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Perception, intersubjectivity and development
Friday 24 June, 2005, Whittington Hospital, North London.
Perception and interpersonal interaction have fundamental interrelations: there is no social interaction without perception and even the perception of apparently non-social objects is often suffused with social meaning. In this one-day meeting we will highlight the intersubjective and social aspects of perception, laying particular stress on the developmental context. We will seek to focus on 'enactive' approaches to perception and interpersonal interaction in the light of developmental disorders such as autism.
Attendance is free, but is limited to a maximum of 40 participants.
Please contact Hanne De Jaegher [mailto:H.De.Jaegher@sussex.ac.uk] if
you would like to come.
Speakers include:
Dr. Ezequiel Di Paolo (Sussex)
Dr. Fabia Franco, (Middlesex)
Prof. Peter Hobson (UCL)
Dr. Eva Loth (King's College London)
Dr. Erik Myin, (Antwerp)
Prof. Steve Torrance (Middlesex)
Organized by Middlesex University Psychology Group, with the British Psychological Society Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section.
Perception, Intersubjectivity And Development Workshop
2005 Quinquennial conference
The Consciousness & Experiential Psychology Section of the BPS contributed two symposia to the 2005 Quinquennial Conference.
Jointly with the Transpersonal section, we ran a major symposium on the theme "Theory of mind: Cross-cultural and transpersonal perspectives"
This was a broad-ranging symposium which we believed encouraged dialogue and interaction between theorists who, while coming from quite different backgrounds, are all concerned with the general question of the extent to which the mind alters itself in coming to understand itself.
We were also continuing the "Science, Self and Meaning" theme of our 2004 annual conference, with a symposium featuring four speakers presenting theoretical perspectives on "Alternative views of the self".
Timings and speaker details were as follows:
Thursday 31st March, 10.10am-5.45pm
Symposium: "Theory of mind: Cross-cultural and transpersonal perspectives"
Convenors:
Les Lancaster, Chair BPS Transpersonal Section
Mike Beaton, CEP Section
2. Can our concepts affect our conscious experience?
* Tony Marcel, MRC Cognition and Brain Unit, Cambridge
3. The clinical perspective; grounding the transpersonal in cognitive theory
* Isabel Clarke, Psychological Therapies, AMH Woodhaven, Calmore, Hants
4. Dual grounding and/or theory of mind
* Chris Sinha, University of Portsmouth
5. Beliefs about mind and brain among Edinburgh University undergraduates: Implications for the 'science of consciousness'
* Adam Zeman, Charlene Liew, University of Edinburgh
6. Whose mind? Dialogue between mysticism and cognitive neuroscience in understanding 'theory of mind'
* Les Lancaster, Liverpool John Moores University
Friday 1st April, 14.00 - 16.40 1. The transformation of the embodied mind: A participatory transpersonal model
* Jorge Ferrer, California Institute of Integral Studies
Symposium: "Alternative views of the self"
Convenors:
Deborah Biggerstaff, Warwick Medical School
Richard Stevens, Open University
1. Exploring the self-other boundary through imaginary conversations
* P Sullivan, University of Bradford
2. Reversal theory and the sense of identity
* M J Apter, Georgetown University, USA
3. Trimodal theory as an integrative framework for conceptualising the self
* R Stevens, Open University
4. Selfhood and personality - a Buddhist perspective
* P Malinowski, Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit, Liverpool John Moores University
Enactive perception symposium:
An interdisciplinary workshop
9-10 March 2004
University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QH
This is the second in a series of workshops on Perception and Embodied Phenomenology. Following a one-day meeting at Oxford in June 2003 (Sensorimotor Approaches to Perception) that preceded the 7th CEP Annual Conference the forthcoming workshop at the University of Sussex will bring together psychologists, computer scientists and philosophers to examine recent work on vision and other aspects of perception, with reference to the enactive framework.
Keynote speakers:
Margaret Boden Cognitive Science, Sussex
Erik Myin Philosophy, Brussels
Kevin O'Regan Neuroscience, Paris
Other speakers include:
Ron Chrisley Cognitive Science, Sussex
Paul Coates Philosophy, Hertfordshire
Ezequiel Di Paolo Informatics, Sussex
Zoltan Dienes Psychology, Sussex
Inman Harvey Informatics, Sussex
Gustav Kuhn Psychology, Sussex
Romi Nijhawan Philosophy, Sussex
Mark Rowlands Philosophy, Exeter
Steve Torrance Philosophy, Middlesex & Sussex
David Young Informatics, Sussex
Workshop organiser: Steve Torrance
Workshop committee:
Zoltan Dienes, Romi Nijhawan, Robert Clowes, Ron Chrisley, Mike Beaton, Hanne De Jaegher
Sensorimotor approaches to perception
Friday June 27 2003
St Anne's College, Oxford University
The 7th Annual CEP Conference was preceded by a linked one day seminar on Friday 27th June 'SENSORIMOTOR APPROACHES TO PERCEPTION' which took place at the Dept. of Experimental Psychology, Oxford with a panel discussion session at St Anne's College, Oxford, later the same day.
