Workshops
The workshops will be held from 2:00pm to 4:00pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Two workshops will take place at the same time on each of those days.
Workshop 1: Aaron Peikert
Tuesday, August 30 and Wednesday, August 31
Reproducible Research in R: A workshop on how to do the same thing more than once
Many researchers want to work reproducibly, but it is not easy. Considerable time is needed to acquire the skills required for reproducible research, and the path is lined with pitfalls. This workshop gets researchers up to speed on how to create reproducible data analyses in R (and beyond). Specifically, researchers learn to automate the whole process from raw data to publishable manuscripts. This automation is possible by combining dynamic document generation (via R Markdown), version control (via Git), workflow orchestration (via Make) and software management (via Docker). These tools and, therefore, automatic reproduction of results are available on any machine with Docker installed. The resulting workflow is, hence, highly transferable across machines and time. These core properties of reproducibility are demonstrated for any reader by automatically reproducing the manuscript online.
*Note: The workshop teaches the practical side of theoretical concepts put forward in the talk with the same title.
Workshop 2: Matthew Nour and Yunzhe Liu
Tuesday, August 30 and Thursday, September 1
Neural replay and cognitive maps: From cognitive neuroscience to computational psychiatry
An ability to build mental maps of the world underpins our capacity to infer relationships that go beyond direct experience, in both adaptive and maladaptive contexts. Neural representations of this sort (‘cognitive maps’) are supported by sequential memory reactivations in hippocampus during off-task rest periods, known as ‘replay’. Methodological advances in multivariate neural decoding now permit detection of replay in humans, using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
In this session we will first present a technical overview of current approaches to investigating the dynamics of neural state reactivations. We will contrast this with complementary approaches to probing representational content (e.g., Representational Similarity Analyses). We will then show how these analytic approaches shed light on the neural basis of relational inference, memory, and decision making in humans, and present evidence implicating such processes in psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia.
Workshop 3: Markus Werkle-Bergner and Zoe Ngo
Wednesday, August 31 and Thursday, September 1
Memory specificity and generalisation in children: Challenges and promises of designing age-appropriate tasks
We depend on memory to access the specific experiences of our past and amass generalisable knowledge that guides predictions for possible future events. These complementary, but seemingly opposing, memory needs rely on a set (or sets) of processes, each of which undergoes a protracted development across childhood.
Charting the multifactorial development of memory hinges on an appropriate instrumentation of the methodological toolkit, tailored to the ages of interest. Developmental psychologists have worked tirelessly on advancing methods to measure children’s early memory competence. In this workshop, we will discuss a variety of experimental design tactics that are part and parcel of memory development research. Our main goal is to facilitate a productive discussion on the common challenges met by this research area, and the solutions garnered from the field in mitigating these challenges.