CCD

You are here:

• CCD »
• Events »
• Conferences »
• 2011 »
• CNCN2011

6th Australian Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuropsychiatry Research Forum

24-25 August 2011, Macquarie University

Overview

Since the inaugural Australian Conference for Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuropsychiatry held at Deakin University in 2001, Lyndsey Nickels, Marina Haywood and Robyn Langdon have promoted this research forum, convening an event roughly every second year.

The 2011 research forum is being hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders at Macquarie University and is being organised with the assistance of a team of young post-graduate and post-doctoral researchers.

The theme of the Forum is to promote Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. That is, to promote research which uses data from cognitive disorders to develop and test cognitive models of normal and abnormal function in order to, in turn, better understand and treat those disorders.

The Forum provides an opportunity for researchers from different disciplines, including neuropsychology, psychiatry, linguistics, psychology, philosophy and speech pathology, to present research that relates neuropsychological or psychiatric impairment to theories of cognitive function.

It is the sixth such event, continuing the informal atmosphere and interactive nature of previous Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuropsychiatry Forums. We particularly encourage student presentations.

Registration is now closed

The final program is now available (updated August 16.)

Venue

The Palermo Room (C5C 498) – the top floor of C5C (enter via the stairwell at corner of C5C nearest C8A), at Macquarie University, Sydney NSW, Australia.

Macquarie University Campus Map (Click for printable version)

Conference Dinner

The conference dinner will be held at Nilgiri's Indian Restaurant, 81-83 Christie St, St Leonards at 7pm on Wednesday 24th August. This will be a banquet meal. The cost of the conference dinner will be $30. Payment for the dinner will be collected at registration.

Keynote Speakers

Highlights will include Keynote Speakers with international expertise in language, cognitive neuropsychiatry and "theory of mind", including Dr Ian Apperly, Professor Naama Friedmann, Dr Ryan McKay and Professor Anne Castles.

Dr Ian Apperly is Reader in Psychology, Birmingham University, UK. Dr Apperly investigates the cognitive basis of "theory of mind" (the ability to think about the mental perspectives of others), using approaches from neuropsychology and cognitive psychology. His innovative research has led to: 1) new methods that allow theory of mind to be studied in adults, who typically pass standard tests of theory of mind; and 2) the first cognitive models to distinguish between different component processes involved in theory of mind.

Professor Naama Friedmann conducts research on the neuropsychology of language and reading. Her main focus in recent years has been acquired and developmental syntactic impairments (agrammatism and SLI), on acquired and developmental types of dyslexia and dysgraphia and their implications for the cognitive model of reading and spelling, on different types of anomia, as well as on the nutritional bases of language impairment, critical periods for language development, brain imaging as a tool to decide between linguistic theories, and the relation between syntax and reading. Professor Friedmann is the head of the language and brain lab and the Adler lab from child development, and an associate Editor in Cortex, in Language and Brain, and in Applied Psycholinguistics.

Dr Ryan McKay is Lecturer in Psychology, Royal Holloway at the University of London, UK. Dr McKay combines the methods of cognitive neuropsychiatry and behavioural economics to explore the cognitive deficits and social preferences associated with unjustified beliefs, for example the delusional beliefs found in an array of psychiatric and neurological conditions. Dr McKay has recently collaborated with Daniel Dennett, Ernst Fehr and Harvey Whitehouse and will be presenting research on delusions, religion and prosocial behaviour.

Professor Anne Castles is a Research Professor at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders at Macquarie University (CCD). She completed her PhD at Macquarie University in 1993 and was a teaching and research academic in the Psychology Department at the University of Melbourne from 1994-2006. She has a particular interest in the cognitive neuropsychology of developmental reading disorders, and in the causes of different types of developmental dyslexia, including genetic, perceptual and language factors. She is also interested in the process of normal reading development and in particular in the mechanism by which lexical reading skills are acquired by children learning to read. She serves on the Editorial Boards of Cognitive Neuropsychology, Scientific Studies of Reading and the Public Library of Science (PLoS-ONE).

Call for Abstracts

Abstract submissions are now closed.

Topics of Interest Include

• Disorders of language comprehension and production
• Semantic memory and category-specific disorders
• Reading: developmental and acquired dyslexia
• Writing: developmental and acquired dysgraphia
• Memory
• Object and face recognition
• Theory of mind
• Delusions and belief formation
• Hallucinations
• Other psychiatric symptoms
• Social and emotional processing
• Remediation

Further Details

• The schedule for this year's conference will be advised by the end of July.
• Facilities will be available for Windows (Powerpoint) and Mac presentations (Powerpoint and Keynote).
• Accommodation options and Transport

The conference is convened by:

• Associate Professor Robyn Langdon
• Professor Lyndsey Nickels
• Mr Vince Polito
• Mr Michael Connors
• Dr Rochelle Cox
• Dr Saskia Kohnen
• Dr Britta Biedermann
• Dr Kati Renvall
• Ms Nora Fieder

For further information, contact

cncn2011@mq.edu.au