Netherlands

Everyday reasoning about the behavior of those around us involves accounting for why others act the way they do. With multiple available explanations for somebody’s behavior, how do observers choose the best one? A large body of work in social psychology suggests that people rely heavily on traits to explain behavior rather than external factors. Recent results have called this into question, arguing that people balance traits, mental states, and situational constraints to make sense of others’ actions. In the current work, we hypothesize that people rely on counterfactual simulation to weigh different explanations for others’ behavior. We propose a computational model of this process that makes concrete predictions about when people will prefer to explain events based on the actor’s traits or their situation. We test the predictions of this model in an experimental paradigm in which trait and situation each guide behavior to varying degrees. We find that the model predicts people’s trait and situation explanations better than heuristic-based alternatives. These results inform longstanding questions about our intuitive psychology and show how social reasoning can be investigated within the broader context of domain general causal inference.

**Authors:**

Erik Brockbank: Stanford University; Justin Yang: Stanford University; Mishika Govil: Stanford University; Judith E. Fan: Stanford University; Tobias Gerstenberg: Stanford University

CogSci 2024

Without his cookies, he&#39;s just a monster: a counterfactual simulation model of social explanation

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

Without his cookies, he's just a monster: a counterfactual simulation model of social explanation

poster

The question of how to best and robustly detect human systemic cognitive states like workload, sense of urgency, mind wandering, interference, and others is an open question. The answer depends both on the employed physiological measurements as well as the trained computational classification models. In this paper, we analyze data from a human driving experiment to explore the validity of eye gaze in assessing different systemic human cognitive states. In addition, we explored the association between different pairs of systemic human cognitive states. Our statistical analyses and the classification results indicated that eye gaze, in particular the percentage change in pupil size (PCPS), is a reliable physiological biomarker in assessing multiple systemic human cognitive states including workload, sense of urgency, and mind wandering. Moreover, interference, generated by integrating secondary events which must be completed timely manner into the ongoing task, can be assessed via participant's response times.

**Authors:**

Ayca Aygun: Tufts University; Thuan Nguyen: Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Matthias Scheutz: Tufts University

Assessment of Multiple Systemic Human Cognitive States using Eye Gaze

What structures children’s early language environment? Large corpora of child-centered naturalistic recordings provide an important window into this question, but most available data centers on young children within the home environment or in lab contexts interacting primarily with a single caregiver. Here, we characterize children’s language experience in a very different kind of environment: the preschool classroom. Children ages 3 – 5 years (N = 26) wore a head-mounted camera in their preschool class, yielding a naturalistic, egocentric view of children’s everyday experience across many classroom activity contexts (e.g., block building, snack time), with >30 hours of video data. Using semi-automatic transcriptions (228,000 words), we find that activity contexts in the preschool classroom vary in both the quality and quantity of the language that children both hear and produce. Together, these findings reinforce prior theories emphasizing the contribution of activity contexts in structuring the variability in children’s early learning environments.

**Authors:**

Robert Z. Sparks: Stanford University; Bria Long: Stanford University; Grace E Keene: Stanford University; Malia J. Perez: Stanford University; Alvin Wei Ming Tan: Stanford University; Virginia A Marchman: Stanford University; Michael C. Frank: Stanford University

Characterizing Contextual Variation in Children’s Preschool Language Environment Using Naturalistic Egocentric Videos

People employ a variety of strategies when solving value-based tasks. Here, we examine such differences in the motivational Go/NoGo task, which orthogonalizes action and valence, using open-source data from 817 participants. Using behavioral modelling and analysis, we identified four distinct clusters of people. The first group appeared highly responsive to the task states valence. Two groups exhibited either varying learning rates for cues signaling rewarding and punishing states or differing sensitivities to rewards and punishments. The fourth group (18% of participants) acted like naïve reinforcement learners, with their responses shaped by outcomes in a manner that was independent of the state information provided by the cues. Ignoring state-independence would corrupt inference about the parameters concerning normal state-dependent-learning. Accommodating such population heterogeneity in behavioral-modeling is crucial, especially when working with participants who experience behavioral challenges, and when using models to generate regressors for examining neural data.

