeting propelled us and in- matic exposure? What impact does -audience. Attendees included fac- spired us in the important task of memory and awareness of trauma ulty, graduate, and undergraduate understanding issues that are of have on healing and prevention? students from the University of Or- deep importance to humankind. We egon, clinicians and other visitors learned that the precision and rigor The challenge of understand- from Oregon, the regions, and even of scientific and scholarly ap- ing memory and awareness for other states and countries. Profes- proaches, combined with compas- sor Don Tucker of the Institute and continued on page 3 2 Trauma Meeting Report Intentionality: An Interdisciplinary Conference contd. from page 2 sion and attention to lived experi- On October 2 and 3, 1998, the Institute hosted an interdisciplinary ence, offers great promise for the conference on Intentionality, organized by Dare Baldwin, Lou Moses, and study of trauma. It was truly an Bertram Malle of the Department of Psychology. The conference brought honor to be part of this event and I to Eugene a world-class lineup of speakers from developmental, social, am deeply grateful to the Institute and cognitive psychology as well as philosophy, primatology, and legal and the University of Oregon for scholarship. Three invited addresses and four working sessions offered supporting this event. reports on cutting-edge work and highly stimulating discussion.

Editorial Note: Please visit the The conference was based on the assumption that humans from early conference web site at http:// infancy on think about other human beings, interpret the meaning of their dynamic.uoregon.edu/ actions, and reason about the motivations underlying them. This ability traumaconf.html. There you will has been called their “theory of mind,” “folk psychology,” or “naive theory find the schedule of talks, our meet- of action.” Little is naive, however, about this marvelous capacity, for it ing mission statement, short biog- represents a complex and highly refined conceptual framework. The raphies of our speakers, and also recent decade has seen an explosion of research and thinking on this an order form for purchasing the framework, a core element of which is the concept of intentionality. Using set of audio tapes for the meeting. this concept, people distinguish between fundamental types of behavior (unintentional vs. intentional), infer others’ intentions even before they act, explain a completed action with reference to the agent’s beliefs and desires, and evaluate the social worth of an action via the related concept BERGER VISITS of responsibility. These various functions of intentionality also provided a natural organization of the conference into four broad topics. INSTITUTE Desires, Intentions, Intentionality Andrea Berger, a psychologist In the first working session, researchers clarified elements of people’s from Israel, has recently joined the concept of intentionality — especially the notions of desire and intention. Temperament Lab, and is collabo- Janet Astington (University of Toronto) suggested that children’s linguistic rating with Mary Rothbart and Mike competence of distinguishing between try, mean, and want reflect and Posner on a number of studies accelerate their capacity to reason with these concepts but that preschoolers investigating the development of may well conflate desire, intention, and prediction (e.g., “I’m gonna be a attention. Andrea Berger is a re- truck driver”). search scientist at the Behavioral Sciences Department of the Ben Similarly, Lou Moses (University of Oregon) argued that young 3-year- Gurion University in Negev, Israel. olds have a primitive desire/intention concept that is essentially a mixture She has conducted a series of stud- of the two adult concepts but still allows children to use the word try in ies examining attentional skills in meaningful and socially relevant ways. Only when children begin to adults, examining endogenous and develop a concept of belief can they understand the unique constraints exogenous orienting and inhibition embedded in the intention concept but absent in the desire concept. of return, collaborating with Dr. Avishai Henik. In addition, Andrea Ray Gibbs (UC Santa Cruz) offered the provocative thesis that was involved in clinical neuropsy- intentions may not always be private events but can be socially emergent chological assessments with Dr. and socially negotiable. To support his thesis, he provided conversational Alisia Osimani at the Kaplan Medi- data in which intentions seem to be negotiated by speaker and listener. cal Center. She is currently inves- Several discussants took issue with the claim that intentions themselves tigating vigilance in children and are negotiable. They argued that what is negotiable are meanings of plans to evaluate the relationship utterances, whereas the speaker’s intention may still be a private event. between Stroop and spatial conflict Another strand of Gibb’s argument posed the question whether the “we- tasks and anterior activation. Upon intentions” of a group (e.g., a department faculty’s intention to hire her return to Israel, Andrea plans to somebody) can be thought of socially emergent because such intentions evaluate the use of spatial conflict do not reside in any one person’s head alone. Despite arousing skepticism tasks with children born prema- in some researchers, the thesis was considered worthy of empirical test — turely, and at risk for Attention Defi- exploring how people treat we-intentions of their own groups as well as cit Disorder. those of others’ groups.

