Netherlands

Contrasting the climate change emergency represents one of the major challenges of modern times. Knowing how people represent ecology-related phenomena is crucial to inform interventions aimed at promoting more effective pro-environmental behaviors. Despite this, literature on the topic is still scarce. To fill this gap, we asked 340 participants to rate 200 concepts—among which Ecological ones (N = 50, e.g., deforestation)—on numerous semantic dimensions (N = 39), drawing insights from the literature on conceptual organization. A Principal Component Analysis on our dataset revealed the presence of three major components explaining overall the variability of our set of concepts. Interestingly, Ecological concepts had a major role in all of them. Indeed, in comparison with other conceptual categories—both related (i.e., Natural—e.g., water—and Geographical/Geopolitical—e.g., ocean, city) and not related (i.e., Technological—e.g., Internet) to the green domain—they figured among the most abstract (Component 1), impacting our political, social, and personal spheres (Component 2), emotionally charged, scientific, and evoking sensorimotor experiences (Component 3) concepts. Overall, our study has a threefold relevance. On a theoretical side, it can contribute to enriching theories on concepts by investigating a new semantic domain that questions the concrete-abstract dichotomy; on a scientific side, it might broaden categorization research by providing semantic norms for new conceptual domains (the TECo Database); on a societal side, it can enhance politics on these timely themes.

**Authors:**

Ilenia Falcinelli: Sapienza University of Rome; Chiara Fini: Sapienza University of Rome; Claudia Mazzuca: Sapienza University of Rome; Anna Borghi: Sapienza University of Rome

CogSci 2024

The TECo Database: Insights on The Semantic Organization of The Ecological Domain.

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** 
The Cognitive Science Society brings together researchers from around the world who hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The mission of the Society is to promote Cognitive Science as a discipline, and to foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education.

The Society is a non-profit professional organization and its activities include sponsoring an annual conference and publishing the journals Cognitive Science and TopiCS.

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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.

poster

The literature on conceptual combination has thus far been limited to research at the aggregate level investigating adjective-noun and noun-noun combinations. One well-established phenomenon within this literature is that of concept dominance (Hampton, 1988), which is the finding that the relative contribution of constituent concepts (for example sport or game) to their conjunction (sport that is also a game) is often very unequal. This exploratory study investigated individual differences in how people understand adjective-adjective-noun combinations, such as long blue coat. Participants rated images of coats varying along the perceptual dimensions of length and color for typicality in two different conjunctions, namely long blue coat and long purple coat. We used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to construct an aggregate coat space from similarity data collected with the Spatial Arrangement Method (SpAM). Using external unfolding, we modeled participants’ typicality judgements by representing their individual typicality data as vectors within the aggregate MDS space, such that orthogonal projections from the coats onto the vectors represent their perceived typicality in the conjunctions. We did not find strong evidence for concept dominance at the aggregate level; however, we did find evidence for concept dominance at the individual level, with marked individual differences in the extent of dominance and which dimension was dominant. The validation of external unfolding for research into conceptual combination comes with new research possibilities, several of which are proposed.

**Authors:**

Willem Jacob Louter: Erasmus University Rotterdam; Sam Jabbari: Erasmus University Rotterdam; Sandra Blythin Constantinou Juhasz: Erasmus University Rotterdam; Steven Verheyen: Erasmus University Rotterdam

Individual Differences in Concept Dominance

Probabilistic categorization (PC) has been used mostly to distinguish between memory systems (declarative vs. procedural). Most literature on PC has relied on the Weather Prediction Task. However, this task doesn't provide the flexibility in assigning probabilities to exemplar features that is often required in more ecological settings. Recently, Marchant and Chaigneau (2021) developed a PC task that allows flexible classification probabilities by computing p(category|feature). In this study, we implemented Marchant and Chaigneau's PC task under two feedback conditions (i.e., 70% and 90%) counterbalanced by three features’ relevance conditions. In the transfer phase, subjects rated exemplars’ category membership. During learning, we implemented eye-tracking to capture the number of fixations to each exemplar's features. We found that the number of fixations on relevant features predicts transfer responses, suggesting that people show declarative knowledge of critical features according to their relevance. Interestingly, declarative retrieval varies with the reliability of feedback.

