Vorträge

Cognitive Science Applied: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Prof. Dr. Boris M. Velichkovsky
Institute of Psychology III,
Dresden University of Technology

In my talk, I firstly plan to give a bird's eye-overview of paradigmatic - in the Kuhn's sense - changes in the field of philosophy of cognitive research (Cognitive Science - Norman, 1979 - and since early 1980-s also Cognitive Neuroscience - Posner, 1987). The division on three parts nearly corresponds to the initial dominance of the abstract symbol approach (qua Computer metaphor), then to the modular neurocognitive approach and to the current variety of postmodern approaches, which span from the neurophilosophy of consciousness and eliminative antimentalism to diverse ecological and dynamic-system-theory-based approaches as well as to the mutualism of the second-person perspective and Affective-Cognitive Science. On this colorful background, I am going to ask, what can a science or rather a heterogeneous field of inquiry, as divers as this, to offer for solution of practical problems?

By attempting to answer this question, I will first of all remember how investigations of nonverbal recognition memory influenced our ways of interacting with computers, leading to contemporary GUIs, i.e. graphical user interfaces. My second example will be related to cognitive neuropsychology, both as diagnostic praxis and neurorehabilitation. Finally, I shall proceed to a number of less-known illustrations on applied significance of neurocognitive investigations of human eye movements.

Most of these examples are related to the work at our lab for Applied Cognitive Research at the Dresden University of Technology. These later examples demonstrate a tendency, which leads from off-line to on-line applications, e.g. to attention-centered and state-depended human-machine interaction. I wish to conclude by paraphrasing a former psychology professor in Dresden, Karl Bühler - There is nothing what is more practicable than a good basic (cognitive) research.

Zeit: Dienstag, den 29. Juni 2004, 17 Uhr c.t.

Ort: Seminarraum Karp - Raum 68,
        Neubau Informatik, Haus 64,
        Erdgeschoß