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Cognitive Psychology Section

By Catriona Morrison (Chair, Cognitive Psychology Section)

The Cognitive Section largely serves to meet the needs of academic psychologists who have an interest in cognitive psychology. We are keen to be as broad as possible and one of our aims over the next 12 months is to talk more with other sections and encourage interdisciplinary communication.

One means by which we serve our membership is to award an annual Cognitive Prize to a journal paper or book chapter reporting novel observations or providing significant theoretical insight into human cognition; the winning publication is regarded as having made an outstanding contribution to the field of Cognitive Psychology. This year’s prize was awarded to Dr Andrew Calder (University of Cambridge) and Professor Andrew Young (University of York) for their paper Calder, A. J. & Young, A. (2005). Understanding the recognition of facial identity and facial expression. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience, 6, 641- 651. The call for submissions for the 2008 prize appeared in the February issue of the Psychologist.

The principal means by which we serve our membership is to organise an annual Section Conference. The venue of the conference varies year by year, and in 2007 was held at the University of Aberdeen. The local conference organizer was Dr David Pearson, whom we recognize did an outstanding job and should take credit for an extremely successful event. Nearly 200 delegates attended, and the feedback was universally very positive. The keynote speakers were Dr Andrew Calder - giving the Prize-winner’s address; Professor Akira Miyake; and Professor Stephen Kosslyn.

We are keen to encourage post-graduate attendance at the Conference, and the way we support this is by offering bursaries to postgraduates to contribute to travel and accommodation costs. Additionally this year, we put on a new event for postgraduates that we called 'Lunch with the Keynotes'. This was an opportunity for students to spend a relaxed and informal session with the keynote speakers and to ask them questions about their careers, their research, and so on. This event was oversubscribed and was regarded as a great success by all involved, and it is something we will carry forward into future conferences.

The 2008 Annual Conference marks our twenty-fifth conference year and we are holding the anniversary meeting at the University of Southampton. There is a range of symposia planned, including an anniversary symposium which will unite all the past Chairs of the Section for a session on Cognitive Psychology: Past, Present and Future. Keynote speakers at the Southampton meeting will include Professor Keith Rayner (University of Massachusetts, USA) and Morris Goldsmith (University of Haifa, Israel). We are very hopeful that the anniversary event will match the success of Aberdeen. More information on the Southampton Anniversary Conference.

We also make contributions to the Society’s Annual Conference, and in Dublin in 2008 Professor Ken Gilhooly will be chairing a session around the work of Daniel Kahneman to include Professor Peter Ayton (City University), Professor Nigel Harvey (UCL), Dr Neil Stewart (University of Warwick) and Dr Daniel Reid (University of Durham).

In terms of the roles within the Committee, the Cognitive Section has been going through a period of rapid change and development in recent months. After an admirably long stint in the role, Professor Ken Gilhooly (University of Hertfordshire) stepped down earlier this year as Section Chair, and was replaced by Dr Catriona Morrison (University of Leeds) who had until recently held the role of Honorary Secretary. We have still to find a replacement Honorary Secretary and the Section Committee is keen to encourage new members to join us and contribute to the pool of energy and new ideas. For further information about ways of getting involved contact Catriona Morrison (e-mail: c.morrison@leeds.ac.uk).

More information about the Section can be found on the Cognitive Section website.