continued on page 4 3 Intentionality Conference contd. from page 3 session on intention detection, however, might speak Detecting Intentions against this strict version of theory theory. Woodward found that infants’ progress in grasping is correlated An invited address by Henry Wellman (University with their detection ability for grasping intentions. Simi- of Michigan) focused on the question of what might be larly, Meltzoff reported that the earliest form of imitation the earliest precursors of children’s concept and per- in newborns is likely based on cross-modal represen- ception of intention. In this domain of early infancy, tation links, in which perceptions of behavior patterns research is pushing the limits of the experimental are matched up with stored representations of behav- methodology by testing infants as young as 5 months ior production schemas. Goldman offered related data for their construal of simple behavior in terms of the collected by Italian researcher Rizzolatti and colleagues, agent’s desire/intention. Data suggest that at least suggesting that monkeys have so-called mirror neu- from 12 months on, infants are sensitive to the object- rons that respond both when the monkey performs a directedness of grasping in that their attention is undis- certain goal-directed action and when the same mon- turbed by variations in the grasping movement but key observes another monkey performing that type of disturbed by variations in the object grasped. action. A working session on the topic of intention detec- tion offered further research and theoretical discus- Intentionality and Explanations sions. Amanda Woodward (University of ) The development of mental concepts and mental presented data on infants at 12, 9, and 5 months, talk leads to a complex differentiation of explanations showing evidence of their ability to process the goal of in children and later in adults. Angeline Lillard (Univer- specific acts (e.g., touching of a box with the goal of sity of Virginia) explored potential differences in how taking out a ball). Andrew Meltzoff (University of children from Thailand, rural, and urban U.S. explain Washington) reviewed results on children’s ability to good and bad behaviors and what age profile these recognize goals of incomplete actions (initiated by variations in explanations might show. Her data sug- others) and concluded that only from 12 to 15 months gested that urban U.S. and Thai children between ages on do infants show such reliable recognition, evi- 7 and 11 differed very little in their explanations, all denced by their ability to complete the relevant action citing facts about the agent more frequently than facts themselves. Jodie Baird (University of Oregon) pre- about the situation, whereas rural U.S. children cited sented an experiment on the adult’s parsing of ongoing more often situational facts and interpreted the expla- behavior, suggesting that intentions may be natural nation task frequently as one of moral judgment. units of parsing that are both reconstructed from be- havior attributes and inferred from background knowl- Bertram Malle (University of Oregon) presented a edge. All three presentations shared the goal of model of how people explain behavior that distin- describing the continuity between infant and adult guishes between four modes of explanation (among capacities of intention detection and of identifying the them cause explanations and reason explanations). “starting package” newborns have. Daniel Povinelli The model also identifies the psychological functions (New Iberia Research Center) offered various interpre- of each mode and leads to concrete rules of coding tations of the early-infant data, contrasted them with naturally occurring explanations. Malle argued that an primate data, and started off a lively discussion on accurate description of people’s complex folk explana- innate mechanisms and the possibility of acquiring an tions of behavior must acknowledge both the concepts intention concept from experiential data alone. that underlie people’s explanations (e.g., intentional- ity) and the linguistic structures in which explanations In an invited address entitled “Mind-Matching,” — especially reason explanations — are expressed. Alvin Goldman (University of ) described what is more commonly labeled “simulation theory” — the In two separate contributions, Fred Schueler (Uni- theoretical position that much of infants’ and adults’ versity of New Mexico) and Charles Kalish (University mental state ascription is based on the perceiver’s of Wisconsin) underscored the distinct quality of rea- simulation of the other person’s mind states, based on son explanations by pointing to the assumptions of his or her own mind states in a similar situation. purpose (acting in order to) and choice (acting out of Goldman offered arguments for this position and against free will). Both assumptions are crucial to people’s the predominant theoretical viewpoint (“theory theory”), concept of intentionality and their practice of giving which assumes — in its strictest version — that mental reason explanations and have only recently been state ascription is a theoretical process that does not recognized in psychological research. rely on the perceiver’s own experiences. Alison Gopnik (UC Berkeley) discussed the pos- Two intriguing findings from the earlier working 4 continued on page 5 Intentionality Conference tributes, governing group behavior. contd. from page 4 Leonard Kaplan (University of Wisconsin) discussed several factors sible functions of explanations in that influence responsibility assignments, including judgments of intent, general. Why would minds evolve feelings of justice and the relationship with the other person. He illustrated the capacity to explain things? The his arguments through examples from literature, law, and ethics, putting common answer is that explana- questions of social perception into the larger context of societal organiza- tions are one function of theoretical tion. activity in an organism and allow the organism to improve adapta- Alfred Mele (Davidson College) contrasted the conditions under which tion much like predictions do. people ascribe intentionality to the conditions under which people assign Gopnik’s alternative view is that responsibility. Through the use of various thought experiments, Mele explanations may be the phenom- argued for the position that moral considerations (e.g., the gravity of an act) enological correlate of theoretical should not, and usually do not, alter a perceiver’s judgments of intention- activity, signaling that the impor- ality. The subsequent lively discussion highlighted the vague boundaries tant mental processes (i.e., theo- of folk concepts such as intentionality and the tension that sometimes rizing) are indeed in operation and exists between a philosophical analysis and an empirical assessment of rewarding the organism, via the people understanding and use of a concept. pleasure of finding an explanation, for engaging in those processes.

