|
KEYNOTE
SPEAKER
Aaron
Blaisdell will be our 2010 Keynote Speaker. His address is titled,
Rational
Rats: Causal Inference and Reality Monitoring
Abstract--David
Hume posed a dilemma: How do we derive cause-effect relationships
in the absence of direct causal perception? His answer was that
knowledge of the causal texture of the world was merely an inference
(or illusion) derived from observed statistical regularities.
Recent challenges from Philosophy, Statistics, and Psychology
argue that we can go beyond the information given (i.e., contingency)
by dissecting cause-effect relationships using our own actions
(i.e., interventions) on the world. I will present evidence that
like humans, rats a) build causal models of the world, derive
causal inferences from their interventions, and are sensitive
to the difference between the observed world and its images (i.e.,
reality monitoring). I also show how rats may not be as functionally
sophisticated as the scientists who study them. These experiments
raise important questions about the interface between learning
and cognition.
Aaron P.
Blaisdell is Associate Professor of Psychology at UCLA and President-Elect
of the International Society for Comparative Psychology. He received
his BA and MA in biological anthropology, and went on to earn
his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology with Ralph R. Miller, followed
by a two-year postdoctoral fellowship with Robert G. Cook. Aaron
entered the limelight with the publication of a Science article
titled "Causal Reasoning in Rats" in 2006. He has been
dodging fallout from that publication ever since, which has only
strengthened (and developed) his position. His primary interests
are in the processes of spatial and causal cognition in pigeons,
rats, and people. He also studies the role of expectation in
behavioral variability and the processes that mediate problem
solving in humans and other animals. His research has been funded
by the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute
of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Science
Foundation.
Visit
Aaron Blaisdell's
website.
The
Winter Conference on Animal Learning and Behavior website is
hosted courtesy of
American
University Department of Psychology
Comments, suggestions, or inquiries should be sent to sweiss@american.edu |