**Authors:**

Azadeh Nazemorroaya: Computational Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics; Dan Bang: Aarhus University; Peter Dayan: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics

State-Independent and State-Dependent Learning in a Motivational Go/NoGo task

Existing models of the basal ganglia assume the existence of separate channels of neuron populations for representing each available action. This type of localist mapping limits models' action spaces since additional actions require additional channels, costing neural resources and imposing new connective tracts. In this work, we model the basal ganglia with distributed action representations, using high-dimensional vectors. Vectors that represent actions are weighted by a scalar value (their salience to the current task), and bundled together to form a single input vector. Using this method, we can readily change the number of actions provided as input, without having to make any changes to the basal ganglia network structure. This paper provides an overview of the VSA encoding method and network structure, as well as a demonstration of the model solving an action selection task using spiking neurons.

**Authors:**

Madeleine Bartlett: University of Waterloo; Michael Furlong: University of Waterloo; Terrence C Stewart: University of Waterloo; Jeff Orchard: University of Waterloo

Using Vector Symbolic Architectures for Distributed Action Representations in a Spiking Model of the Basal Ganglia

Empirical investigations demonstrate similar cognitive processing patterns for objects and sexualized women. However, sexual objectification (SO) extends beyond sexualized women. To explore SO, we apply eye-tracking technique in conjunction with local/global and body-inversion paradigms. Ninety-four college students participated in the study. The visual gaze on non-sexualized South-Asian wo(men) images and the response time in Navon task post-priming with upright and inverted images is analyzed. Results indicate that participants of both genders gaze objectify females. Interestingly, male images are also processed as objects and body-inversion effect is observed. A comparison of attention allocation to face versus sexual body parts in upright versus inverted female images shows a reduced face-to-body ratio for the latter orientation, indicating a gender-specific attention shift. Combining the two SO theories, the study objectively substantiates the claim that women undergo objectification in even in non-sexual attire.

**Authors:**

ayushi kumari agrawal: International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad; SRIJA KRISHNA BHUPATHIRAJU: International Institute Of Information Technology; Kavita Vemuri: International Institute of Information Technology - Hyderabad

Objectifying Gaze: an empirical study with non-sexualized images

Spontaneous, internally directed attention, such as mind wandering, typically hinders performance in cognitive tasks. The impact of intentional internally directed attention (IDA) – for instance, deliberately thinking about past or future events – on task performance, however, remains unclear. In our study, we employed a dual-task paradigm that involved self-referential stimuli in a color-recall visual working memory task. This approach revealed that intentional IDA more significantly influences performance compared to intentional externally directed attention (EDA). We observed larger late positive potentials (LPP) over medial frontal sensors, suggesting sustained stimulus processing over frontal sensors under IDA. Additionally, we noted a pattern of neural activity associated with internal attention: event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the alpha band (8-12 Hz) during the encoding phase and event-related synchronization (ERS) in the delay phase. In contrast, the EDA condition was marked by theta (4-8 Hz) band ERS during the delay period. These findings highlight distinct behavioral impacts and neural patterns associated with internally versus externally directed attention in dual-task settings.

**Authors:**

Ankit Yadav: National Brain Research Centre; Dr. Arpan Banerjee: National Brain Research Centre (NBRC); Dr. Dipanjan Roy: Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur

Differential Neural Correlates of EEG Mediate the Impact of Internally and Externally Directed Attention in a Dual-task Working Memory Paradigm

It has been highlighted that non-invasive stimulation of the auricular branch of the vagus nerve (taVNS) have a neuromodulatory effects on several cognitive functions. In-fact, tha vagal system is central for the organism's homeostatic regulation and it has widespread connections with various cortical and subcortical areas. Hence, our focus on studying the impact of this technique on a multifaceted cognitive process essential in human experience, time perception. Healthy subjects underwent explicit (duration discrimination) and implicit (prediction) temporal tasks during two distinct experimental sessions of stimulation with taVNS: a sham condition (offline stimulator) and an active stimulation condition. Participants' cardiac activity (Heart rate variability) was monitored throughout the experiment. Preliminary results show improved performance during the active stimulation condition, particularly for predictive temporal tasks. TaVNS may enhance brain activity in areas crucial for implicit timing (e.g. upper temporal cortex, lower parietal cortex) and supporting the adjustment process of temporal prediction errors.

