Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture

Dimitris Xygalatas  | Anthropology, University of Connecticut "Ritual, Embodiment, and Emotional Contagion"  While the Cognitive Science of Religion has brought the mind to the forefront of analysis, it has had little to say about the body. As a result, the mechanisms underlying much-discussed and well-documented effects often remain elusive. In this paper, I will discuss ritual’s ability to facil...

Justin Barrett | President, Blueprint 1543 "Bringing Technology to Mind: Cognitive Naturalness and Technological Enthusiasm" Sometimes new technologies spread before society has had sufficient time to evaluate them. Can we make better decisions about whether to be enthusiastic or reticent regarding new tech without waiting for thorough testing or the emergence of unintended negative consequences?...

E. Thomas Lawson  | Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion, Western Michigan University If you would like to become an AFFILIATE of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get updates on our latest videos. Follow along with us on Instagram |   Facebook   NOTE:  The views and opinions expressed by the speaker do not necessarily reflect those held by th...

Mark Risjord | Director, Institute for Liberal Arts, Emory University + Kareem Khalifa | Philosophy, University of California, Los Angeles pay a unique video tribute to their former mentor and friend, Robert McCauley on the occasion of his retirement. If you would like to become an AFFILIATE of the Center, please let us know. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get updates on our latest videos. Fo...

Pascal Boyer | Psychology & Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis "What Kinds of Religion are "Natural"?" McCauley emphasized that religious representations are “natural”, in contrast to other cultural systems that require systematic training or leaning and institutional scaffolding. Pursuing this line of reasoning, we can see how some limited domains of religion are far more natural than...

Kareem Khalifa | Philosophy, University of California, Los Angeles  "The Methodenstreit Ain't Right: McCauley on Interpretation and Explanation" Does interpretation distinguish the human sciences from the natural sciences? Or do explanations drive the human sciences in a manner akin to their more venerable natural-scientific cousins? These questions fueled the decades-old Methodenstreit (“methodol...

Bryon Cunningham | Psychology, Occidental College "Evolution, Mood Disorders, and Religious Coping: Interactions Between Explanatory and Interpretive Theories in Clinical Practice"  In this talk, I advocate for the view that explanatory and interpretive theories can be mutually enriching in clinical practice. I start with the ecumenical view that the theoretical frameworks of evolutionary psycholo...

Jared Rothstein | Philosophy, Daytona State University "Surfing, Sharks, & The Limits of Reason"  Based on personal experience surfing in the “Shark Bite Capital of the World” (Volusia County, Florida) and interdisciplinary research from the fields of behavioral economics, neuropsychology, and philosophy of mind, the author rejects the traditional Rationalist view that ‘future discounting’ is alwa...

Charles Nussbaum | Philosophy, University of Texas, Austin "Why Normative Ethics Is Natural and Metaethics Is and Is Not"  Morality prescribes privileged standards for action and character. Ethics is the philosophy of morality. Normative ethics codifies the prescriptive principles of morality that justify considered judgments of cases. Metaethics is the second-order study of ethics. It investigate...

Oliver Rollins | American Ethnic Studies / African American Studies / Sociology, University of Washington "Towards an Anti-Racist Neuroscience: Possibilities and Problematics with Scientific Progress"  Alongside the deadly COVID-19 outbreak, the biomedical and health sciences have been altered by the continued challenge of racism. Major academic science journals (e.g., Nature, Science, and JAMA) h...

Sashank Varma | Psychology and Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology "Mathematical Concepts in Humans and Machine Learning Models" The nature of mathematical concepts has long been a topic of philosophical debate. Recent theorizing in mathematical cognition has tended towards nativist accounts and postulations of built-in neural circuitry. In this talk, I consider whether this sta...

Using the Science of Love and Bonding to Bring New Perspectives on Social Relationships, Health, and the Practice of Female Genital Mutilation in East Africa.  Larry Young | Center for Translational Social Neuroscience | Psychiatry, Emory University Rev. Patti Ricotta | President, Life Together International Discussants: Kathryn M. Yount | Global Health and Melvin Konner | Anthropology, Emory Univ...

