Poster Session: 11am-2pm Academic Commons

Lunch provided

Talk Session: 2pm-4:30pm  Gilmer 141

Department Reception to follow

poster pdf

Department of Psychology

2017-2018 COLLOQUIUM SERIES

presents

Michael L. Platt

James S. Riepe University Professor

Departments of Neuroscience, Psychology and Marketing

University of Pennsylvania

“How We Connect: The Biology of Friendship”

We all need friends. Deeper and more numerous friendships promote health, well-being, survival, and even financial success. By the same token, social exclusion and the loss of social partners result in feelings similar to physical pain. Impairments in the ability or motivation to connect with others profoundly impact the lives of individuals with disorders like autism and schizophrenia. Yet despite its importance, the formalized scientific study of friendship is relatively new, perhaps due to the perceived difficulty of studying social behavior in the laboratory using the techniques of modern neuroscience. In my talk, I will discuss our work aimed at defining the biological mechanisms that mediate our ability and desire to connect. We directly compare biology and behavior in humans and rhesus macaques, using a complementary suite of brain imaging, eye-tracking, single-unit recording, pharmacological, and genetic techniques, in both the laboratory and the field. Our work has identified specialized circuitry that motivates attention to others, responds to cues to their intentions, and promotes prosocial decisions. The neuromodulators oxytocin and serotonin tune the gain of these circuits to regulate social interactions. In the field, we find that variation in social behavior and cognition has fitness consequences and emerges, in part, from genes that regulate neuromodulatory function. Together, our findings suggest deep homologies in the biological origins of complex social function in human and nonhuman primates.

DEPARTMENT of PSYCHOLOGY
2017-2018 COLLOQUIUM SERIES
presents the

Alumni Lecturer

Matthew Lerner, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology, & Pediatrics
Director, Social Competence & Treatment Lab
Stony Brook University

“Catch Me If You Can:
Novel Mechanisms of Social Functioning and Intervention in
Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorders”

Fluid and competent social behavior is a crucial element of youth development. Understanding of this complex process is especially crucial for those with characteristic impairments in social functioning, such as those with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). While ample work has aimed to describe such deficits, only recently has research begun to uncover theoretically-sound mechanisms underlying them. Likewise, little research has attempted to employ such mechanisms to improve and customize evidence-based interventions designed to affect social functioning (social competence interventions). This talk presents an approach designed to achieve several complementary aims. First, it elucidates novel electrophysiological, perceptual, and cognitive predictors of diverse social outcomes in youth with social deficits in order to advance parsimonious models of youth social development. Second, it uses such predictors to produce targeted, optimized evidence-based social competence interventions, which call into question theoretical assumptions of traditional, larger intervention packages. Finally, it reveals individual differences in the relationship between these predictors and intervention outcomes, thereby producing individually-tailored treatment response profiles that maximize responsiveness to social skills interventions. Collectively, this work suggests the need – and provides direction – for novel models of etiology, development, and plasticity of social functioning in youth with ASD.

Friday, October 27, 2017
3:30 p.m.
Gilmer 190
Coffee/cookies at 3:15pm.
Reception will be held after the talk.

DEPARTMENT of PSYCHOLOGY
2017-2018 Colloquium Series and the
Aston-Gottesman Lecture Series present

Professor Paul Griffiths, PhD, FAAS, FAHA
The University of Sydney

“The Behavioral Gene”

The field of behaviour genetics has a long history of controversy. To a significant extent this is to be explained as a response to the social implications – real or perceived – of behaviour genetic results. In this lecture, however, I focus on another reason why biologists have often strongly disagreed about the value of behavioural genetic results. The concept of the gene is a multi-faceted one. It has both changed over time and diversified across biological fields as the methods of genetics have evolved and diversified. This diversity is reflected in a range of different conceptions of how genes do or should explain aspects of bodies and behaviour. I will outline some of this diversity and the mutual misunderstanding between fields that can result. Some of the more recent methodological and conceptual developments in genetics hold out the hope of resolving some of these controversies and achieving greater consensus on the achievements – and limitations – of behavioral genetics.

Paul Griffiths is a philosopher of science with a focus on genetics and development, he is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney and a Domain Leader at the Charles Perkins Centre, a major research institute of the university devoted to interdisciplinary approaches to lifestyle-related disease. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. From 2011-13 he was President of the International Society for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology. His publications include: (1997) What Emotions Really Are: The problem of psychological categories. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. (1999). Sex and Death: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (with Kim Sterelny). (2013). Genetics and Philosophy: An introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press (with Karola Stotz). Personal website: http://griffithslab.org/.

