Internal Seminars Schedule – Term 3

Wednesdays from 11am-12pm

Please note that these seminars are one hour earlier than usual, to avoid a clash with other seminars. The seminars will be held on Microsoft Teams and a calendar invitation with a link will be sent in advance.

Presenter 1: Eugene Malthouse

Title: How to protect yourself against COVID-19 and tennis elbow: a matter of existing beliefs

Abstract: We investigated the extent to which members of the UK and US public (n = 3,899) exhibited confirmation bias when presented with controversial (vaccine-related) and uncontroversial (tennis elbow-related) data. People made systematic errors (p < .01) when evaluating evidence that was inconsistent with their prior beliefs – a pattern that emerged among those with both pro-vaccination and anti-vaccination attitudes.

Presenter 2: Isabelle Barrett

Title: Dimensionality in Human Reasoning

Abstract: The single- vs dual-process debate is an important question in the domain of inferential reasoning. In 2018, Stephens, Dunn, and Hayes developed a new analysis method and found evidence against all but one possible single process model. Based on evidence from Singmann and Klauer (2011) I conducted three experiments with the aim of finding evidence against this remaining model.

Presenter 3: Charlotte Gannon

Title: The role of language in the evolution of imagination

Abstract: The mental capacity to imagine objects and events that do not exist in the present is one of the most important forms of cognitive tools for humans and plays a crucial role in language development. So far, its origins remain a mystery, as does the role of language in its evolution. Using a brand-new methodology with a multidisciplinary approach this project will measure the presence of imagination-like abilities in great apes and preverbal infants to investigate whether imagination can exist where language does not.

Presenter 4: Duaa Ashoor

Title: The role of protective factors on adolescents who are involved in bullying

Abstract: Adolescents who experience bullying at the hands of peers are at an increased risk for different adjustment problems, including behavioral and emotional difficulties, developing depressive and anxiety symptoms, low academic performance, as well as low self-esteem. Less is known about what individual, family, school, or community-level factors may provide protection against adverse outcomes. This study will examine whether protective factors may reduce or moderate the associations between peer victimization and behavioral and emotional difficulties, general well-being, and academic performance during adolescence. The significance of this study is to examine the effect of protective factors in reducing the negative outcomes of bullying and promoting resilience to bullied adolescents in Saudi culture. Different levels of support may potentially reduce the negative outcomes of bullying.

Seminar co-ordinator: Suzanne Aussems

A reminder about the CEDAR Seminar on Wednesday 18^th May 2022 (11am-12pm). We will be joined by Professor Mary McCarron from Trinity College Dublin, who will be speaking about “The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) intellectual disability supplement”. If you are interested in attending this seminar, please contact s.cedar@warwick.ac.uk for the joining details.

 Professor Mary McCarron, PhD RNID, RGN, BNS. F.T.C.D is Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, and Chair of Ageing and Intellectual Disability at Trinity College Dublin. Professor McCarron is a committed ageing research leader at Trinity College and an international expert in the fields of intellectual disability, ageing, dementia, and palliative care. She has been a key advisor of ageing and policy issues to various governmental and other groups at a National and International level.

Professor McCarron is the founder and Principal Investigator for the first ever Longitudinal Comparative Study on Ageing in Persons with Intellectual Disability (IDS-TILDA) to be conducted in Ireland or internationally. This study is a supplement to The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). With its nationally representative sample, huge support from people with ID, their families and providers, and opportunities for comparisons with the general population, IDS-TILDA increases understanding how lives and chronic conditions change over time and provides insights on key issues at end of life. Professor McCarron's innovative and inclusive approaches are internationally recognized as an exemplar for ensuring meaningful involvement of persons with disability in the research process. The emerging IDS-TILDA data is already informing needed policy responses to develop human and appropriate services for this increasingly at risk group.

Title: From collocation to call-ocation: using linguistic methods to quantify animal call combinations

Abstract:

Emerging data in a range of non-human animal species have highlighted a latent ability to combine certain pre-existing calls together into larger structures. Such evidence suggests that the capacity to string meaning-bearing units together, a key feature of language also known as syntax, could be evolutionary more ancient than previously thought. Currently, however, the quantification of call combinations has received less attention. This is problematic because animal calls can co-occur with one another simply through chance alone. One common approach applied in language sciences to identify recurrent word combinations is collocation analysis. Through comparing the co-occurrence of two words with how each word combines with other words within a corpus, collocation analysis can highlight above chance, two-word combinations. In this talk, I will demonstrate how we showed that this approach can also be applied to non-human animal communication systems by implementing it on a vocal dataset of our closest-living relative, the chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes. Specifically, we recorded 37 different two-call combinations but following the application of collocation analyses only 15 of these were found to occur at levels significantly above chance. We argue that collocation analysis therefore represents a promising tool for identifying non-random, communicatively relevant call combinations in animals and, ultimately, helps to further our understanding of the evolutionary progression of our own combinatorial communication system, language.

Organised by: Marta Wesierska

Email for teams link: marta.wesierska@warwick.ac.uk

Forthcoming talks: