23 April 2012 - Just back from beautiful Marseille where I gave this talk at the Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive (CNRS and Aix-Marseille University)

Orthographic Processing in Baboons (Papio papio) Science 13 April 2012: 245-248. [DOI:10.1126/science.1218152] (J. Grainger, S. Dufau, M. Montant, J. Ziegler, and J. Fagot)

UNFORTUNATELY, POSTPONED (AS A SIDE-EFFECT OF THE ... CAN YOU GUESS IT?)

The Symposium will cover themes such as Plant Cell Biology & Signalling, Plant Sensory & Behavioural Ecology, and Theoretical Botany. The Theoretical Botany session is aimed at all philosophers and particularly biological and environmental philosophers who are interested in sharing their ideas and views on the evolution of embodied cognition, processes shaping intelligence and possibly consciousness in plants. We really look forward to having you with us!

1st Symposium on Plant Signalling & Behaviour

You may get a somewhat more heterodox cognitive scientist/philosopher just by considering some really amazing smart solutions from the plant kingdom

More soon...

Next september, I will be participating in the Varieties of Representation: Kazimierz Naturalist Workshop 2011

CfP:

The notion of representation is essential for the project of naturalizing the mind and meaning. One of the key issues regarding representation concerns the possible varieties of representation: what are various ways of representing? Are mental representations propositional or image-based, connectionist, analog or digital? How can one answer these questions in the case of natural cognitive systems? What consequences does a pluralist attitude to representation have for claims that animals and even plants are capable of representing?

For more information Varieties of Representation: Kazimierz Naturalist Workshop 2011

The topic of my talk is systematic behavior and the varieties of (representational) vehicles.

For a taste of some of these varieties:

Plants: Adaptive Behavior, Root Brains and Minimal Cognition Adaptive Behavior 19:155-171 (with F. Keijzer, 2011)

Systematicity and the post-connectionist era: Taking stock of the architecture of cognition

2nd call for papers

Researchers are invited to submit full papers or long abstracts for 40-minute presentations on conceptual, empirical or modeling issues that arise in the treatment of the systematicity challenge from post-connectionist approaches such as behavior-based AI, ecological psychology, embodied and distributed cognition, dynamical systems theory, and non-classical forms of connectionism. The range of topics to be addressed in the workshop really cuts across cognitive science disciplines. We encourage submissions from philosophers, psychologists, and computational neuroscientists alike, among other related fields. Our aim is to keep the workshop relatively small (space limited to 40 participants) and informal with enough time for extended discussions. We hope that this relaxed atmosphere will provide the opportunity for informal interaction and discussion.

For more information Systematicity Workshop