Friday, November 10, 2017
3:30pm
Gilmer Hall, Room 190
Enhanced refreshments/reception to follow

"Sponsored in part by the Genetics and Human Agency and the John Templeton Foundation"

DEPARTMENT of PSYCHOLOGY
2017-2018 COLLOQUIUM SERIES
presents

Matthew Nassar, PhD.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences
Brown University

“Learning as Statistical Inference: Neural and Computational Mechanisms for Normative Learning”

Successful decision making often requires learning from prediction errors, but how much should we learn from any given error? I will examine this question in detail, drawing on an optimal inference model to formalize how we should learn in dynamic environments and a computationally efficient approximation to provide insight into how we could do so by adjusting the rate of learning from moment to moment. I will show behavioral data validating key model predictions in humans, demonstrate a role for the arousal system in setting the learning rate, and dissect the computational roles of neural subsystems upstream of learning rate implementation. I will explore the possibility that learning deficits might emerge from a failure to correctly determine how much should be learned, rather than a failure to represent prediction errors per se, and provide evidence for such an explanation in the case of healthy aging. Finally I will re-examine neural architecture of error-driven learning in the context of these results and discuss some future directions emerging from this work.

Monday, January 29, 2018
3:30 p.m.
Gilmer 190
Coffee/cookies at 3:15pm.
Reception will be held after the talk.

On Friday, February 2 @ 3:30 pm, Dr. Barry M. Prizant will give a free public lecture based on his book "Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism." The presentation will be held at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Seating is limited, and tickets are available on a first come, first served basis with your RSVP at this link.
Winner of the 2017 Autism Society of America’s Dr. Temple Grandin Award for the Outstanding Literary Work in Autism, Dr. Prizant is one of the world's leading experts in autism.
“A must-read for anyone touched by autism... Dr. Prizant’s Uniquely Human is a crucial step in promoting better understanding and a more humane approach” (Associated Press). Instead of classifying “autistic” behaviors as signs of pathology, Dr. Prizant sees them as part of a range of strategies to cope with a world that feels chaotic and overwhelming. Rather than curb these behaviors, it’s better to enhance abilities, build on strengths, and offer supports that will lead to more desirable behavior and a better quality of life.
The lecture will take place in 130 Gilmer Hall at 3:30 and will be followed by a reception and book signing in the Gilmer Hall Academic Commons at 5pm. Hourly parking is available across the street in the Central Grounds Garage at the University of Virginia. This event is sponsored by UVa's Disability Studies Initiative, the Curry School of Education, UVa's BRAIN Initiative, and the College Civic & Community Engagement Initiative.
To RSVP, follow the link here.

DEPARTMENT of PSYCHOLOGY
2017-2018 COLLOQUIUM SERIES
presents

Brandon Turner
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
The Ohio State University

“Integrating Neural and Behavioral Measures of Cognition”

Scientists who study cognition infer underlying processes either by observing behavior (e.g., response times, percentage correct) or by observing neural activity (e.g., the BOLD response). These two types of observations have traditionally supported two separate lines of study. The first is led by cognitive modelers, who rely on behavior alone to support their computational theories. The second is led by cognitive neuroimagers, who rely on statistical models to link patterns of neural activity to experimental manipulations, often without any attempt to make a direct connection to an explicit computational theory. Here I present a flexible Bayesian framework for combining neural and cognitive models. Joining neuroimaging and computational modeling in a single hierarchical framework allows the neural data to influence the parameters of the cognitive model and allows behavioral data, even in the absence of neural data, to constrain the neural model. In the talk, I will demonstrate the advantages of this powerful framework by investigating a variety of important problems in cognitive neuroscience.

Monday, February 5, 2018
3:30 p.m.
Gilmer 190

Coffee/cookies at 3:15pm.
Reception will be held after the talk.

DEPARTMENT of PSYCHOLOGY
2017-2018 COLLOQUIUM SERIES
presents

Musings from Gilmer Hall

Veronica Weser
Cognitive Area Graduate Student
“Making the Visual Tangible:
A Virtual Size-Weight Illusion”

Charlie Ebersole
Social Area Graduate Student
“Investigating Time-of-Semester Variation or:
How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Participant Pool”

Jason Sumontha
Community Area Graduate Student
“Socioeconomic Status and Family Formation
Among Gay Fathers”

Friday, February 9, 2018
3:30 p.m.
Gilmer 190

Coffee/cookies at 3:15pm.
Reception will be held after the talk.

On Wednesday, October 10th, from 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM, UVA’s Initiative for Dynamics of Healthy Development (IDHD) will host a conference, The Healthy Development Blitzarama, at the Rotunda.  This event will feature leaders from international institutions shaping the study and application of human development and aging as well as innovative UVA faculty researching methods and dynamics of human development.  The blitz talks will include cutting edge research from wide ranging areas such as the School of Architecture, Curry School of Education, and the Departments of Computer Science, Psychology, Statistics and Systems and Information Engineering. 

A reception will take place from 1:00 – 2:00 PM in the Multi-purpose room of the Rotunda providing opportunities to engage with key external guest speakers representing the World Health Organization and Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin.

The IDHD organizes and promotes research that pertains to understanding processes of human development (biological, psychological, educational, social, and environmental) and in particular focuses on the trajectories of development that occur in healthy individuals.

poster and schedule of talks