Canada

Research about explanation processes is gaining relevance because of the increased popularity of artificial systems required to explain their function or outcome. Following an interactive approach, not only explainers but also explainees contribute to successful interactions. However, little is known about how explainees actively guide explanation processes and how their involvement relates to learning. We explored the occurrence and type of explainees’ questions in 20 adult–adult explanation dialogues about unknown present and absent objects. Crucially, we related the question types to the explainees’ subsequent recall of the unknown object labels. We found that explainees asked different types of questions, especially about the object’s label and facts. Questions about the object’s function were asked more when objects were present. In addition, requests for labeling were linked to better recall. The results contribute to designing explainable AI that aim to provide relevant explanations and to further experimental approaches to study explanations.

CogSci 2022

Explain with, rather than explain to: How explainees shape their learning

The 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society was an in-person meeting held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands at the Postillion Hotel & Conference Centre.

**ON-DEMAND PROGRAM ACCESS AFTER THE CONFERENCE** 
Recordings of the invited program are now available. You can access them by clicking on the 'Schedule' icon on the left. Select view by week and navigate to the day and time slot of the recording you wish to view. Click on the time slot to access the recording.

Recordings available (click on each recording to view):

**Thursday, July 25** 
0900: [Keynote Speaker Morgan Barense on Enhancing real-world event memory](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/17997/lecture/99084-dynamics-between-minds-and-the-environment) 
1000: [Gleitman Award Winner Isabelle Dautriche on Language Foundations: Insights from acquisition, communication, cognition, and more](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18000/lecture/99085-gleitman-talk) 
1415: [Invited Symposium: Dynamics between minds and the environment](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18016&searchGroup=lecture) 
1700: [Rumelhart Prize Presentation Speaker Alison Gopnik on Exploit, explore, empower: Three ages and three intelligences](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18028/lecture/99161-rp1-rumelhart-prize-presentation) 

**Friday, July 26** 
0900: [C.L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize Keynote Speaker Kia Nobre on Focusing in memory](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18035/lecture/99162-hp1-c-l-de-carvalho-heineken-prize-keynote-address) 
1030: [Rumelhart Symposium: Childhood as exploration](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18038/lecture/100346-childhood-as-exploration) 
1415: [Elman Prize Symposium](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18053&searchGroup=lecture) 
1600: [Invited Symposium: Dynamics between minds](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18065&searchGroup=lecture) 
1745: [Keynote Speaker Andrea E. Martin on Neural dynamics encode the structure and statistics of language](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18077/lecture/99271-neural-dynamics-encode-the-structure-and-statistics-of-language) 

**Saturday, July 27** 
0900: [Keynote Speaker Gregor Schöner on How higher cognition emerges from the dynamics of strongly interacting neural populations](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions/18083/lecture/99273-dynamics-within-the-mind) 
1000: [Glushko Talks](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18086&searchGroup=lecture) 
1500: [Invited Symposium: Dynamics within minds](https://underline.io/events/465/sessions?eventSessionId=18100&searchGroup=lecture) 


#### **CogSci 2024 Program Book**
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**The Program Book can be downloaded [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yRVp1cBqRnAbdYi4GXWV_pZeyWNsRquv/view?usp=sharing).**

#### **Letter from the President**

Welcome to the 2024 Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society in Rotterdam! CogSci 2024 brings together a large community of cognitive scientists who have traveled here from around the world, as well as a smaller group of remote presenters. I would like to extend an especially warm welcome to our first-time CogSci meeting attendees, and hope that 
their experience inspires them to join our future meetings for many years to come.

I want to thank this year’s conference co-chairs, Larissa K Samuelson, Stefan Frank, Mariya Toneva, Allyson Mackey, and Eliot Hazeltine, for putting together an amazing series of invited talks and symposia around the theme of Dynamics of Cognition. The co-chairs also deserve credit for handling a record-breaking number of submissions and producing a truly exciting conference program 

Beyond the invited talks and symposia dedicated to this year’s conference theme, I would like to highlight the presentations and events honoring the 
Rumelhart, Elman, Gleitman and C .L . de Carvalho Heineken prize winners, including the Rumelhart reception on Thursday. As you may know, we are recording all of the invited talks and symposia, and all prize-winners’ talks, and will be making this content available after the conference. 

The Cognitive Science Society relies on the volunteer efforts of our Governing Board members who work on matters related to our membership; conference policies; diversity and inclusion, international, and outreach initiatives; prizes and much more. We welcome interest from Society members who would like to become more involved in what we do. The 
Society is deeply grateful to Rick Dale and Andrea Bender, who serve as editors of the two Society journals, Cognitive Science and Topics in Cognitive Science respectively. We especially acknowledge our editors’ generosity in donating their stipends each year to D&I and outreach efforts. 

