[SydPhil] Fw: Macquarie CogSci Seminar Series - Wednesday 6th March, 12-1pm, 3.610: Honorary Associate Professor Alex Woolgar

[John Sutton]

Philosophers interested in cognitive control, and/or current interpretations of neuroimaging data, may be interested in this talk next week.

John

________________________________
From: Hannah Rapaport (HDR) on behalf of Department of Cognitive Science Seminars
Sent: 28 February 2019 12:34
To: CogSci Everyone
Subject: CogSci Seminar Series - Wednesday 6th March, 12-1pm, 3.610: Honorary Associate Professor Alex Woolgar


Dear all,

This coming Wednesday, we are delighted to be hosting Honorary Associate Professor Alex Woolgar (Cambridge University) to deliver a special CogSci seminar in celebration of Gender Equity Week at MQ<https://www.mq.edu.au/about/events/view/gender-equity-week-2/> and the upcoming International Women's Day<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/QefGCYWL1viWyolPU0zOcp?domain=internationalwomensday.com><https://www.mq.edu.au/about/events/view/gender-equity-week-2/>. Alex will talk to us about the Brain Mechanism of Cognitive Control (see abstract below).

Date:  Wednesday 6th March

Time:  12 - 1pm (pizzas will be provided following the seminar)

Location:  Marri Meeting Room (3.610), Level 3, Australian Hearing Hub

Looking forward to seeing you all there,

The CogSci Seminar Series Committee

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Seminar Abstract: The Brain Mechanisms of Cognitive Control

At first glance, two great hallmarks of cognitive control appear to be in opposition. First, cognitive control must be selective: in a capacity limited system, processing of task-relevant information must be prioritised above the rest. Second, control must be flexible. After selectively attending to one set of information in one moment, we must be able to shift to a new set of information in the next, as we move through our task and mental focus changes. In this talk I will advance the proposal that these features are two sides of the same coin, arising from a single neural system that drives selective, yet flexible, processing of task relevant information. In particular, our programme of data from human functional imaging points to a specific system of frontal and parietal brain regions that flexibly emphasise different information according to the participant’s task. The next challenge for the field, however, is to understand how (and whether!) information coding gives rise to meaningful goal-directed behaviour. Key questions include: Is information that we decode in neuroimaging really the same code used by the brain? How is information exchanged and transformed between brain regions? And which of these effects are causal in determining cognition and behaviour? I will present recent work aiming to tackle these question using fMRI, MEG, and concurrent TMS-fMRI approaches.

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