Intentionality and Responsibility Cognitive Neuroscience Society Finally, the conference Presents the Sixth Annual Meeting And Call for branched out into topics that in- clude but go beyond intentionality, Abstracts such as responsibility and moral April 11-13 1999 judgment. In the final invited ad- Washington DC dress, Bernard Weiner (UCLA) pre- sented a comprehensive model of Cognitive Neuroscience Society marks the Sixth anniversary as a how perceivers arrive at responsi- Society. And as such we cordially invite you to attend the annual meeting. bility judgments. In this complex Many of our colleagues helped us fine tune our meeting organization and process, people seem to apply the procedures by filling out our Survey after the 1998 meeting. We appreciate concept of controllability to out- all of your suggestions and hope to keep the dialog going, for further comes (e.g., illnesses, achieve- improvement. We are happy to announce that we are able to implement ments) and the concept of inten- some of those suggestions for this meeting. As with last year, CNS in tionality to behaviors, combining conjunction with MIT Press will be publishing the Meeting Program as a them into a moral assessment of supplement of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. We will also be the agent and leading to feelings of providing electronic abstracts on a website, URL to be announced. anger or sympathy as well as incli- Due to popular demand, time for the poster sessions has been nations to either help or hurt the expanded. We have also added a forum for students to present their agent. research “Graduate Students Presents”. We urge you to make your reservations early in order to ensure your Michael Morris (Stanford Uni- accommodations at the Capital Hilton. versity) reviewed a series of stud- ies that explored potential cultural For information, contact: differences in responsibility assign- Tara Miller (603) 646-1189 ments and explanations for both Email: [email protected]. individuals and groups. He argued web site: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cns that U.S. social perceivers focus on the personal attributes governing Meeting Schedule individual behavior but on the con- Sunday, April 11-Tuesday, April 13 textual factors, governing group 8:00-5:30 pm Exhibits on Display behavior. By contrast, Chinese 8:30-10:00 am Morning General Session: Symposium social perceivers focus on the con- 10:00-12:00 pm Morning Poster Session textual factors governing individual 1:30-3:00 pm Afternoon General Session: Symposium behavior but on the personal at- continued on page 6 5 Cognitive Neuroscience Meeting tive and neural architecture of sentence pro- contd. from page 5 cessing.

