Visiting speaker: Phil Wheater, Manchester Metropolitan University

Date and time: Friday, March 27, 4:00pm, room CG48.

Title: “50 Shades of Green: The benefits and challenges of managing urban greenspace"

Abstract:

Most urban dwellers look favourably on the greenspace that lies close to their homes or places of work, few realise the richness of the wildlife that can be supported by such environments. Nor do many of us understand the different benefits, pressures, opportunities and challenges that are involved in designing, maintaining and enhancing such spaces. This talk presents a wide ranging tour of the different types of space and considers conflicts and resolutions to these issues with reference to work carried out by researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University. The topics covered will include benefits (including on the public’s health and wellbeing) of urban habitats, urban ecology, problems in urban open spaces, and the management of urban wildlife and habitats.

Bio:

Phil Wheater is the Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering and a Pro-Vice Chancellor at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has been teaching, researching and writing about wildlife and urban ecology for over 30 years, including textbooks on urban habitats and invertebrate animals, reports on site management, and articles on human / environmental interactions. Phil has worked on many different aspects of urban management from wildlife ecology, through habitat management, to personal security and public health issues. He has worked with a wide range of organisations associated with urban habitats. These include metropolitan authorities (such as Manchester City Council and the Corporation of London), national organisations (including Natural England and the National Trust), and managers of a number of urban fringe areas including sites of special scientific interest and national nature reserves.

Website:

http://www.sste.mmu.ac.uk/staff/staffbiog/default.asp?StaffID=347

Thursday, March 19, 4:00pm. Two speakers in evolutionary psychology and neuroscience.

Visiting speaker: Karenleigh A. Overmann, University of Oxford

Date and time: Thursday, Mar 19, 4:00pm, Committee Room 3.

Title: “Numerosity, materiality, and numerical cognition"

Abstract:

Why is increasing cultural complexity associated with counting to higher numbers? It’s not just things to count and reasons to count them; materiality helps us think numerically, just as numbers change our behavior. This presentation reviews what numbers are as concepts and how they are acquired through the interaction of brains, bodies, and materiality (Malafouris’ Material Engagement Theory). The brain contributes the perceptual experience of quantity (numerosity), while the body interfaces brain and world through functions like finger gnosia, haptic perception, and neural reactions to tools. Material artifacts used for counting shape number concepts through their affordances, influence numerical system outcomes over various time spans, and act as the intermediate level between what a society knows and what any individual learns. Various counting technologies—Neolithic clay tokens, Upper Paleolithic tallies and hand stencils, and Middle Stone Age beads—are reinterpreted through Material Engagement Theory.

Bio:

Karenleigh A. Overmann is a Clarendon scholar at the University of Oxford, where she is working toward a DPhil in Archaeology. She lectures for the Center for Cognitive Archaeology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. She has an MA in psychology and a BA in anthropology, philosophy, and English from the University of Colorado. Her work has appeared in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Current Anthropology, Journal of Anthropological Sciences, Rock Art Research, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, Behavioral Sciences and the Law, Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, and several edited volumes.

Website:

https://oxford.academia.edu/KarenleighAOvermann

Visiting speaker:  Prof. Frederick L. Coolidge, University of Colorado - Colorado Springs

Date and time: Thursday, Mar 19, 5:00pm, Committee Room 3.

Title: “Evolutionary neuropsychology"

Abstract:

The present talk addresses the evolution of structures and functions of the human brain. Since the earliest origins of life, cellular evolution has been both a series of adaptations to the environment and subsequent exaptations. The latter involves the reuse, recycling, or redeployment of neurons for more complex higher cognitive functions, often in addition to their original purposes. The present lecture will address just some of the major exaptations of the human brain including the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes (including the hippocampus), the cerebellum, sleep and its stages, and the extension of the brain into its external environment (embodied cognition). The talk is based upon a forthcoming book, Evolutionary Neuropsychology, to be published by Elsevier in early 2016.

Bio:

Frederick L. Coolidge is a Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Archaeology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He received his PhD from the University of Florida and completed a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at Shands Teaching Hospital, Gainesville, Florida. He has received three USA Fulbright Fellowships to teach and conduct research in India. He has published six books, over 120 journal articles, and numerous book chapters on such wide-ranging topics as statistics, sleep and dreams, personality disorders, cognitive archaeology, and the evolution of modern cognition. He is currently a Senior Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, Keble College.

