CEU's Department of Cognitive Science, one of the University's newest departments, hosted the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCOP) annual conference from August 29 to Sept. 1 at nearby ELTE University. Founded in 1985, the professional society has over 500 members from Europe and beyond.

“The last big conference like this in Hungary was in 1991,” said Csaba Pleh, professor at the Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics and conference co-organizer. “We are very thankful to ESCOP for believing in us and for the privilege of having the conference here. Altogether, we have about 800 presentations and 770 participants.”
Prior to the official opening of the conference, two special sessions were held to discuss the European Research Council (ERC), the independent body that funds investigator-driven frontier research in the European Union, and the state of women in cognitive science. The ERC symposium included representatives of the scientific council, grantees, evaluators, and scientific officers who provided an overview of ERC activities. CEU Researcher Agnes Kovacs, who explores infant interaction with social partners and language acquisition and cognition, participated in both sessions to discuss her grant and to encourage young researchers to collaborate and apply for funding. Last year, Kovacs received a €1.5 million “starting grant” from the European Research Council for her project, "Representational Preconditions for Understanding Other Minds in the Service of Human Collaboration and Social Learning."
At the second special session, a panel of five researchers discussed strategy for you
ng researchers and challenges that women face in the field. Kovacs addressed the low number of female researchers applying for ERC grants. “Only 25 percent of ERC grant applications are from women,” said Kovacs. “Why are we not applying?” She noted that some young researchers feel too intimidated to approach senior researchers in order to collaborate. “Our perception of ourselves as young researchers is often: I have limited expertise, why would anyone want to collaborate with me? But the first thing necessary for collaboration is an idea – not expertise, experience, or technical knowledge.”
The senior researchers on the panel echoed Kovacs's sentiment and all agreed that they are open to students approaching them with solid ideas and plans for collaboration. Judith Kroll, distinguished professor of psychology, linguistics, and women's studies and director of the Center for Language Science at Penn State noted that part of what happens is that the culture of academia sometimes suppresses curiosity and encourages the fear of failing.
“It's really important not to be afraid,” said Kroll. “One of the things that some of us get socialized into is status. Most senior researchers don't think about status, they just think about their work and their group. We need not be bound by status. That's not to say that there aren't differences between senior and junior researchers, but part of it is trying to find a situation that's comfortable and intellectually stimulating. Be explicit about the outcome and expectations at the onset.”
Other senior researchers emphasized the importance of networking and standing behind your work. Avishai Henik, professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hebrew University, noted that it is extremely rare for women to appeal rejections from scientific journals and he encouraged them to do so. Henik also underscored how useful the process of grant-writing is, even if the project isn't ultimately chosen for funding.

The conference officially opened with the first keynote speech, given by Oxford University Watts Professor of Experimental Psychology Glyn Humphreys, who detailed his research with Oxford Research Fellow Jie Sui on self-bias.
“Humans show strong biases towards self-related information, but exactly how these biases come about and how they are implemented in the brain remains poorly understood,” said Humphreys. In lab experiments, Humphreys and Sui are using neutral shapes like circles and triangles with identifiers such as “best friend” or “stranger” and then identifying, via neuropsychological, behavioral, and brain imaging techniques, how the tagging changes participants' perception.
Other keynote speeches addressed the organization of visual pathways in the human brain, how the human brain understands numbers, and human social collaboration.
For the full conference program, visit http://www.escop2013.org/. For more on CEU's Department of Cognitive Science, visit http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/.





