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<p>Dear all,</p>
<p>I hope you're having a lovely day. It's difficult to believe that
the end of the semester is already in sight, and we have only a
few sessions left!<br>
<br>
- - - - -<br>
Next week, we will read:<br>
<br>
Ratcliffe, M. (2017). <b>Empathy Without Simulation</b>. In <i>Imagination
and Social Perspective</i><i>s</i>. Routledge.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315411538">https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315411538</a><br>
You can access it <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333689169_Empathy_Without_Simulation">here</a>.<br>
</p>
<p>You’re welcome to join our session <b>online </b>(<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://univienna.zoom.us/j/65514918078?pwd=cVZTd2Ivb09uSUFVNTZORWFIOTA4UT09">Zoom
link</a>) or<b> in person</b>, at NIG (room 3B, third floor).<br>
We’re starting at 6:30 CET. The next meeting is on <b>Tuesday,
June 12, 2023</b>.<br>
- - - - -</p>
<p>And a few announcements/comments:<br>
</p>
<p>- - - - -</p>
<p>1. We would like to invite you to attend a bonus reading group
session, organised by Andreas.<br>
It's going to take place on Tue, 6.30, a week after the last
"standard" session. You're sincerely welcome to join!<br>
(I will send out another reminder, just before the bonus session)<br>
<br>
Here is a short information from Andreas:<br>
</p>
<div>04.07.2023<b>: Embodied experimental session</b><br>
Let's actually embody, experience, and situate social cognition
(research)! (1) We discuss a *very* short classic paper on
rational imitation in infants. As a contrast we (2) engage with it
through bodily exercises and (3) explore how embodied practice may
shake up our understanding of the concepts presented in the paper.
We'll end by sketching a conceptual map situating embodied action,
personal experience, and situated cognition approaches some
opportunities/challenges they may pose to philosophy of social
cognition - and let this resonate in our group (I'll provide
non-alcoholic summer drinks).<br>
<br>
Gergely, György, Harold Bekkering, and Ildikó Király.
Developmental Psychology: Rational Imitation in Preverbal Infants.
<i>Nature</i> 415, no. 6873 (February 2002): 755–755. [<a
href="https://doi.org/10.1038/415755a">https://doi.org/10.1038/415755a
free access</a>]</div>
<div><br>
- - - - -</div>
<p>2. An invitation to the <b>“Shape Grammars” Reading Group</b>
organised by Bailey:<br>
</p>
<p>Hello!
<br>
<br>
I’ve really enjoyed working through these social cognition
problems with this group this year. Given that you all are experts
in cognition, really smart, and into doing interdisciplinary work,
I wanted to cordially invite everyone to my reading group on
“shape grammars” this summer. “Shape grammars” is a research
paradigm attempting both to answer the question “what kind of
cognition is design?,” and to formalise the answer to that
question vis-à-vis computational architecture and design programs.
Its formal structure is both inspired by, but in key senses
opposed to, the Chomskyan “generative” grammars paradigm in
linguistics. The formal structure in the work of our central
interlocutor — George Stiny — also owes a lot to work in the
pragmatist philosophical tradition led by William James, Charles
Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey.
<br>
<br>
Most of the authors in “shape grammars” are coming from computer
science or architecture/engineering, but in a highly theoretical
manner owing to the atmosphere at the design departments at MIT
and UCLA and their close proximity to work in linguistics,
cognitive science, and analytic philosophy. I thus take the
reading content to be relevant to anyone in each of those fields.
Further, I want to read around Chomsky to get some of the context,
which will have further relevance to people in linguistics and
cognitive science.
<br>
<br>
Our central text will be Shape: Thinking About Seeing and Doing
(2006) by George Stiny. I will send a pdf to all interested
parties. Beyond that, I aim to prioritise recent papers (last 5
years) in the area. The group would begin in July and would meet
either weekly throughout the summer or as a two week intensive,
depending on the results of the doodle poll. I’ve found at least
one paper that overlaps shape grammars and affordances, and maybe
it would make sense to coordinate one joint session between those
two reading groups.
<br>
<br>
Please contact me at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:a12231983@unet.univie.ac.at">a12231983@unet.univie.ac.at</a>
if interested. A full syllabus is in development, and I will send
it to you along with a PDF of Stiny’s book and a doodle poll for
possible meeting times.
<br>
<br>
Best
<br>
<br>
Bailey
</p>
<p>- - - - -
</p>
<p>3. Comments from Andreas on the last session: (thank you very
much, Andreas!)<br>
<br>
hi guys,<br>
<br>
apart from getting drenched (by rain, mostly) I was quite
impressed with the breadth and depth of our discussion
yesterday... and would really recommend this 2 page comment by
Gotts and Martin ("eminent" neuroscientists ;-) on the Seth paper
that our paper was mostly piggybacking on - I think we at one
point actually tried to referred to it in a vain quest for
clarity). They make some of the same points we were exploring plus
give a ruthless dissection of predictive coding to boot:<br>
<br>
"In his Discussion Paper, Seth makes the case for counterfactual
richness of predictive processing models in explaining perceptual
presence and its absence in synesthetic concurrent percepts. Here,
we question the relevance of counterfactual richness for these and
related phenomena, and we argue that alternative theories of
perception that incorporate top-down/bottom-up facilitatory
interactions are at no relative disadvantage in addressing them"<br>
<br>
Gotts, Stephen J., and Alex Martin. “The Nature and Role of
Cortical Feedback in Perception, Imagery, and Synesthesia.”
Cognitive Neuroscience 5, no. 2 (April 3, 2014): 121–22. <a
href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2014.905518"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2014.905518</a>
[open access]<br>
<br>
Selected fresh resources on autism and atypical social attention
traits such as trouble maintaining eye contact: while there is
something there from experience interacting with persons diagnosed
as ASD, (1) its complicated ;-), -> i.e. some Aspies will tell
you they don't like eye contact not because it doesn't do anything
for them but because it is actually too emotionally taxing, and
(2) we have quite a hard time establishing clear lab results for
systematically different social attention styles:<br>
<br>
Falck-Ytter, Terje, Johan Lundin Kleberg, Ana Maria Portugal, and
Emilia Thorup. “Social Attention: Developmental Foundations and
Relevance for Autism Spectrum Disorder.” Biological Psychiatry,
October 20, 2022. <a
href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2022.09.035"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2022.09.035</a>
[open access].<br>
[succinct summary of a wide range of at best "mixed findings",
I've known and worked with 3 of those authors ;-)]<br>
<br>
López, Beatriz, Nicola Jean Gregory, and Megan Freeth. “Social
Attention Patterns of Autistic and Non-Autistic Adults When
Viewing Real versus Reel People.” Autism, March 30, 2023,
13623613231162156. <a
href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231162156"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231162156</a>
[open access].<br>
[this is a fun validation showing that at most (some) autistics
(may) watch TV differently but have similar gaze strategies for
real people (here that's even true for the same TV clips that they
were merely told is a live feed ;-). After all, "neurotypicals"
don't walk around constantly making eye contact, would be quite
rude in our culture...]<br>
<br>
cheers,<br>
a</p>
<p>- - - - -</p>
<p>Have a great rest of the week and I'm looking forward to seeing
you on Tuesday!<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Martyna<br>
</p>
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