**Authors:**

Martín Montesinos: Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez; Antonia Olguí: Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez; vicente soto: Universidad Adolfo Ibañez; Sergio E. Chaigneau: Adolfo Ibanez University; Nicolas Marchant: Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Using eye fixations in probabilistic categorization to predict declarative retrieval on relevant exemplar features

Learning a function from input-output pairs often follows two developmental paths. One path –exemplar learning -- is fast yet generalizes narrowly; the other path --rule learning -- is slower but generalizes more broadly (McDaniel et al., 2014). Developmental studies suggest that both speed and generality of function learning can be promoted by visually aligning familiar and unfamiliar input-output exemplars (Thompson & Opfer, 2010). To test this idea, undergraduates (n=47) were randomly assigned to Full-, Partial- and No-Alignment groups. On each trial, students estimated fractions on number-lines, and functions used to generate estimates were examined on each of 9 trial blocks. On pretest, estimates were (incorrectly) a linear function of denominators alone (Full 50%; Partial 50%; No 40%); on post-test, estimates were (correctly) a linear function of the whole fraction (88%; 44%; 47%). Virtually all change in the Full group occurred after training just two exemplars (75% correct after two exemplars vs. 88% after all training, p<0.001). Also, after first use of the correct function, regression to the denominator-only function differed across groups (0%; 38%; 33%). Finally, Full-Alignment group generalized to untrained problems more broadly than other groups (ps<0.05). Findings demonstrated efficiency of visual alignment in function learning, and they suggest an educational application to fraction learning.

**Authors:**

Yujia Zhang: The Ohio State University; John Opfer: The Ohio State University

Visual alignment promotes rapid learning of functional relations

How can non-experts evaluate expert explanations despite their limited understanding? The present research explores this question by focusing on one facet of expert explanations: the role of jargon and its effects on perceptions of an explanation’s quality. Specifically, we aim to reconcile contradictory findings from past research. While some authors find that explanations with jargon are perceived to be better than those without, others find that jargon has detrimental effects. These studies differ in a number of properties that we investigate systematically across three experiments (N=737; N=734, N=733). We find that jargon can boost explanatory satisfaction for incomplete explanations, potentially because the jargon is taken to fill an explanatory gap. However, the benefits of jargon (for explanatory satisfaction and perceived learning) decrease as explanations become more complete. On the other hand, detrimental effects of jargon (on comprehensibility, confidence, and deference to experts) are found regardless of explanatory completeness.

**Authors:**

Francisco Cruz: Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon; Tania Lombrozo: Princeton University

The effect of jargon on perceptions of explanation quality: Reconciling contradictory findings

Hand gestures have been shown to enhance overall verbal divergent and convergent creative thinking, especially for people with high imagery. In the present study, we tested whether gestures can also boost creative imagery, or creative visual imagination, as both creativity and gestures might rely on visuospatial skills. Participants first generated ideas regarding a simple unfinished figure and then completed the figure with their favorite idea. Spontaneous and encouraged gesture frequencies during idea generation and verbal descriptions of the idea before drawing it were calculated. We found that iconic gestures produced when generating ideas could lead to more vivid and original creative imagery. However, gesturing during idea description could result in reduced transformativeness (i.e., reduced modification and flexibility when drawing). These findings suggest that iconic gestures can be beneficial for visual creative imagery when generating ideas. However, once we settle on a particular idea, gesturing about it might hinder creative flexibility.

**Authors:**

Gyulten Hyusein: Koç University; Dila Gürer: Koç University; Melek Öyküm Yalçın: Goethe University; Tilbe Göksun: Koç University

Iconic Gestures – a Double-Edged Sword for Creative Imagery

How we move and interact with our surroundings can reveal a lot about us as an individual. This study delves into the interplay of music, movement, and individual identity within the framework of embodied cognition. Drawing inspiration from Carlson et al. (2020)’s work, which showcased remarkably high accuracy in identifying individuals based on free-form dance movements in a marker-based setting, our investigation extends their work into two novel contexts: markerless-choreographic and marker-based-dyadic dance settings. In the choreographic setting, professional dancers perform identical routines in a markerless setting. In the dyadic setting, individuals danced with a partner. We found that the dancer identification accuracy was at least two times better than the chance level in the choreographic setting and notably high accuracy in the dyadic setting. These results showcase the robustness of Carlson et al. (2020)’s method in generalizing to new settings and the presence of motoric fingerprints in choreographic as well as dyadic settings.

