Research has shown that visual diagrams facilitate people’s understanding of and communication about abstract relations. In addition, the distinction between causal versus associative relations is important in human reasoning However, previous research has not directly compared how humans represent these two types of relations through visual diagrams. The current study examined whether causal and associative relations differ with respect to how people cognitively represent and interpret them in a spatial context using diagrams. We found that participants perceived relatedness of causal relationships to be stronger than that of associative relationships. This difference was reflected in their drawing of diagrams. Participants connected variables that shared a causal relationship with a shorter line than they did with variables that shared an associative relationship. The results shed light on the difference between causal and associative relations, and suggest new directions for future research to explore the spatial component of causal reasoning.


Causal versus Associative Relations: Do Humans Perceive and Represent Them Differently?

Teachers often use drawings of the normal distribution to support explanations of related statistical concepts, assuming that the normal curve provides a common language for such discussions. However, we find that students may not understand the basic features of the normal curve. In Study 1, we showed that students who already have studied the normal distribution in a college-level class do not understand basic concepts associated with it. Then, in Study 2, we investigated whether a brief instructional, narrated video could improve students’ understanding of the normal probability distribution. Specifically, we compared three instructional formats: static slides, a video recording of a hand physically drawing those plots, and a screen recording of the hand-drawing. Despite the brevity of the intervention, we found significant improvements in students’ understanding of the normal probability distribution and related probability concepts. The findings are discussed in relation to the dynamic representation and embodied cognition literature.

Utilizing Dynamic and Embodied Visualization to Facilitate Understanding of Normal Probability Distributions

Understanding the relationships between gesture, speech, and thought bears on how we conceptualize language and embodied cognition. We asked whether the gestures U.S. politicians produced when presenting ideas as similar (listing) or different (contrasting) varied in handshape, form, or movement. We found that location was more likely to change during contrasting, while movement pattern was more likely to change during listing. In a follow-up experiment, we showed that these gestures impacted participants’ perceptions of how similar the items discussed by the politician were, even when the auditory information was unavailable. When participants could see politicians’ gestures, they rated listed topics as more similar and contrasted items as more different, even when the videos were muted. We conclude that gesture during political speech can both reflect and affect judgements of similarity and difference.

Gesture during political speech reflects and affects judgements of topic similarity

FT7: Causation

poster

Join us for CogSci2022! Our 44th Annual Conference will be centered around the theme of diversity, with an accompanying range of keynotes and invited speakers who themselves highlight the diversity of our field. Our three symposia are Cognition across Diverse Populations, Cognition within Diverse Societies, and Global Challenges for Cognitive Science. The conference is being offered in a fully hybrid environment for onsite and online attendees.
 
 [**The Program at a Glance can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Cogsci-2022-PAAG-Detailed-July-12final-1.pdf)
 [**The Detailed Program can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DeArmond-CogSci2022-program-v113-final.pdf)

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CogSci 2022

The 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society highlighted research on the theme Cognitive Diversity in addition to the full breadth and diversity of research topics offered by the society’s membership. 





**Date: **Wednesday, July 28, 2021 
**Time: **17:20 CEST - 19:00 CEST 
**Session Description: ** Review the posters you are interested in, watch the videos, and even leave messages for the authors in the Q&A section before joining the poster presenters and exhibitors in Gather.town for live discussion. 
**For a full list of posters in this session, click the See All link on the right side of the page.**

Poster Session 2 -  D: Education, Development and Perspectives in Cognitive Science

### Looking for Cogsci 2023? Please [click here](https://underline.io/events/405/reception) to switch to 2023 edition.


**Dear Colleagues,**

Welcome to the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society! 

This year’s conference brings together the latest research from all Cognitive Science and also highlights this year’s theme **Comparative Cognition: Animal Minds.** 

The program features four plenary speakers: Friederike Range (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna), Onur Güntürkün (Ruhr University Bochum), Julia Fischer (University of Göttingen), and Erich Jarvis (The Rockefeller University). The keynotes and invited symposia showcase the broad spectrum of ideas that encompass the conference theme of comparative cognition. 

Further, the program includes the Rumelhart Prize keynote presentation by Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago), and symposia to celebrate the winner of the Elman Prize: Wei Ji Ma (New York University), the Heineken Award winner Robert Zatorre (McGill University), and the Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Prizes session.

The program committee for CogSci 2021 received 1,025 submissions, including 710 full papers, 275 member abstracts, 8 publication-based talks, as well as 15 proposals for symposia, and 17 for workshops and tutorials. After a rigorous review process, the committee selected 152 papers for oral presentation and inclusion in the conference proceedings (14.8%), 332 papers for poster presentation and inclusion in the proceedings (32.4%), and 175 papers for poster presentation with inclusion of abstracts in the proceedings (17.1%) We also selected 275 submitted member abstracts. In addition, we accepted 6 publication-based talks, 12 symposia, and 9 workshops and tutorials to make for an exciting and inclusive program.

We hope that you enjoy the conference this year! 

**Your Program Chairs,**
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To review the proceedings for the conference or review the searchable program, please visit the [website](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/program/).

CogSci 2021

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.

This session has no scheduled virtual poster presentation time, but attendees will be able to comment and ask questions about your work/research asynchronously throughout the conference. 

**If you are a virtual poster presenter**, you can leave a message in your poster area chat space to advise times (and time zone) that you will be available either in the chat box, or by setting up your own online meeting room (Zoom, etc.). 
**If you are an attendee**, please check each poster's chat box and arrange time with presenter.

Virtual Posters

The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society will take place in Sydney, Australia as a modified hybrid conference. Presentations from the main-session room will be live-streamed every day for all events. This will include all invited talks and award sessions. Recordings of all CogSci 2023 sessions will be made available for on-demand viewing after the conference. 
The in-person component will be held at the International Convention Centre Sydney at Darling Harbour. The Conference will take place Wednesday July 26th – Saturday July 29th, 2023 (Wednesday, July 26th is the Workshops Day).

Join us!

 [**The Program at a Glance can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/COgSci-PAAG-V2.pdf)
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#### **CogSci 2023 Program Book**
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CogSci 2023

The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society presents the latest research across cognitive science and highlights the theme of Cognition in Context.

Icy (Yunyi) Zhang

3

9

SHORT BIO

Presentations

Causal versus Associative Relations: Do Humans Perceive and Represent Them Differently?

Utilizing Dynamic and Embodied Visualization to Facilitate Understanding of Normal Probability Distributions

Gesture during political speech reflects and affects judgements of topic similarity

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