Activities
23/03/2017
Dr Farkaš's
workshop
On Thursday, March 23rd, 2017, Prof. Ing. Igor Farkaš, Dr., Centre for Cognitive Science, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, held a workshop titled “Brain-computer interface based on motor imagery.”
On Thursday, March 23rd, 2017, Prof. Ing. Igor Farkaš, Dr., Centre for Cognitive Science, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, held a workshop titled “Brain-computer interface based on motor imagery.”
Namely, Brain-computer interface (BCI) has
become an important technology, based on non-invasive
measurement of the brain signals, allowing the users to
control the environment by their own thought. Motor imagery
based approach to BCI utilizes the modulation
sensory-motor-related brain oscillatory rhythms that can be
correctly interpreted after processing. Additionally, the
workshop also dealt with the issue of neuroscience and
technical background behind the BCI and the lecturer discussed
the range of applications that this technology affords -
ranging from computer gaming to neurorehabilitation. Finally,
Dr Farkaš also addressed the main challenges and philosophical
aspects of this technology. Like the previous lecture, this
workshop was also followed by a fruitful discussion.
22/03/2017
Dr Farkaš’s lecture
On Wednesday,
March 22nd, 2017, Prof. Ing. Igor Farkaš, Dr., Centre for
Cognitive Science, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak
Republic, gave a lecture titled “Computational modeling in
cognitive robotics.”
The lecture provided an introduction to
artificial neural networks, a major paradigm in cognitive
robotics that represents a constructivist (synthetic) approach
to the understanding of cognitive functions, using physical or
simulated robots. This important approach was also illustrated
on selected tasks of motor learning, body representations, or
(simple) language grounding. The talk gave way to an
insightful discussion.
1/3/2017
Dr Keith Holyoak's lecture
On Wednesday, March 1st, dr Keith Holyoak, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, from UCLA, Los Angeles, USA, gave an online talk titled Commonsense Moral Reasoning. During the talk, he discussed how ordinary people make judgements about moral issues and introduced some of the previous research that questions one popular approach based on utilitarianism. Subsequently, he introduced a more promising approach called 'deontological coherence theory' which tries to unify findings in moral psychology that have often been interpreted as heuristics or biases. The lecture gave way to a productive discussion.
Dr Keith Holyoak's lecture
On Wednesday, March 1st, dr Keith Holyoak, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, from UCLA, Los Angeles, USA, gave an online talk titled Commonsense Moral Reasoning. During the talk, he discussed how ordinary people make judgements about moral issues and introduced some of the previous research that questions one popular approach based on utilitarianism. Subsequently, he introduced a more promising approach called 'deontological coherence theory' which tries to unify findings in moral psychology that have often been interpreted as heuristics or biases. The lecture gave way to a productive discussion.
November / December 2016
Professor Antović's visit to the University of Vienna
In November and December 2016, Prof.
Mihailo Antović, head of the Center for Cognitive Sciences,
was a guest lecturer in the MEi, Middle European
Indisciplinary Master Program in Cognitive Science at the
University of Vienna. Among other activities, Prof. Antović
gave a lecture entitled "Musicolinguistics: Why Would
Connections between Music and Language Matter for Cognitive
Science", and a workshop on "multilevel grounding" in meaning
construction. The visit was supported by the CEEPUS exchange
program, in which the Center for Cognitive Science
participates along with eight partner institutions from
central and southeast Europe.
3/11/2016
Dr Patrick Plummer's lecture
On Thursday, 3 November 2016, Patrick
Plummer, Ph.D. from UCLA, Los Angeles, USA, gave
an online lecture titled "The Effects of Context on Word
Recognition" in which he focused on different aspects of
language comprehension during reading. Namely, his work is
focused on
how readers coordinate the cognitive processes that
underlie word identification and sentence comprehension
with the constraints imposed by visual acuity and the
requirements of fine oculomotor control. During the
lecture he introduced selected
projects designed to investigate the influence of
linguistic context on word recognition during reading
using high temporal resolution eye-tracking
methodologies. More specifically, he presented two sets
of experiments, where the first set
of experiments examined the effects of prior
sentence context on the extraction of orthographic
(letter) and phonological (sound) information at the
earliest stages of word identification, while the
second set was designed to
examine the influence of various corpus-based lexical
characteristics on word recognition difficulty and
eye-movement control during reading. Finally, the
lecture gave way to a fruitful discussion.
