LAST CALL OF PAPERS: Small Group Meeting on Social Connectionism (16-19 June 2004, Brussels, Belgium)

[Christophe Labiouse]

Small Group Meeting on Social Connectionism=20
16-19 June 2004, Brussels, Belgium

[Van Overwalle (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium) and Christophe
Labiouse (Universit=E9 de Li=E8ge, Belgian National Fund of Scientific
Research, Belgium)]

The deadline for submitting abstracts is Monday 16th February 2004.  The
abstract should include a list of authors, including the first author's
correspondence address and email, and a summary of not more than 150
words, and should be sent to Frank Van Overwalle
(Frank.VanOverwalle at vub.ac.be). =20

A number of renowned researchers in the field of connectionism will
present a state-of-the-art presentation of current and novel
developments in their field: Bob French (topic: dual-memory models) and
Axel Cleeremans (topic: implicit learning).  Moreover, renowned social
researchers who worked on connectionist models in social cognition have
confirmed to come to the meeting (Stephen Read and Yoshi Kashima).

The meeting is limited to 20-25 participants (also PhD students or
postgraduates) with an interest in social connectionism.  We expect
people working in the fields such as covariation, causal judgment,
illusory correlation, cognitive dissonance, person perception,
stereotyping, attitudes and other judgmental processes.  We would also
like to invite cognitive researchers or neuropsychologists working in
the connectionist or associative learning domain. 

Topic of the meeting

In the last decade, we have seen an upsurge of articles attempting to
model social processes within a connectionist or computational
framework.  The aim of this small group meeting is to gain further
insight in the possible connectionist processes that underlie social
thinking by comparing and testing these different connectionist
approaches.  Papers are invited that propose improved models or that
evaluate and discuss the merits of existing models.  What are the basic
properties of proposed connectionist architectures?  The amount of known
and novel findings in the field that it can account for?  The amount of
new hypothesis it generates?  The breadth of empirical support?  Apart
from discussing the merits of specific connectionist implementations, we
also want to address broader questions.  What are general weaknesses of
existing models?  What are novel directions and phenomena that these
models should attempt to cover?  For instance, how are motivation,
attention, and goal-directed behavior accounted for?  How should we make
a distinction between episodic and semantic memory?  Between implicit
and explicit learning and reasoning?  What is the neuropsychological
basis of the model's core mechanisms?  Answers to these questions might
improve our understanding of the connectionist underpinnings of social
reasoning.


Frank Van Overwalle              
Vrije Universiteit Brussel          
Department of Psychology                      tel: +32  2  629 25 18
Pleinlaan 2                                   fax: +32  2  629 24 89           
B - 1050  Brussel                    e-mail: Frank.VanOverwalle at vub.ac.be
Belgium
www.vub.ac.be/PESP/VanOverwalle.html