Cognitive Science Students: NOWCAM Post 6

A full day of talks and its time to go home. Everything here has been great. The UW campus is a very picturesque place to have a conference, the food served was a treat and above all the talks left us all with something to think about. Next year NOWCAM will be held at the University of Victoria and there was already talk of who was going to be taking the ferry to make the trip. See you next year at UVIC!

Cognitive Science Students: NOWCAM Post 5

Today is going to be quite a busy day. We have talks in the morning, poster sessions at lunch and then more talks in the afternoon. None of us are presenting today, so we'll be able to fully absorb all the talks.

Cognitive Science Students: NOWCAM Post 4

The rest of the day went very well. Marcus and I both presented in the second last session of the day. Lots of good questions came up, some even made comments about aspects of the experiment design we hadn't even thought of. Following the final session of the day, Deirdre Gentner gave a talk about analogies and problem solving that was very interesting. Dinner was served in what used to be the faculty club. It was a gourmet seafood feast and was made possible due to the generosity of a private donor.

The plan for the rest of the evening is to repose and possible play some pool in the residence lobby. Without a doubt, today was a success. All of us were satisfied with how our presentations went, and were glad to have seen so many interesting talks.

Cognitive Science Students: NOWCAM Post 3

Mike's presentation went smashingly. His paper was titled: Space aliens and eye-trackers: A study of selective attention and memory for category exemplars. To be sure, he had the most exotic name of any paper that was presented. His talk lasted about 12 minutes and there was about 5 minutes of questions. Nothing too challenging came up, but judging by the questions there was lots of interest in what was being presented. It was great to hear some questions that were directly related to the talks that Marcus and I are giving later in the day.

Lunch is just about to be served, and my understanding is that the poster session will occur at the same time. Marcus and I will give our talks in the afternoon, and I'll let you know how those go later this evening.

Cheers!

Cognitive Science Students: NOWCAM Post 2

Just got back from the reception. We met lots of interesting people, had a few pints and were able talk to other conference attendees about our papers in a pretty informal atmosphere. The reception was held in a local pub that had some charm. The only downside was that American laws are pretty strict and one of our group who wasn't quite 21 couldn't join in. No bother though, he told us that he brought an ethernet cable which meant he was able to rock out and have some virtual pints. There was even some talk of setting up a webcam if it happens again.

Time to shut the lights off and get some rest. Mike is going to be our first presenter. He'll be presenting at 10:00 right after the keynote speaker. G'nite from UW.

Cognitive Science Students: NOWCAM Post 1

We just arrived at the University of Washington campus in early evening. I haven't seen much of it yet, but from what I have seen it seems very picturesque. Most of buildings have a very antique European style although many of them have clearly been built in the last half century.

We drove straight to our residence which during the regular academic year houses students but in the summer is host to conference attendees. The room that I have been assigned has an amazing view of Union Bay. What's even better is the whole asthestic of the room is giving me a taste of the first year dorm experience that I never had.

Momentarily, our troop will depart for the reception at a local pub. Should be fun!

Cognitive Science Students: NOWCAM Post 0

Members of the Cognitive Science lab are leaving for the NOWCAM 2008 conference today (NorthWest Cognition and Memory). Attendees from the lab include, Dr. Mark Blair, Cognitive Science Undergraduate students Kim Meier (Minor) and Calen Walshe (Honours), and grad students Mike Wood and Marcus Watson.

Out of this group three will be giving talks and the other three will be providing support for their fellow lab members. Marcus, Mike and Calen's presentations will focus on experimental research that used an eye-tracker to measure human performance on categorization tasks.

The Inside Report asked the team to be our insiders at this event. First stop in town? "We will be attending a no-host reception this evening and then getting rested up for the talks in the morning." Thanks Calen and Kim. More to come soon from Seattle.