20-21/5/2016
CogSciNiš 2016: Symbol Grounding in Cognitive Science
(click to download the poster/programme)
On 20 and 21 May 2016, Center for Cognitive Sciences hosted the third cognitive science symposium named CogSciNiš 2016: Symbol Grounding in Cognitive Science, supported by the Faculty of Philosophy and the University of Niš. The symposium was held in the main building of the University of Niš and consisted of two main talk sessions, one plenary lecture and a round table discussion titled "Schemas, Grounds, and Meaning in Language, Music, Vision, and Beyond - Open Issues and Collaboration Opportunities". The opening speech was given by professor Vesna Lopičić, University's vice-rector for international cooperation, while the plenary video-link lecture, "Is Music a Universal Language" was given by professor Anthony Brandt (Rice University, USA), whereas the list of participants included: Emilios Cambouropoulos, Danae Stefanou, Maximos Kaliakatsos-Papakostas, George Athanassopoulos, and Asteris Zacharakis from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Computational and Cognitive Musicology Group), Oliver Kutz and Maria Hedblom from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Evgeniya Hristova from the Center for Cognitive Science, New Bulgarian University, Milena Petrović and Gordana Acić from the University of Arts in Belgrade, as well as four representatives of the host university - Đorđe Vidanović, Mihailo Antović, Vladimir Figar and Dušan Stamenković. Besides this, we had several video-link participants: Dimitris Tasoudis and Petros Vouvaris (University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki), Anna Piata (Swiss Center for Affective Sciences), and Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas (University of Navarra), along with one virtual listener - Constant Bonard (University of Geneva). The symposium allowed the participants to link their studies related to the domains of musicology, linguistics and cognitive science, and plan some directions for institutional and research collaboration in the future.
17/5/2016
Professor Hristova's Lecture
On Tuesday, 17 May, 2016, Professor Evgeniya Hristova, Ph.D. from the Center for Cognitive Science, New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria, gave a lecture titled "Moral judgments about decision of artificial cognitive systems" in which she presented a number of studies carried out by her colleagues and her - in these studies they tested how moral human subjects may find different decisions made or potentially made by humanoid robots or artificial intelligence cognitive systems.
23/4/2016
Dr Canovas's Lecture
On Saturday, 23 April, 2016, Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas, Ph.D. from the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navara, Spain, gave a lecture via video link titled “The Poetics of Time: Cognition, Culture, Communication.” The lecture was given at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš, during the annual conference “Language, Literature, Time 2016”. The lecture started with the introduction and comparison of the classical Conceptual Metaphor Theory and the more recent model proposed in the form of Conceptual Blending Theory, emphasizing the shortcomings of the former and potential advantages of the latter. In addition to the overview of metaphorical conceptualizations of time in poetry, the lecture also provided ample psychological evidence for the “existence” of the TIME IS SPACE metaphor, and it also introduced more recent research efforts in the study of metaphorical gestures conducted on materials from the Red Hen database. The lecture ended in a fruitful discussion.
21/4/2016
Dr Lu's Lecture
On Thursday, 21 April, 2016, Wei-lun Lu, Ph.D. (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic) gave a lecture titled “Use of parallel texts as a methodology in cognitive linguistics: Deictic verbs as viewpoint operators.” The introductory part of the talk included some of the basic tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and the discussion of the notion of “construal” as one of the most salient cognitive phenomena advocated by contemporary cognitive linguistics, which was followed by an overview of some more specific research areas. Namely, apart from presenting the results of his research on the use of parallel corpora in the investigation of deictic verbs as viewpoint operators, the lecture also stressed the importance of a comprehensive methodological approach to research in the domain of cognitive linguistics. One of the main suggestions included the use of renowned classics that have been translated multiple times into many languages, thereby yielding fruitful ground for investigation and cross-linguistic comparison. The lecture eventually led to a productive discussion.
30/3-13/4/2016
Cognitive Comics Studies Lecture Series
From 30 March to 13 April 2016, Center for Cognitive Sciences hosted the Cognitive Comics Studies Lecture Series, which gathered three eminent comics scholars from Serbia, the Netherlands and the United States. The first lecture, titled Visual Manifestations of Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy in Comics, was given on 30 March by Miloš Tasić (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Niš). This introductory lecture was followed by two video-link lectures. The first of them was Charles Forceville's (Media Studies, University of Amsterdam) Stylistics in Comics on 6 April 2016. The closing lecture in the series was Neil Cohn's (University of California, San Diego / Tilburg University) The Visual Language of Comics: What comics can tell us about the mind (and vice versa) on 13 April 2016. The lectures introduced the field of cognitive comics studies and displayed some of the possibilities for further research in this domain.