This year’s Annual Meeting depends critically on the support of Marischal De Armond and his team at Podium Conference Specialists: Sharon Zwack, Cendrine De Vis, Sarah-Kate Burke, and Rachel Waller worked tirelessly to secure the venue and handled a multitude of logistical and organizational issues, from arranging coffee breaks and receptions to making sure that a huge number of posters fits comfortably into the available space. Finally, and importantly, I would like to acknowledge the Cognitive Science Society Executive Officer, Erica Wojcik, for managing the complex and ever expanding sphere of our Society’s activities.

I hope you enjoy this year’s meeting and the many different opportunities to engage with the vibrant community of cognitive scientists gathered here. I also hope you get a chance to explore the great city of Rotterdam with its many attractions, museums, restaurants and scenic views. If you’d like to talk more about our Society, or simply want to say hello, please stop by!

![](https://assets.underline.io/markdown_image/1/image/3c66d0e21fff30e204df1138ffd15173.jpeg)

**Anna Papafragou** 
President, Cognitive Science 
Society 2023-2024

**CODE OF CONDUCT** 
By attending the CogSci 2024 Conference, you are required to adhere to the society’s [Code of Conduct](https://drive.google.com/file/d/16-6KkptF0Gn3ZYGJDlpqpwTdImw45Ng0/view?usp=drive_link).

**ABOUT THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE SOCIETY** 
The Cognitive Science Society brings together researchers from around the world who hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The mission of the Society is to promote Cognitive Science as a discipline, and to foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education.

The Society is a non-profit professional organization and its activities include sponsoring an annual conference and publishing the journals Cognitive Science and TopiCS.

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CogSci 2024

The 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society presents the latest research across cognitive science and highlights the theme of Cognition in Context.

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Join us for CogSci2022! Our 44th Annual Conference will be centered around the theme of diversity, with an accompanying range of keynotes and invited speakers who themselves highlight the diversity of our field. Our three symposia are Cognition across Diverse Populations, Cognition within Diverse Societies, and Global Challenges for Cognitive Science. The conference is being offered in a fully hybrid environment for onsite and online attendees.
 
 [**The Program at a Glance can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Cogsci-2022-PAAG-Detailed-July-12final-1.pdf)
 [**The Detailed Program can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DeArmond-CogSci2022-program-v113-final.pdf)

This conference requires a registration to attend. Please use the link below to secure your ticket. The website will be available to all registered attendees on July 25th. 

[Register to Attend](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/registration/)

Registration Is Required

The 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society highlighted research on the theme Cognitive Diversity in addition to the full breadth and diversity of research topics offered by the society’s membership. 





We tackle the problem of an agent interacting with humans in a general-sum environment, i.e., a non-zero sum, non-fully cooperative setting, where the agent's goal is to increase its own utility.
We show that when data is limited, building an accurate human model is very challenging, and that a reinforcement learning agent, which is based on this data, does not perform well in practice. Therefore, we propose that the agent should try maximizing a linear combination of the human's utility and its own utility rather than simply trying to maximize only its own utility.


Reinforcement Learning Agents for Interacting with Humans

Previous research indicates that using the internet in knowledge related tasks increases overestimation. We attempted to replicate this finding and extended previous research by explicitly manipulating the standards that participants used for the explanatory knowledge task in order to reduce the metacognitive bias. We conducted a 2x2 within-subject experiment with N = 166 participants. Replicating previous findings, the results show significantly more overestimation in Internet than in No-Internet conditions. However, with an alignment to external standards participants elicited more accurate metacognitive judgments. We conclude that explicit standards may be an important factor in knowledge-related activities involving the internet because of their effect on metacognitive judgments. On a theoretical level, this has implications for determining the basis of overestimation in knowledge tasks with the internet. On a practical level, providing external standards could be a feasible aid for buffering against this bias, for example in the educational context.


An Alignment of Standards Enhances Metacognitive Judgment Accuracy in Explanatory Knowledge Tasks with Internet Search

We present a user error model that simulates a user's errors using an eyes and hands extension to cognitive architectures. We developed a complete interactive cognitive model that performs a spreadsheet task. This model is compared with an existing cognitive model that performs the same task in a different spreadsheet tool. Also, the predictions are compared to human data (N=23) on the same uninstrumented interfaces. The comparison suggests that the interactive cognitive model moves us closer to having a user model that can directly test interfaces by predicting human behavior and performing the task on the same interface that users interact. The error model also allows exploration of error detection, error correction, and different knowledge types.


Including Errors and Errors Correction in a Cognitive User Model

People talk about time using the language of space. The future is "ahead." Endless events are "long." Cross-linguistically, these conventions exhibit both universality and striking diversity. These mappings in language, therefore, might originate from a combination of shared cognitive biases and sociocultural processes. To investigate the mechanisms involved in the emergence of space-time mappings - and linguistic metaphor more broadly - we conducted an experiment in which participants had to communicate about abstract temporal concepts using entirely spatial signals. The spatial signals developed by one pair of participants were then transmitted to the next pair, creating chains of multiple generations. Together, these processes of interaction and transmission sometimes generated fully systematic, compositional systems - although sometimes also generated systems that lacked structure entirely. The deciding factor may have been how people responded to errors - with incremental adjustments or radical reconfiguration. Systematic metaphors, therefore, may emerge from a heterogeneous mix of mechanisms.