**Authors:**

Prince Varshney: International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad; Martin Hartmann: University of Jyväskylä; Emily Carlson: University of Jyväskylä; Petri Toiviainen: University of Jyväskylä; Vinoo Alluri: International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad

Exploring Individuality in Dance: Unveiling Unique Signatures of Dancers in Choreographic and Dyadic Dance Settings

Dancers vividly express joy, grief, and other emotions through their body movements, which reflect the deliberate expression of certain emotions and also the unintentional emotions. Research has shown that the speed of performers’ movements varies according to the emotions deliberately expressed. However, no study has examined the non-deliberate emotions. Therefore, this study examined dancers’ unintentionally exposed emotions through their movements. Seventeen semi-professional dancers performed a neutral choreography to three music types—joy-inducing music, sadness-inducing music, and a metronome—and their performances were compared. Changes in the dancers’ body movements were measured using a motion-capture system. Results showed that body movements were generally faster and more dynamic with emotion-inducing music compared to the metronome. While the speed of pelvic movements was more when they danced to joy-inducing music, arm movement was more apparent for sadness-inducing music. These findings help understand the unintentional emotion-expression dynamics in dance.

**Authors:**

Yukina Natsume: NTT Communication Science Laboratories; Aiko Murata: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation; Kazuaki Honda: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation; Naoki Saijo: NTT Communication Science Laboratories

Impact of dancers’ music-induced emotions on their body movements

Understanding and predicting the relevant risky choices of modern life is a key goal of the behavioral sciences and cognitive decision research specifically. However, do researchers study those choices that people actually face in their lives, or choices that at least capture the same cognitive processes? To address these open questions, we compare 214 risky choices from three perspectives (research, layperson, life outcomes) and use semantic embeddings extracted from a LLM to assess the similarity of choices between perspectives. Furthermore, by means of a Bayesian mixed effects model we examine the potential overlaps and gaps between the three perspectives regarding which cognitive mechanisms may be at play when people make the various choices. Our research informs theories of risk taking by revealing discrepancies of behavioral research with real-life choices, both regarding the choices that are considered timely as well as the cognitive underpinnings that influence these choices.

**Authors:**

Olivia Fischer: University of Zurich; Aaron Benjamin Lob: University of Zurich; Renato Frey: University of Zurich

Three perspectives on decisions under risk and uncertainty: A comparative analysis of potential discrepancies and their explanations

Past research examining developmental differences in exploration behavior has shown that children are more likely than adults to seek out uncertainty. However, children’s exploration behavior may be shaped by their distinct prior experiences and assumptions, differing from those of adults. We investigate these differences and their potential impact on exploration, using the game “Little Alchemy”, in which players can create new elements (e.g. clay) by combining previously discovered elements (e.g. stone and mud). Previous work found that adults use an empowerment strategy: They combine elements with the goal of creating new elements with the potential for many successful combinations. We observed that children were less likely to use an empowerment strategy, but relied more on their uncertainty compared to adults. This discrepancy decreased over age. In a follow-up experiment, we showed that this difference was indeed due to children using different strategies rather than the influence of different semantic priors.

**Authors:**

Franziska Brändle: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics; Silja Kessler: Max Planck Institute for Biologial Cybernetics; Azzurra Ruggeri: Technical University Munich; Eric Schulz: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics

Uncertainty-driven little alchemists: Differences in exploration strategies between adults and children in an online game

People’s mental representations of complex stimuli, such as images of facial affect, are difficult to elicit. To address this challenge, methods such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo with People (MCMCP), integrate human agents into computer-based sampling algorithms. However, such methods suffer from slow convergence, making them impractical for recovering the representations of individuals. Here, we extended MCMCP by introducing an adapted Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE) with domain knowledge as an auxiliary agent, guiding the sampling process away from less useful experimental trials. To test this approach, we ran a new experiment comparing such a VAE-guided MCMCP against baseline MCMCP in terms of convergence speed and quality of recovering human representations of facial affect. Preliminary results demonstrated that most guided chains converged on an individual’s facial affect representation within a single experimental session, faster than the baseline methods, and results showed the extent of individual differences in facial affect representations. Thus, VAE-guided MCMCP provides a promising framework for interfacing machine intelligence with psychological experiments to enhance our understanding of human cognition.

**Authors:**

Haijiang Yan: University of Warwick; Nick Chater: University of Warwick; Christian Tsvetkov: University of Warwick; Adam Sanborn: University of Warwick

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