This was the first workshop in a series under the title 'Perception and Embodied Phenomenology'. We gratefully acknowledge support for this workshop from the British Psychological Society's 2002-3 Research Seminars Competition.
The speakers were:
Susan Blackmore
Testing the Sensorimotor Theory of Vision
Paul Coates
The Structure of Perceptual Experience: A Critical Realist Account
Mark Rowlands
Representation in Action
Evan Thompson
Neurophenomenology, Sensorimotor Approaches to Perception, and the Explanatory Gap
Susan Hurley
Neural Plasticity and Consciousness: A Dynamic Sensorimotor Approach
Jeffrey Gray
Implications of Synaesthesia for Functionalism and the Sensorimotor Approach to Perception
Alva Noë
The Enactive Approach to Perception: Physicalism, Modality & the Explanatory Gap
Studying consciousness: Objective and subjective ways of knowing
A day of dialogue with Jean Hardy & Anthony Jack
13 May 2003, 10:00-04:00 pm,
Parsifal College, London
Claims are now being made that consciousness is " .. science's last great frontier ..". But are we really at such a critical point ? What could scientific account of consciousness actually explain? Can science deal with subjective experience ? What sort of relationship can we find between science & other traditions for investigating consciousness ? Questions like these will be the focus of our day.
Anthony Jack
Anthony Jack studied Psychology and Philosophy at Oxford University, before starting a PhD at UCL Psychology on perception without awareness. Methodological difficulties associated with the measurement of awareness caused him to return to philosophy, in order to clarify the interpretation of empirical work in his PhD. Over the last few years, he has been further developing these ideas, and at the same time he has moved into brain imaging of frontal function. He is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Queen Square, London.
Jean Hardy
Dr Jean Hardy is a sociologist and worked for several years as a social worker with children. She has taught within universities and polytechnics for some 30 years. She teaches now on the Psychosynthesis Trust M.A. degree and at Synthesis in Bristol. She trained in psychosynthesis in the 1980s and wrote " A psychology with a soul" on the origins of transpersonal psychology. She also edits the journal "Greenspirit".
Jean & Anthony bring to the investigation of consciousness different backgrounds, techniques and objectives. The day will include talks entitled: "Introspective Physicalism - foundations for a science of experience" (from Anthony) and "Our psychology is too small." (from Jean).
Apart from coffee, tea and lunch, the rest of the day will be taken up with discussion in which everyone will be welcome to take part.
Goodbye to reductionism: Current mind-body "knots" and how to unravel them
A dialogue with Max Velmans
3 June 2003, 02:00 - 06:30 pm,
The British Psychological Society, 33 John Street, London WC1N
An evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of current theories of consciousness, and a new approach presented in a day of dialogue with Max Velmans, Goldsmiths, University of London (recent books Understanding Consciousness, Routledge, 2000; The Science of Consciousness, Routledge, 1996; Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness. John Benjamins, 2000).
There is not one consciousness/brain problem, but many. What is consciousness? What are the causal relationships between consciousness and the brain? What is the function of consciousness? What are the neural substrates of consciousness? Some of these questions require empirical advance, some require theoretical advance, and some require both. If, for example, the problem is "What are the neural substrates of consciousness?" or, "What forms of information processing are most closely associated with consciousness?" then conventional cognitive and neuropsychological techniques are likely to yield results. But questions about the fundamental nature, causal efficacy, and function of consciousness are difficult. For example, it seems obvious that consciousness has a function, otherwise it would not have evolved to be so central in our lives. Common suggestions are that consciousness is necessary to deal with novelty or complexity, to provide feedback, to integrate and disseminate information in the brain and so on. However these proposals face a central dilemma: Once one can specify how such functions work in information processing terms, one no longer needs consciousness to explain the working of the system which embodies that processing. The same processes could operate in mechanical or electrical systems unaccompanied by any subjective conscious experiences. So, what does subjective experience add? Questions 1 to 4 also interconnect. If one is not clear about what consciousness is, how can one find its neural substrates in the brain ?
In the first part of the workshop we examine the strengths and weaknesses of current attempts to deal with these problems within dualism, physicalism, and functionalism. We then go on to discuss reflexive monism, a novel approach to such problems, developed in depth in Understanding Consciousness (Routledge, 2000). The final part of the workshop will take the form of an open-ended dialogue about the broader, cultural consequences of consciousness research.
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