Interaction dynamics affect the emergence of compositional structure in cultural transmission of space-time mappings

Time is one of the most fundamental phenomena in our universe. From the cognitive perspective, it is interesting how we perceive time. To verify the most common cognitive model of time perception (the Scalar Expectancy Theory) time reproduction experiment was conducted. Participants underwent a standard number sense procedure (comparing the number of dots). Next, they were asked to memorise some random letters. Afterwards, a face picture (neutral, happy, angry, fearful) was displayed for 400-1600 ms. After that, participants were asked to reproduce the string of letters and the picture's duration by pressing the space key. The final stage of the study was data modelling using Gaussian Process Regression. The results showed inconsistency with the previous results on the relationship between emotion and time perception. The relationship of memory overload with time perception may have been found.

Relationship of time perception with working memory and number sense using gaussian process regresion

Recent work suggests that perceptual decoupling (i.e., eye behavior becoming less determined by the sensory environment) is responsible for eye behaviour changes between externally and internally directed cognition. In the current study we investigated perceptual decoupling effects on smooth pursuit eye movements elicited by simultaneous engagement in internal visual and arithmetic task under two workload conditions. The results of multilevel modelling showed that effects of perceptual decoupling were moderated by task type (higher for visual internal activity), workload (higher for high internal demands) and follow a characteristic time course relative to internal operations. The findings indicate that perceptual decoupling is a central mechanism underlying differences in eye behaviour between internally and externally directed cognition and shed light on relevant conditions of this effect.

Exploring perceptual decoupling in the context of smooth pursuit eye movement

We introduce a new benchmark dataset based on classic methods of studying 3D shape perception from texture and motion, inspired by earlier work on Gestalt principles of perceptual organization and the ecological (Gibsonian) approach to perception of structure in moving displays. The dataset consists of parametric 3D shapes (superquadrics) with procedurally generated textures rotating and translating against a similarly textured backdrop. We expect these stimuli to be challenging for current computer vision models, as they depart from the statistics of real-world or realistically rendered stimuli. We test a variety of models’ ability to segment textured stimuli across three training conditions: pre-trained on naturalistic stimuli, pre-trained+fine-tuned on textured stimuli, trained on textured stimuli. While no models generalize to segment textured stimuli without fine-tuning, performance improves with fine-tuning and training on textured stimuli. We will discuss how this benchmark can guide models of scene perception towards more human-like robustness and generality.

Benchmarking mid-level vision with texture-defined 3D objects

A set of fundamental principles governs our reasoning about objects since infancy. Studies have shown that adults are surprised when they observe apparent violations of these principles, which might prime them to learn from the violations and update their beliefs. However, little is known about whether these principles can be revised given counterevidence. In the present experiments, we demonstrate that although adults have strong prior beliefs about these principles, they can revise these beliefs in a specific, virtual world, when they observe multiple pieces of counterevidence.

Can Adults Revise Their Core Beliefs about Objects?

The study aimed to examine the relationship between mindfulness and affective thought dynamics. We hypothesized two principle components that are associated with trait mindfulness. Twenty-three participants wrote ten successive words from six seed words, rated affective dimensions on these words, and completed the five-facet mindfulness questionnaire (FFMQ; act-aware, describing, non-judgment, non-reactivity, and observing). Principle Components Analysis (PCA) was used reduce the affective dimensions and Markov-Chain to analyze state changes. Linear regressions were then used to examine the relationships between the PCs and FFMQ. Our results revealed one PC (valence, arousal, and importance). Linear regressions revealed that observing, act-aware, and describing predicted the probability of transitioning from negative to positive [P(N->P)] (B = 1.77, p = 0.040), P(PP) (B = 1.77, p = 0.040), and P(PP) (B = 1.77, p = 0.040), respectively. These state shifts may explain improvements in emotion regulation through mindfulness, which directs these affective shifts.

Trait mindfulness is associated with dynamic transitions in a combination of affective qualities

Epistemic emotions affect learning and exploration. Specifically, beliefs held with high confidence elicit high levels of surprise and curiosity when proven wrong. In turn, these emotions lead to searching for more elaborative details about the belief topic. Do epistemic emotions also motivate exploration of how widely a belief is held? After answering a trivia question and indicating how confident they were, participants were shown an answer submitted by another participant, reported their surprise and curiosity, and then given the option of seeing up to three responses from different participants. The results supported serial mediation, with certainty predicting surprise, surprise predicting curiosity, and curiosity predicting the number of additional sources explored. However, unlike prior findings, high-certainty errors did not result in stronger emotions or more exploration than low-certainty errors. Thus, epistemic emotions motivate not just elaborative exploration but also exploration of opinion convergence - two complementary ways to justify beliefs.

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Reinforcement Learning Agents for Interacting with Humans

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