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<div align="center"><font size=4><b>The UCSD Department of Cognitive
Science is pleased to announce a talk in their Distinguished Speaker
Series<br><br>
</font><font size=5>Dr. Michael Spivey<br>
UC Merced, Cognitive Science Program<br><br>
</font><font size=4>Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 4:30pm<br>
Cognitive Science Building, room 003<br><br>
<br>
</font><font size=5>"On the Continuity of Mind"<br><br>
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<font size=4>Abstract:<br>
Rather than a sequence of logical operations performed on discrete
symbols, real-time cognition is better described as continuously changing
patterns of neuronal activity. The continuity in these dynamics
indicates that, in between describable states of mind, much of our mental
activity does not lend itself to the linguistic labels relied on by much
of classical cognitive science. I will discuss eye-tracking and
reach-tracking evidence for this temporal continuity in speech
perception, spoken word recognition, categorization, and even
decision-making. I will also provide geometric visualizations of mental
activity depicted as a continuous trajectory through a neuronal state
space. In this theoretical framework, close visitations of labeled
attractors may constitute word recognition events and object recognition
events, but the majority of the mental trajectory traverses unlabeled
regions of state space, resulting in multifarious mixtures of mental
states.<br>
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