THE POSTER (click to download)
3-28/12/2015
Dušan Stamenković's visit to the University of Vienna
From 3 to 28 December 2015, Asst. Professor Dušan Stamenković, CogSciNiš member and secretary, visited the University of Vienna through CEEPUS III academic network (CIII-AT-0103-10-1516 – Cognitive Science, Knowledge Studies, and Knowledge Technologies), where he participated in curricular activities within the Middle European interdisciplinary master programme in Cognitive Science (MEi:CogSci). During his visit, he gave a public lecture entitled The Contribution of Cognitive Linguistics to Gaming and Comics Studies, and a workshop titled Identifying and Analysing Metaphor, Metonymy, and Image Schemata in Visual Languages, both of which were part of the MEi:CogSci programme activities. Besides this, he participated in classes within the course Introduction to Cognitive Science I, whereas he also visited Comnenius University in Bratislava. With his colleagues from Vienna and Bratislava he discussed various cooperation possibilites, as well as directions for founding an MA programme in cognitive sciences at the University of Niš.
23/12/2015
Nikola Stojanović's Talk
On Wednesday, 23 December 2015, Nikola Stojanović, a lecturer from the Faculty of Electronic Engineering (University of Niš), gave a talk entitled Virtual reality: new research possibilities in cognitive sciences. The lecturer provided an overview of various activities his research group had performed, some of which had been directed at raising awareness about the importance of VR technologies in diverse fields - from entertainment to science. It was pointed out that there are possibilities for cooperation with the Center for Cognitive Sciences in the domain of spatial, language and auditory cognition. After the presentation, numerous participants had the opportunity to try out the Oculus Rift VR system.
08/12/2015
Jana Mitić's and Naomi Benecasa's Talk
On 8 December, 2015, Jana Mitić (Faculty of Arts, University of Niš) and Naomi Benecasa (Rice University, Houston, Texas) gave a lecture titled “Study of the Perception of musical Timbre Inspired by Cognitive Linguistics.” The presenters provided a brief overview of the role of conceptual metaphors in the study of musical meaning, which was then followed by some specific examples from the presenters’ professional experience. In addition to colorful illustrations of the use of conceptual metaphors and image schemata in the descriptions of musical timbre, the presentation also included a live cello-performance of some selected pieces aimed to illustrate not only examples of upward/downward movement and circular motion, but also instances of the emotional/affective content that most musical pieces can evoke, and how these effects can be either stressed or downplayed by the performer’s interpretation.
15/06-20/07/2015
CogSci Meetings with Students
During June and July 2015, several members of the Center for Cognitive Sciences organized a series of meetings and workshops with students interested in cognitive sciences. These meetings yielded a number of plans related to possible research and papers in the forthcoming months, predominantly in the areas of cognitive linguistics and cognitive musicology.
12-15/05/2015
Professor Oakley's Visit
Professor Todd Oakley, one of the world's most eminent cognitive linguists and Chair of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio, USA), visited the University of Niš, Faculty of Philosophy, and Center for Cognitive Sciences from 12 to 15 May 2015. During his visit, he gave a number of lectures and workshops - “Invocation or Apostrophe?: Rhetorical Dimensions of Prayer Idioms in Broadcast Television”, “Semantic Domains in The Dream of the Rood”, “Becoming Human: The Phylogeny of Homo Rhetoricus”, “The Fluidity-to-Elasticity Hypothesis: the Perspectives” (sa prof. dr Đorđem Vidanovićem), “Deonstemic Modals in Legal & Political Discourse: The Cognitive Semiotics of Layered Actions”. A detailed program of his visit can be found in the attached poster. POSTER.
27-29/04/2015
Dr Moustafa's Lectures
On Monday, 27 April, and Wednesday, 29 April, Dr Ahmed Moustafa (School of Social Science and Psychology and the Marcs Institute, University Of Western Sydney) gave two lectures, titled Behavioral and Computational Studies of Parkinson's Disease and Designing Computational Models of Brain and Behaviour. Among other things, he elaborated on the ways in which the existing treatments of Parkinson's disease may benefit from behavioral and computational models. Video link.
