Hello.

January 31, 2007 in General Info

If you’re here, you’re probably either a current member of SOCS or somebody who happens to be interested in cognitive science. I’m Patrick Mundy, and Jeff Alstott and I are the SOCS co-presidents. You’ll be seeing posts from both of us, as well as from the SOCS webmaster, Jordan Thevenow-Harrison.

Jeff and I took the reins just last semester, so SOCS is still getting rolling. So far this year we’ve had professor dinners with Rob Goldstone, Doug Hofstadter, and Colin Allen, as well as several discussions on artificial intelligence, face recognition, and creativity. Last semester we hosted a Blade Runner movie night, and we were involved in the robotics lab open house (we have merged with the robotics club–if anyone is interested, e-mail me at pmundy@indiana.edu or Jeff at jalstott@indiana.edu). We have around ten undergraduate and graduate students working on a robot that will eventually (though with a lot of work) learn to play the saxophone, and there is certainly potential for independent projects and research for those interested.

We’re also looking to do a field trip or two and we will be hosting a mini-research symposium in the spring so that students doing research in cog sci, psychology, and other such fields can practice presenting their work. We also will be doing some social nights, with maybe a movie, bowling, or something similarly casual =).