In less than two weeks, scientists from all over the world will be coming to Madison for the annual international Cognitive Science Conference, CogSci2018. Madison hosts events all the time so what makes this conference special? The topics, the recommender, and the free public event.
TOPICS:
‘Changing Minds’, the title of this year’s CogSci2018 conference will provide all the topics that you would imagine to be discussed such as perception, attention, learning, and memory. In addition, hot topics like fake news, big data and machine learning will provide thought-provoking discussions. Thought-leaders in the cognitive science field will be providing insight to questions like how our media exposure can negatively affect our judgements, specifically our voting habits; how technology and big data can be leveraged to support learning; and how we can make algorithms that automatically suggest higher insurance premiums for black people fairer.
Full schedule here: CogSci2018 Schedule
RECOMMENDER:
So many talks, so little time! Any multitrack conference goer might be interested to hear that the conference organizers (and their research collaborators, of course!) created a session recommender that uses machine learning, adaptive sampling and a few of your judgements to generate a top ten sessions list for you. Try it here: concepts.psych.wisc.edu and follow the instructions and link under “CogSci 2018 bespoke paper recommendations”
FREE PUBLIC EVENT:
For an encore of CogSci2018 and for those of you unable to attend CogSci2018, the organizers and some incredible keynote speakers have planned a free public event. ‘Minds, Machines & Society‘ will be held on UW–Madison campus at the Discovery Building, 330 N Orchard St on July 28th from 7:30-9:30pm. The speakers are world renowned thought-leaders in cognitive science, artificial intelligence and human creativity. Matt Botvinick, Director of Neuroscience Research for DeepMind, London will be discussing natural and artificial intelligence. Ulrike Hahn, Professor of Cognitive Science at Birkbeck, University of London will be discussing fake news and how it can affect our decision making specifically in voting. Bob Mankoff, Entrepreneur and Humor Editor for Esquire, will discuss how collaboration with machines can spark human creativity.