CFP: The Promise of Predictive Processing: A Critical Evaluation of its Prospects

Submission deadline: February 25, 2018

Conference date(s):
April 6, 2018 - April 8, 2018

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Conference Venue:

Center for Cognitive Studies , Tufts University
Medford, United States

Topic areas

Details

Conference Motivation & Objectives

The substantive goal of the conference is to advance development and assessment of the Predictive Processing (PP) approach to understanding the mind, through bringing together expert philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists. The PP approach currently enjoys significant scientific interest as well as philosophical enthusiasm (see Chater & Oaksford 2008; Hohwy 2014; Clark 2015). Its most prominent proponents envision explanatory unification concerning the mind. Important philosophical problems have been tackled with its tools. But there are rivals and lacunae that demand more attention. So far, PP has primarily been applied to perception, attention, and motor control. If it is to obtain the promised breadth of explanatory power other aspects of the mind must also be addressed.

We are interested in investigating the relationship between predictive processing (PP) and reinforcement learning (RL) as one of the workshop’s main themes. Can the two approaches (PP &RL) be reconciled?  It is sometimes argued that PP accounts for core features of RL. But this claim is not without controversy. Top-down processing and prediction error minimization are central features of both research programs. But the theories employ different computational strategies and different categories for explaining those features. For example, Bayesian inference is emphasized in PP accounts but not in RL accounts, while valuation is emphasized in RL accounts but not in PP accounts. Given all this, is RL a competitor, a complement, or a potential partner to PP?

The explanatory promise of PP has also invigorated the philosophical project of naturalizing the mind. That project depends on the possibility of a naturalistic account of intentionality, or representational content. None of a variety of well known naturalizing proposals currently commands consensus. But the issue of whether or how PP contributes to the naturalization of content has been largely neglected thus far, and is only beginning to be broached. This is another major issue we aim to cast a spotlight on via the proposed conference.  

Call for abstracts for poster presentations 

We invite abstracts for poster presentations on the topic of the conference. The posters will be put up at the conference venue and there will be a two-hour poster session where authors will have the opportunity to present their work. We especially encourage submissions from undergraduate students, PhD students and other early career researchers.

Submission guidelines

·       The deadline for the receipt of abstracts is February 25, 2018. Authors will be notified of   acceptance by March 4, 2018

·       Abstracts should be no longer than 700 words and prepared for blind review

·       If applicable, please identify the abstracts as “Undergraduate author(s)” or “Graduate author(s)”

·       Please send your abstracts to [email protected]

Sponsorship

The event is sponsored by the following at Tufts University: Center for Cognitive Studies, Philosophy Department, Psychology Department, Toupin Bolwell Fund, Arts & Sciences Dean's Office and by Rhodes College

Supporting material

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