3:00-5:00 pm Afternoon Poster Session Cognitive Neuroscience Insights into the 5:00-6:00 pm Sunday: Miller Lectureship Aging Brain Monday: Graduate Students Presents Patti Reuter-Lorenz, Ph.D., Chair University of 6:00-7:30 pm Sunday: Reception Michigan Ulman Lindenberger, Ph.D. Max Planck Insti- 1999 Annual Meeting Symposia tute for Human Development Perceptual Learning: Low-Level, High-Level, Or A Bit Of John Gabrieli, Ph.D. Stanford University Both? Edward Smith, Ph.D. Michael Tarr, Ph.D., Chair Brown University Diane Swick, Ph.D. UC Davis Manfred Fahle, Ph.D. City University, London The mechanisms underlying age-related Vincent Walsh, Ph.D. University of Oxford cognitive decline are largely unknown. A major Philippe G. Schyns, Ph.D. University of Glasgow challenge in aging research is to distinguish the Richard Zemel, Ph.D. University of Arizona contributions of focal, localized dysfunction ver- Perceptual learning may account for complex phenom- sus more diffuse degenerative mechanisms. ena, including those that are often thought to be cognitive. This symposium will focus on the use of con- Recent research on perceptual learning includes many differ- verging cognitive neuroscience methods to in- ent levels of analysis, from electrophysiology to neuroimaging vestigate focal and diffuse mechanisms of cog- to computation. Fahle finds that top-down processes influ- nitive aging. Behavioral, neuropsychological and ence learning in simple visual discrimination tasks where it is neuroimaging evidence will be presented link- generally held that learning is mediated by “early” mecha- ing cognitive decline to dedifferentiation (de- nisms. In contrast, Walsh concludes that sensory processes creased specialization) of neural systems across can account for learning in the processing of complex visual the lifespan. The relationship between signs of stimuli where cognitive strategies are typically implicated. dedifferentiation and neural recruitment as a Schyns suggests an interaction, demonstrating that high- compensatory mechanism implemented by the level categorical judgments on faces influence their low-level aging brain will be explored. These issues will perception. Zemel and Behrmann consider learning pro- be contrasted with evidence for more focal cesses, presenting a model in which perceptual representa- dysfunction of executive processes and memory, tions are learned from the statistical structure of inputs without as evidence by neuroimaging, and electrophysi- feedback. Finally, Tarr and Gauthier use fMRI to examine how ological studies of normal elderly and patients temporal cortex is fine-tuned as perceptual learning occurs. with frontal lobe damage.

Making Sense of Sentences: The Brain Circuitry for Sen- Linking Brain Circuits to Behavior and Cog- tence Processing nition Tamara Swaab, Ph.D., Chair Duke University Stephen Grossberg, Ph.D., Chair Boston Uni- Helen Neville, Ph.D. University of Oregon versity Peter Hagoort, Ph.D. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Michael I. Posner, Ph.D. University of Oregon and University of Nijmegen Joseph LeDoux, Ph.D. David Caplan, M.D., Ph.D. Massachusetts General Hospital Daniel Bullock, Ph.D. Boston University Willem Levelt, Ph.D., Discussant Max Planck Institute for One of the most important problems for Psycholinguistics cognitive neuroscience is to bridge the gap Only the human species is capable of combining abstract between brain and behavior. In order to do this, structural and semantic cues to comprehend. This makes the cognitive neuroscientists need to know: What study of sentence processing an interesting and challenging are the organizational principles that govern the endeavor. Psycholinguistic studies have provided us with designs of different parts of the brain? How are detailed models of the types of constraints that are necessary these organizational principles realized as brain to make sense of sentences. Neurolinguistic studies, on the circuits whose emergent properties govern adap- other hand, have identified areas in the brain that may be tive behaviors of various kinds? This sympo- involved in sentence processing. Very recently, researchers sium will present recent neural models, and have begun to use brain imaging techniques to help identify supportive data, that bridge the gap from brain the brain circuitry for syntax and semantics. Despite all these circuitry to the emergent behaviors that they sources of information, it is still largely a mystery how our brain govern. The talks begin with perception, and solves sentences. In this symposium, evidence from develop- then move on to cognition, emotion, and action. ment, psycholinguistics, electrophysiology, brain imaging, This symposium will hereby sample some of the and neuropsychology is integrated to help identify the cogni- continued on page 7 6 Cognitive Neuroscience Meeting a model for the neural algorithm underlying the contd. from page 6 read-out of neural maps (Groh). most important brain processes that are engaged within a typical behavioral cycle, and will illustrate how these pro- cesses may be better understood using recent modeling principles, concepts, and mechanisms.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): a non-inva- sive tool to advance understanding of human cognitive processes Alfredo d’Alfonso, M.D., Chair University of Utrecht SUBMITTING TO THE Alvaro Pascual-Leone, M.D., Ph.D. Harvard Medical School NEWSLETTER Jordan Grafman, Ph.D. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke When preparing an article for sub- Vincent Walsh, Ph.D. University of Oxford mission to The Newsletter that is Charles M. Epstein, M.D. Emory University School of Medi- more than a page long, please in- cine clude your disk. It is possible to In this symposium evidence will be presented that mag- transfer both IBM and Apple data netic stimulation of the brain is a useful technique to increase onto the Macintosh. Formatting our knowledge of the human brain. Alvaro Pascual-Leone suggestions (to save time after introduces the principles of Transcranial Magnetic Stimula- transferring, as well as to assure tion (TMS) and the use of TMS in cognitive neuroscience. the formatting that you want): IBM Jordan Grafman will describe the use of TMS in clinical and —save in or convert to DCA format research application of memory and learning. Vincent Walsh if possible, otherwise save as text will explain why TMS gives us a better understanding of the or ASCII; Apple—Appleworks Word parietal cortex in visual search. Charles Epstein shows us Processor files; and of course, that TMS studies on language bring us new insights in how Macintosh (Microsoft Word, Mi- language is organized in the brain, that doesn’t match with crosoft Works or MacWrite) can be classical models of language. Finally we will elaborate on the accepted. For any questions on use of TMS in the procedure to examine striate and extra- formatting, consult your reference striate cortex. We will discuss confounding factors and the manuals. Also, be sure to include methodological difficulties in finding the location. Confound- the name of the relevant ing factors, such as muscle contraction and unintentional document(s) on the disk. You can stimulation of the facial nerve, creates problems for interpret- give these disks either to that ing the data. month’s feature editor, or directly to Vonda at the institute. It will be Interpreting Neural Activity returned as soon as it’s been trans- Jennifer Groh, Ph.D., Chair Dartmouth College ferred, which, in some cases, can Terry Stanford, Ph.D., Wake Forest University School of be a matter of only minutes. Medicine Ranulfo Romo, Ph.D. Instituto de Fisiologia Celular, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico How is information encoded in neural representations, and how is this information interpreted by the brain areas that THE NEWSLETTER Vonda Evans, Managing Editor receive these signals as inputs? These questions form the Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences theme of this symposium. Microstimulation is proving to be University of Oregon ¥ Eugene OR 97403 a remarkably useful tool in exploring the read-out of neural (541) 346-4941 representations. Microstimulation within the primary so- matic sensory cortex of awake monkeys produces a percept of flutter whose frequency is correlated with the stimulation frequency (Romo). The frequency of microstimulation in the superior colliculus influences the speed of the electrically evoked saccade whereas the location of stimulation controls saccade vector (Stanford). Together with related microstimulation experiments in MT, this latter result leads to

7 INSTITUTE TECHNICAL REPORTS

No. 97-1 “Toward a Functional Analysis of the Basal Ganglia” by Amy E. Hayes, Matthew C. Davidson, Steven W. Keele and Robert Rafal No. 97-2 “Brain Mechanisms of Cognitive Skills” by Michael I. Posner, Gregory J. DiGirolamo and Diego Fernandez-Duque No. 97-3 “Retrieval Dynamics in Recognition and List Discrimination: Further Evidence of Separate Processes of Familiarity and Recall” by Douglas L. Hintzman, David A. Caulton & Daniel J. Levitin No. 97-4 “Event-Related Brain Potential Imaging of Semantic Encoding During Processing Single Words” by Yalchin G. Abdullaev and Michael I. Posner No. 97-5 “Negative Priming and Stages of Selection: The Effect of Perceptual Discriminability and Response Congruency” by Antonella Pavese No. 97-6 "Iconic Memory Has Neural Shadows" by Brent A. Field No. 97-7 "Generativity and Variation: The Notion'Rule of Grammar' Revisited" by T. Givón No. 97-8 "Toward a Neuro-Cognitive Interpretation of 'context'" by T. Givón No. 97-9 "Literacy and Grammar" by T. Givón No. 98-1 "Internal Rπeconstruction: As Method, As Theory" by T. Givón No. 98-2 "The Functional Approach to Grammar" by T. Givón No. 98-3 "The Cognitive and Neural Architecture of Sequence Representation" by Steven W. Keele, Richard B. Ivry, Eliot Hazeltine, Ulrich Mayr and Herbert Heuer No. 98-4 "Acquiring Linguistic Cues to Identify AGENT: Evidence From Children Learning Japanese as a Second Language" by Patricia L. Rounds and Ruth Kanagy No. 98-5 "Change Detection Without Awareness: Do Explicit Reports Underestimate the Representation of Change in the Visual System?" by Diego Fernandez-Duque and Ian Thornton No. 98-6 "The Usual Suspects: The Grammar of Perspective in Narrative Fiction" by T. Givón No. 98-7 "On the Co-Evolution of Language, Mind and Brain" by T. Givón No. 98-8 "Evaluation of Attention Process Training in Persons with Acquired Brain Injury" by Mckay Sohlberg, Karen McLaughlin, Antonella Pavese, Anke Heidrich and Michael Posner

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