08/04/2015
Professor Nešić's Lecture
On Wednesday, 08 April 2015, professor Milkica Nešić (Faculty of Medicine, University of Niš) gave a lecture entitled Neuroscience of Communication - from Molecule to Society, in which she described a set of links between molecules, cells, and the physiology of the human body on the one hand, and the functioning of the nervous system and social functions on the other.
18/12/2014
Professor Obrenović's Lecture
On Thursday, 18 December 2014, professor Joviša Obrenović (Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš) gave a lecture titled Two Brain Hemispheres, Two Types of Consciousness, One Personality?, in which he used several theoretical frameworks to discuss various aspects of lateralization of the human brain.
25/11/2014
Professor Antović's SCOPIA Workshop
On Tuesday, 25 November 2014, professor Mihailo Antović, Head of Center for Cognitive Sciences, held a SCOPIA workshop at Myrifield Institute for Cognition and the Arts. The workshop entitled From Concepts to Connotation: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to Music Cognition introduced several segments of a research program conducted by the music cognition group at the Center for Cognitive Sciences in order to suggest how studies of music and language cognition may inform both theoretical and experimental work in cognitive linguistics. Video link.
4/11/2014
Professor Dimitrijević's Lecture
On Tuesday, 4 November 2014, Professor Srboljub Dimitrijević (Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš) gave a lecture titled Cognition, Circumstances, Factors, in which he presented a number of philosophical views on the problem of cognition.
3/5/2014 – 6/5/2014
Professor Mark Turner's Visit and CogSciNiš 2014
On 3rd and 4th May 2014, The Second Cognitive Science Symposium – Workshop on Multimodal Communication was held at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš. In addition to participants from the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, the symposium also hosted guests from Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, and the US. The event was organized by the Center for Cognitive Sciences, University of Niš, in cooperation with the University of Niš, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, Embassy of the United States in Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, and the Joint Research Center of the Serbian Academy and University of Niš.
Dr Mark Turner, Professor of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University and one of the leading cognitive scientists today, opened the symposium with the plenary lecture titled Mind and the Media: Cognitive Processes of Persuasion During Virtual Interaction where he introduced a new research project that is currently under way. Among other problems, he introduced the audience to the notions of a scene of joint attention, scene of classic joint attention, and a scene of blended joint attention. The opening lecture inspired a number of questions from the audience which gave way to a fruitful discussion.
The remainder of the first day of the seminar included a video conference via Polycom with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as well as presentations given by participants from the University of Zagreb and University of Niš. The final talk of the day, titled Music, Language, Meaning, and Cognition: A Research Program, was given by Dr Mihailo Antović, Head of Center for Cognitive Sciences at the University of Niš.
The second day of the symposium started with the plenary lecture given by Dr Djordje Vidanović from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš, titled The Tractability of Conceptual Blending, where he discussed the problem of meaning construction at human level, especially in case where the tractability of this process is highly questionable, like with the space-time relationship in physics. The plenary lecture was followed by two consecutive sessions that included participants from the University of Athens, University of Zagreb, New Bulgarian University in Sofia, University of Niš, and University of Novi Sad.
In all, by bringing together scholars from various disciplines, some of which include cognitive science, psychology, and linguistics, the symposium provided a multidisciplinary environment for the study of various aspects of communication and meaning construction in different contexts.
Download the Workshop poster
Download the Workshop Program and Book of Abstracts
Professor Turner's visit, supported by the US Embassy in Serbia, continued on 5th and 6th May, with a number of activities. On 5th May he gave the lecture titled Speaking, Gesture, Bodily Stance: Studying Multimodal Communication in a Massive Electronic Corpus at the Faculty of Philosophy, where presented the possibilities of The Little Red Hen Lab. On 6th May, professor Turner organized a workshop on Trends in Modern Cognitive Linguistics and Latest Developments in Conceptual Blending Theory with the staff and students of the Faculty of Philosophy. The visit ended with the workshop entitled Niš, Serbia and Northeast Ohio – Possibilities for Prospective Students, held at the American Corner in Niš.
Download the Visit Poster
20/3/2014
Dr Dušan Stamenković's Lecture
On Thursday, 20 March 2014, Dr Dušan Stamenković, Asst. Professor in the Department of English, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš, gave a lecture titled Cognitive Linguistics and the Visual Language of Comics. Stamenković presented the results of various studies related to visual language cognition, and suggested a number of possibilities for further research in this domain.
