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COVID-19 racial health disparities: The roles of discrimination and stress
By Keri Carvalho Ask any researcher who studies racial health disparities, and they will tell you that even before COVID-19, we were already in a public health crisis. Black Americans were already disproportionately affected by chronic health conditions,...
Prominent cognitive scientist Christian Freksa has passed away
Dear Cognitive Science Colleagues, I am very sad to report that Christian Freksa has passed away. Christian was the Chair of Cognitive Systems in the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics at University of Bremen in Germany...
A Cognitive Profile of COVID-19 Conspiracists
By Valerie van Mulukom Introduction Unexpected and often unpleasant events are the name of the game this year, 2020. From a cluster of pneumonia cases to a full-blown coronavirus pandemic, killer hornets, and a bitterly fought USA general election, to name a few....
Building a culture of mental wellness in academia: Reflections from 2020
By Melissa Troyer Sketch by Natalia Vélez 2020 is a year of the (perhaps shouldn’t-have-been-so-) unexpected. The Big Topics are on the table. A global pandemic; civil unrest; a call to action against white supremacy and the structural racism built into the...
A Love Letter to Lab Meeting
By Lilia Rissman Sketch by Natalia Vélez You were always there in the background - two lockers down, two rows back in band practice. But walking the hallways of school these past months, I find myself looking at you in a new way. I’ll never know how it happened —...
Flexibility in Neural Network Models
By Andrew Lampinen Banner image sketch by Natalia Vélez. The flexibility of human cognition is remarkable. We can perform a new task (for example, playing a new videogame) decently after a few minutes of experience. We can then adapt our knowledge to new...
Discussions Over Coffee: One Experience with Imposter Syndrome
By Mohammad Wiswall Before the pandemic, there used to exist something... a place known as a coffee shop. There you could have a peculiar drink that Italians would call “caffe” and Americans would call coffee. Coffee used to be the center of this bustling place people...
Are specific areas in the brain responsible for specific thoughts and behavior? Examining the modularity debate
By Ava Ma De Sousa This piece was originally posted on cogbites. Has anyone ever asked you if you are ‘right-brained’ or ‘left-brained’? Maybe you have even taken a Buzzfeed quiz to see which of these two sides ‘dominates’ your behavior. Though there is...
Remembering Gordon Bower
This summer, Gordon Bower, a leader in the field of cognitive science, passed away at age 87. He was well-known as a brilliant researcher and generous mentor. His colleagues and former mentees recently shared some of their memories and appreciations with us. Here's...
CogSci 2020: A recap of our first virtual conference
The 42nd Annual Virtual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society took place entirely online this year. Although attendees were scattered around the world in their own homes, there was no shortage of enthusiasm for connecting with colleagues and learning about new...