The Cold Control Theory of Hypnosis

Zoltan Dienes
University of Sussex

Hypnotic responding occurs when a person creates an altered sense of volition or reality in accordance with situational demands -  for example, creating an experience of one's arms moving by themselves, or of an object being there when it is not. According to Dienes and Perner (2007), hypnotic responding occurs when one intends to perform a motor or cognitive action while thinking one is not intending, it is executive control without accurate higher order thoughts (HOTs), thus "cold control".  Cold control locates all the action in hypnosis at the meta-cognitive level. It is a form of strategic self deception. I consider some general evidence and then especially two lines of evidence for this claim we have been pursuing the past few years. First, Rebecca Semmens-Wheeler has shown contrasts between hypnotisability and meditation, results cold control theory expects given that mindfulness meditation is an attempt to increase accurate higher order thoughts. Second, with Ben Parris, we have been exploring the one replicable lab effect that challenges cold control theory, the finding that when one suggests to highly hypnotisable subjects that they cannot read words the Stroop effect is dramatically reduced. This effect prima facie seems to involve more than self deception. I report a series of experiments which culminate with cold control theory being put on the chopping block, its neck exposed.

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Art Science Collaborations - visualisation, appropriation and beyond

Paul Brown
University of Sussex

There are three broad and often overlapping categories of collaborations between the arts and sciences.  In the first scientists employ artists and designers to improve the quality of their publications and visualisations.  In the second artists use scientific ideas in their artworks.  The third category is a full collaboration where each participant is simultaneously both a stakeholder and beneficiary of the research/project.  This presentation will include examples of all three categories and discuss the opportunities and pitfalls of this kind of interdisciplinary collaboration.

On Acid-Drops and Teardrops: The Humanity Gap in Computational Creativity

Simon Colton
Imperial College, London

I will argue that computer-generated artefacts such as poems and paintings need to be acknowledged as fundamentally different to those produced by people. This will lead into a discussion of how we can fill the humanity gap in Computational Creativity, to increase the cultural value of the artefacts our software produces.

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Connectionist models in infancy research

Caspar Addyman
Birkbeck, University of London 

This is a talk in two unrelated parts serving to illustrate how connectionist models can be used to explain cognitive processes in infancy. In part 1, I describe a new model of statistical learning that we recently published (French, Addyman and Mareschal, Psych Rev, 2011) The TRACX model provides a single explanatory frameworks for a wide range of data in the infant statistical learning and adult implicit learning literature. The model also scales to model speech segementation based on real world corpora of infant directed speech. 

In part 2, I describe the first developmental model of interval timing (Addyman et al, Proceedings of CogSci 2011). It is a memory-based connectionist model of how infants learn to perceive time. It has two novel features that are not found in other  models. First, it uses the uncertainty of a memory for an event as an index of how long ago that event happened. Secondly, embodiment – specifically, infant motor activity – is crucial to the calibration of time-perception both within and across sensory modalities.

Simultaneous Type/ Serial Token model of temporal attention, working memory and conscious perception

Howard Bowman
University of Kent at Canterbury

The Simultaneous Type/ Serial Token (STST) model was developed as a theory of how attention is deployed through time and how working memory representations are formed. I will discuss our recent work on relating the STST model to theories of conscious perception. This will consider an STST explanation of why conscious perception becomes more all-or-none during the attentional blink.

The Moral Enhancement Debate

Blay Whitby
University of Sussex

There’s a school of thought which insists that while we humans have become much cleverer, we have not become any better behaved than our stone age ancestors. Prominent thinkers in transhumanism are now actively campaigning for research into technologies of 'moral enhancement'.  

The main argument for this campaign is that technologies that will further improve our intellectual capabilities are now in prospect, so it is essential to balance this by finding technologies that will make us morally better. This might include such means as genetic selection, genetic modification, adding drugs to the water supply, or compulsorily modifying people’s brains.

After very briefly considering the ethics and politics of this argument, I'll explore some of the scientific possibilities. Chemical correction, brain modification, and genetic selection of humans have already been tried – with interesting and varied results, few of which could honestly be described as 'moral enhancement'. Finally I’ll try to answer the question of whether the very idea even makes sense.

Self and Non-self in Biology and Buddhist Psychology

Jonardon Ganeri
University of Sussex

Is there a stable distinction between self and non self? And can the idea of a person survive the collapse of that distinction? I will explore these questions drawing on ideas in early Buddhist theory of mind, the work of Harry Frankfurt, and contemporary discussion of biological identity.

Information and Neural Dynamics in the Perception of Musical Structure

Marcus Pearce
Queen Mary, University of London

Musical expectation and uncertainty reflect probabilistic prediction based on implicit statistical learning and impact on the emotional experience of music: evidence from computational, behavioural and neuroscientific studies.

Brighton Salon - Electronic and Organic Memory and Being Human in the 21^st Century

Robert Clowes
New University of Lisbon

The idea that Memory defines who and what we are is an old one in philosophy going back at least to John Locke where he argued that it is memory that guarantees the continuity of consciousness and hence personal identity. Some think that the particular way that human memory works does not just establish and guarantee our identity over time, but also our arguably unique human status: It is our unique memory profile, the way we both remember and forget, that in large part makes us human. 

It may then come as a surprise that psychologists, philosophers and other interested parties do not really agree what memory is. Nevertheless it’s interesting to consider that our natural (organic?) memory has undergone profound changes, at least since the discovery of writing, and moreover that new waves of digital media may be changing the way that memory, and our minds, work again.

To look at this another way, what happens to human (organic) memory as it encounters and appropriates new technologies such as Google search, or the megapixel digital camera (electronic or E-Memory technologies) in waves of technological change? In particular, I want to consider how E-Memory devices that we now own and rely on interact with our organic systems. Does the computing cloud, tablet devices and embedded intelligence really change the way we think, and in particular, remember? Might this also then change the sorts of beings we are? 

I’ll consider four factors of E-Memory tech that might be said to be signal of the new technologies :

• Capaciousness & Comprehensiveness:  E-Memory promises to record our everyday activities on a scale and with a fidelity and completeness that would have been practicably unimaginable under previous regimes of mem-tech.
• Incorporability:  E-Memory technologies potentially possess a transparency in use that makes them competitors (or complements) with certain of our internal resources. They are thus poised for deep, pervasive and possibly integration with Organic-Memory systems.
• Autonomy: E-Memory repositories increasingly do not merely store data but actively process it. Thanks to tagging, indexing and AI systems we can expect E-Memory systems to not merely store and re-present information, but restructure it in a way that complements our native cognitive profile.
• Entanglement:  E-Memory often tracks interactions between people (or people and organisations). The form of the data that composes many E-Memory stores is inherently relational.

What are the implications of these factors for our memories and the sorts of minds we have? Conversely these same factors influence the way in which our minds are arguably becoming ever more open to outside agencies, from governments to companies like Google and Amazon. What implications does this new transparency of human thought play in the development of our common humanity?

Action preparation; preparation for motor output and preparation for sensory processing

Nobuhiro Hagura
University College London

About two independent preparation process of "what" and "when" for action generation. Furthermore, I wil talk about impact of action preparation on visual temporal processing, which leads to a change in perception of time.

Staging Subjectivity: Virtual Environments and Conscious Presence

Kate Genevieve
University of Sussex

Kate Genevieve will talk about her research as artist-in-residence at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science investigating the Centre’s research into conscious presence and interoceptive awareness.  She will show two projects that use immersive visual technologies together with multi-sensory techniques to engage and manipulate the bodily experience of the audience member.