Websites:

http://www.uccs.edu/psych/people/faculty/fred-coolidge.html

https://www.cusys.edu/newsletter/2010/05-26/5q.html

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There will be an intermission between the talks. You may attend one or both talks.

All are welcome. No need to register. Just show up. If you have questions, please e-mail: Y.Russell@mdx.ac.uk.

Visiting speaker: Rocío García-Retamero, University of Granada, Spain

Date and time: Monday, Mar 9, 4:00pm, room C217.

Title: “Where are we going wrong? Evidence on communicating probabilistic information"

Abstract:

Over the past years, numerical skills have become increasingly necessary for navigating the modern health care environment. Unfortunately, many people struggle to grasp numerical concepts that are essential for understanding health-relevant information. In short, the general public lacks basic numeracy, which limits their risk literacythe ability to accurately interpret and make good decisions based on information about risk (see www.RiskLiteracy.org). In this talk, I will present a collection of studies investigating three research questions. This research involves more than 5000 participants from 60 countries and diverse walks of life (e.g., medical professionals, patients, general populations, web panels). First, I will present research investigating how helpful numbers are when communicating risks. This research converges to suggest that a significant proportion of the population has problems understanding even very simple numerical expressions of probability about health. Second, I will present research investigating whether numeracy predicts health outcomes. This research shows that compared to patients with high numeracy, patients with low numeracy showed higher prevalence of comorbidity. Of note, these conclusions hold after controlling for the effect of demographics and risk factors, suggesting that numeracy is uniquely related to important health outcomes. Finally, I will present the results of several interventions showing that well-designed visual aids (1) help individuals with low in numeracy make more accurate assessments of information about treatment risk reduction, and (2) help promote shared decision making and healthy behaviors. I conclude that appropriately designed visual aids can be highly effective, transparent, and ethically desirable tools for improving risk communication, limiting the influence of different levels of numeracy. Theoretical mechanisms, open questions, and emerging applications of this research will be discussed.

Bio:

Dr. María del Rocío García Retamero Imedio is Associate Professor in the Experimental Psychology Department, and Senior Member of the Learning, Emotion, and Decision Research Group at the University of Granada. She is also Associate Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and Affiliated Professor and Researcher at the Michigan Technological University. Dr. Garcia-Retamero is recipient of 10 major research awards, including the American Psychological Association’s 2012 Raymond S. Nickerson Best Paper Award and the prize of the University of Granada for the best paper in 2012 in Social and Behavioral Sciences for her work on risk communication. Dr. Garcia-Retamero is an expert in risk perception and the psychology of health decision making. She has published 100 papers on the topic in top-ranking journals in Medicine and Psychology. Dr. Garcia-Retamero has published 2 academic books. In “Transparent communication of health risks: Overcoming cultural differences” (2013), she shows that informed medical decision making heavily reinforced these days by the legal requirements for informed consent critically depends on communication of quantitative medical information. In her research, Dr. Garcia-Retamero has shown that in most cultures doctors and patients have severe problems grasping a host of numerical concepts that are prerequisites for understanding and communicating health-relevant risk information. She conducted a wide range of studies in more than 60 different countries, which converge to demonstrate that problems associated with risk illiteracy are not simply the result of cognitive biases preventing good decision making. Rather, errors occur because ineffective information formats complicate and mislead adaptive decision makers. Her studies document that information formats that exploit people’s inherent capacity to recognize relationships in naturally occurring problems (so-called transparent information formats) can dramatically enhance risk comprehension, communication, and recall and foster better decisions about health especially in patients with limited numeracy. Dr. Garcia-Retamero has worked extensively for several international companies in the design of decision aids to maximize risk understanding across diverse populations. She has also trained physicians and nurses in risk understanding and medical decision making in 11 countries.

Websites:

https://sites.google.com/site/ugrled/people/rocio-garcia-retamero-imedio

https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/staff/rocio-garcia-retamero-0

http://directorio.ugr.es/static/PersonalUGR/*/show/e056a5ed9918516a0883cbd066e03954