**Authors:**

Maria Luisa De Martino: Sapienza University of Rome; Erik Leemhuis: Sapienza University of Rome; Angelica Scuderi: Sapienza University of Rome; Mariella Pazzaglia: Sapienza University of Rome

Unlocking the Brain's Clock: the effects of transauricular vagus nerve stimulation on time processing.

Some people have a phobia of public speaking, especially if they are also affected by social anxiety, resulting in subtle avoidance behaviors (SABs) – e.g., avoiding eye-contact, speaking quietly – to mitigate their distress. However, by preventing confrontation with social fears, SABs greatly hinder the efficacy of exposure therapy, the first-line treatment for social anxiety. Here, we test whether it is possible to augment exposure therapy’s efficacy by modulating the neural circuits that implement control over SABs. This intervention lies on the observation that dual-site transcranial alternating current simulation (tACS) targeting the theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling between frontal regions improves control over social avoidance tendencies. Here, we use the same tACS protocol (active, or sham) on socially anxious individuals undergoing a standardized exposure to public speaking, while measuring SABs through postural sway, prosody, eye-gaze, and kinematics. We expect quantifiable reductions in multimodal measures of SABs during active-vs-sham tACS, ultimately enhancing exposure therapy’s efficacy.

**Authors:**

Mariana Carneiro de Andrade: Donders Institute; Davide Ahmar: Donders Institute ; Nina Dijkstra: Radboud University; Sjoerd Meijer: Donders Institute; Bob Bramson: Donders Institute; Moniek Hutschemaekers: Pro Persona; Mirjam Kampman: Pro Persona; Ivan Toni: Radboud University; Karin Roelofs: Donders Institute

Neurally Enhanced Control over Social Avoidance during Public Speaking Exposure in Social Anxiety

Individual differences in cognitive performance in childhood are a key predictor of significant life outcomes such as educational attainment and mental health. Differences in cognitive ability are governed in part by variations in brain structure. However, studies commonly focus on either grey or white matter metrics in humans, leaving open the key question as to whether grey or white matter microstructure play distinct or complementary roles supporting cognitive performance. To compare the role of grey and white matter in supporting cognitive performance, we used regularized structural equation models to predict cognitive performance with grey and white matter measures. Specifically, we compared how grey matter (volume, cortical thickness and surface area) and white matter measures (volume, fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity) predicted individual differences in cognitive performance. The models were tested in 11,876 children (ABCD Study, 5680 female; 6196 male) at 10 years old. We found that grey and white matter metrics bring partly non-overlapping information to predict cognitive performance. The models with only grey or white matter explained respectively 15.4% and 12.4% of the variance in cognitive performance, while the combined model explained 19.0%. Zooming in we additionally found that different metrics within grey and white matter had different predictive power, and that the tracts/regions that were most predictive of cognitive performance differed across metric. These results show that studies focusing on a single metric in either grey or white matter to study the link between brain structure and cognitive performance are missing a key part of the equation.

**Authors:**

Lea Michel: Radboud university medical center, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour; Ethan McCormick: Leiden Unviersity; Rogier A Kievit: Radboud university medical center, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

Grey and white matter metrics demonstrate distinct and complementary prediction of differences in cognitive performance in children: Findings from ABCD (N= 11 876)

Language learning is a sophisticated process as learners need to detect and extract rich regularities embedded in continuous speech inputs. Children, compared to adults, appear to learn languages more effortlessly. Nevertheless, early studies of statistical learning revealed little developmental differences between children and adults. It is not well understood, however, whether children share similar or different underlying neural processes for probabilistic information compared to adults. Specifically, are children similar to faster or slower adult statistical learners, or neither of them? In the current study, we used two neurophysiological measures, auditory mismatch responses (MMR) and late discriminative negativity (LDN) to compare children’s sensitivity to distributional probabilities in speech with adults. We found children were more sensitive to probabilistic information in speech inputs at both the local and global level than both faster and slower adult statistical learners

**Authors:**

Yi-Lun Weng: University of Delaware; Julie Schneider: Louisiana State University; Zhenghan Qi: Northeastern University

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