Social cognition refers to the behaviours and thought processes which individuals use to interact with others. The study of social cognition encompasses anthropology, linguistics, social neuroscience, and many branches of psychology (e.g. comparative, developmental, social, cognitive and clinical psychology). At present, however, few opportunities exist for researchers across these disciplines to meet and discuss their work.
The aim of this workshop is therefore to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to social cognition. We hope to promote conversations between anthropologists, comparative psychologists, developmental psychologists, social neuroscientists, and psychologists working in clinical and applied domains, with the aim to give attendees a chance to reflect on how their work relates to other academic and applied disciplines.
There are three themes to the workshop, drawing discussants from a wide range of disciplines: “origins”, relating to anthropological, comparative and developmental research; “mechanisms”, covering experimental psychology and social neuroscience; and “disorders”, encompassing both developmental and acquired social cognitive difficulties.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Professor Marcel Brass, Professor of Psychology, Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University
Professor Josep Call, Director of the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
Professor Cecilia Heyes, Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical Life Sciences, All Souls College, University of Oxford
Professor Sue Leekam, Chair in Autism at Cardiff University and Director of the Wales Autism Research Centre
POST EVENT PUBLICATION
Theme issue on social cognition "Understanding self and others from origins to disorders"
Published by Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in January 2016.