"Can 'Wild' Sounds Teach Us What it Means to be Human?"  David Haskell | Biology & Environmental Sciences | University of the South, Sewanee, TN  Presented by hosts Laura Emmery (Department of Music / Emory University) and Cynthia Willett (Department of Philosophy / Emory University) Co-sponsored by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, and The Department of Psychology.  "I will use examples fr...

Tom Griffiths  | Psychology & Computer Science | Princeton University "The Rational Use of Cognitive Resources" Psychologists and computer scientists have very different views of the mind. Psychologists tell us that humans are error-prone, using simple heuristics that result in systematic biases. Computer scientists view human intelligence as aspirational, trying to capture it in artificial intell...

Michael Goldstein | Psychology, Cornell University "Simple Interactions Construct Complex Communication in Songbirds and Human Infants" Despite the immense variety of sounds we associate with the animal world, the ability to learn a vocal repertoire is a rare phenomenon, emerging in only a handful of groups, including humans. To gain a better understanding of the development and evolution of vocal...

"Widowhood, Archives, and the Musical Work of Mourning in Postwar Europe"  Martha Sprigge | Musicology | University of California, Santa Barbara  Presented by Dept. of Music with co-sponsorship from Dept. of Philosophy / Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture / Center for Faculty Development and Excellence This presentation examines how gendered mourning practices have shaped the historiography of Ge...

Have you thought about applying to the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER)?  These prestigious awards can provide a major boost to your career and require an integration of education and research activities different from more conventional research grant applications. Learn more about this program and how to put together a successful application through this discussion and inform...

Keynote Address | The Evolution of Culture and Technology Mini Symposium | Tel Aviv University    The simple fact of tool-making no longer provides a sharp dividing line between “Man the Tool-Maker” and the rest of the animal world. It is now clear that many other species make and use tools, and that distinctly human technology emerged through a long, multi-lineal, and meandering evolutionary proc...

Vernelle A. A. Noel | Architecture & Interactive Computing | Georgia Institute of Technology Craft practices and communities carry histories and cultures of people, knowledges, innovations, and social ties. Some reasons for their disappearance include dying practitioners, lacking pedagogy, changing practices, and technocentric developments. How might we employ computation in the restoration, remed...

Karen Adolph | Psychology and Neural Science | New York University  All behavior is movement—walking, talking, reaching, eating, looking, touching—all of it. Motor behavior is foundational for learning and doing in everyday life. Most important for functional movement is behavioral flexibility—the ability to tailor movements to local conditions. Where does flexible, functional behavior come from?...

Tobias Overath | Psychology and Neuroscience | Duke University Speech perception entails the transformation of the acoustic waveform that reaches our ears to linguistic representations (e.g., syntax, semantics) to enable communication. The nature of this acousto-linguistic transformation - how different acoustic properties of the speech signal are processed throughout the auditory system and then...

Andrew Buskell | Public Policy | Georgia Institute of Techonology The current consensus in cultural evolution is that cumulative cultural evolution (“CCE”) set hominins apart: capacities for CCE are distinctive to hominins and help explain their geographic spread and evolutionary success. CCE is an intuitive idea: cultural traits are modified upon over time as they are learned by others—and these...

Frans de Waal (Director of the Living Links Center and C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology, Emory University) sits down for a discussion with the CMBC former-Director, Lynne Nygaard (Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, Emory University) and Dietrich Stout (CMBC Director and Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Emory University) to discuss his research, career, and recent book,...

Kathryn Kadous, the Schaefer Chaired Professor of Accounting and Director and Associate Dean of PhD Program in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University talks with Lynne Nygaard, the recent past-director of the CMBC and current Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology at Emory, discuss her research into the judgement and decision-making issues in auditing and accounting and spotlights...

Robert Liu is the new Associate Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, a Professor of Biology and an Affiliate Scientist at the Emory National Primate Research Center. He is interviewed about his research in his Computational Neuroethology Lab by CMBC Director and Professor of Anthropology, Dietrich Stout. Bio Page Robert Liu Lab Website National Primate Research Center If you would...