18/2/2014
Professor Jelka Crnobrnja Isailović's Lecture
On Tuesday, 18 February 2014, Dr Jelka Crnobrnja Isailović, Professor in the Department of Biology and Ecology (Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, University of Niš) and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Biological Research "Siniša Stanković", Belgrade, gave a lecture entitled Heterogeneous Environments and the Evolution of Hominids, in which she gave an overview of evolutionary processes, paying special attention to the ways in which various changes in the environment of hominids determined their evolution. The lecture was followed by a thorough and interesting discussion.
24/12/2013
Dr Vuk Milošević's Lecture
On Tuesday, 24 December 2013, Dr Vuk Milošević (Clinic of Neurology, Clinical Center Niš) gave a lecture entitled The Brain as a Network: Neurophysiological Methods in the Study of Cortical Functional Connectivity, in which he presented the structure of the brain as a complex system and gave an overview of various experimental methods used in contemporary research. The lecture was followed by a discussion on the issues of causality, emergence, artificial intelligence and research possibilities.
28/11/2013
Professor Mihailo Antović's Lecture
On Thursday, 28 November 2013, professor Mihailo Antović PhD (Faculty of Philosophy, Niš; Head of Center for Cognitive Sciences) gave a lecture titled Music, Language and Cognition: In Search of Underlying Principles, in which he provided a survey of his previous and forthcoming research endeavors in the field. You can download professor Antović's papers from his website: www.mihailoantovic.com
31/10/2013
Professor Anthony Brandt's Lecture
On Thursday, 31 October 2013, professor Anthony Brandt PhD (Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA) gave a video-link lecture titled The Science and Art of Creativity, within the programme of the Center for Cognitive Sciences, University of Niš. The successful composer, professor of music theory and cognitive scientist, who obtained his PhD at Harvard, presented the basics of his own theory of creativity, based on the models proposed by David Eagleman, Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. By presenting a set of examples from the world of fine and applied art, architecture, music and design, professor Brandt pointed at some possible abstract principles which govern creative thought, after which he answered numerous questions coming from the audience. See the poster and prof. Brandt's short bio.
Activities organized by the Cognitive Science Forum between 12/01/2011 and 15/05/2013:
15/05/2013
Professor Boban Arsenijević's Lecture
As a part of the Cognitive Science Forum's programme for 2013, on 15 May 2013, professor Boban Arsenijević PhD (Faculty of Philosophy - University of Niš) gave a lecture titled Space in Cognition: Biological, Linguistic and AI Perspectives, which was followed by a thorough and interesting discussion.
26/04/2013
Professor Ray Jackendoff's Lecture
On 26 April 2013, Ray Jackendoff PhD, Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy, Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, and one of the most prominent modern linguists, gave a video-link lecture within the Language, Literature, Marginalization Conference, held at the Faculty of Philosophy - University of Niš. The lecture was entitled What You Can Say with Marginal Syntax: A Hierarchy of Grammatical Complexity. Link.
10/04/2013
Professor Branimir Todorović's Lecture
On 10 April 2013, Professor Branimir Todorović (Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, University of Niš) gave a lecture entitled Intelligent machines, Models, Learning Algorithms and Applications at the University of Niš, within the Cognitive Science Forum programme. Professor Todorović's interesting lecture contributed to the process of linking various local cognitive scientists studying different aspects of cognition.
29/03/2013
Professor Ronnie Wilbur's Lecture
On 29 March 2013, Professor Ronnie Wilbur PhD (Purdue University) gave a lecture entitled Structure of ASL and Applications, with a special emphasis on event structure in sign languages. The lecture was organised by the Faculty of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Forum. Link.
20/03/2013
Professor Todd Oakley's Second Visit
From 14 until 19 March 2013, Todd Oakley PhD, professor and Chair of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University, visited the University of Niš. During his visit, the renowned cognitive scientist conducted two workshops at the Faculty of Philosophy – one in cognitive linguistics (An Introduction to Construction Grammar) and one in cognitive semantics (Basic Elements of the Conceptual Blending and Integration Model). Besides this, together with Đorđe Vidanović PhD, professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the coordinator of the Cognitive Science Forum, he gave a lecture entitled Autism and Intersubjectivity: A Report on Preliminary Research. Professor Oakley’s visit is a part of the continual cooperation between the Department of Cognitive Science (Case Western Reserve University) and the Cognitive Science Forum (University of Niš). The visit was organised by the University of Niš, the Faculty of Philosophy, the SANU Research Centre and the Cognitive Science Forum. Visit programme. Link.
