[Apologies for cross-posting, please distribute widely!]
Dear colleague,
We are pleased to invite you to the eleventh edition of the Cognitive Science Arena (CSA), that will be held in Brixen on February 10-11, 2023. This year we'll also host a pre-conference methodology hands-on seminar organised by Psicostat that will take place in the afternoon of Thursday (i.e., February 9), right the day before the beginning of CSA.
Spirit and mood
The aim of the CSA is to set a conference where young scientists can disseminate their scientific contributions in a friendly and cooperative environment, and challenge the senior scientists in a fruitful debate. In particular, highly innovative research ideas as well as research-in-progress are encouraged. The idea of the CSA is to reverse the usual format of scientific conferences. Young researchers first: they play the starring role (no talks or posters from senior researchers are allowed), they compete for a prize for the best talk and poster voted by the audience. We would like to bring together young and promising minds now working in cognitive science and provide them with a fruitful and cooperative environment.
Topics include (but are not limited to) all areas (and surroundings) of cognitive science: developmental cognition and education, language, memory, perception, psychometrics, anthropology, economics and social sciences, neuroscience, clinical psychology, and animal cognition, just to mention a few.
*THIS YEAR SMART TALK*
This year Lisa DeBruine (University of Glasgow) will talk about multi lab studies and the Psychological Science Accelerator project: “Everything is cool when you're part of a team”. The talk is scheduled for Saturday afternoon, when the scientific session is over.
*NEW THIS YEAR*: BUY ONE GET ONE (ALMOST FOR) FREE!
CSA has always been a conference oriented to early career researchers. Last year we had the chance of an ESCOP funding that we used to organise a few hands-on, methodological seminars. Feedbacks were very positive and we would like to repeat the experience. Thursday 9 afternoon (i.e., right the day before the beginning of CSA) we will host a hands-on methodology seminar organised by Psicostat:
https://psicostat.dpss.psy.unipd.it/The title of the seminar will be “Evaluation of outliers and influential cases in univariate and multivariate perspective”. The instructors will be prof. Gianmarco Altoè and prof. Max Pastore. If you want to take part in the seminar, take your laptop with you! At the registration on the website, remember to flag the seminar option. The seminar can host max 30 participants and participation requires a fee of 10 euros (unfortunately this year we do not have ESCOP funding to cover the expenses).
The key-ideas of the CSA are the following:
[1] works by young scientists only (master students, PhD and post-doc students, and researchers with a fixed-term contract...);
[2] long time for each speaker: 15 minutes talk + 10 minutes discussion;
[3] "You will never talk alone" poster-session with dedicated time for each poster;
[4] "Short-talks for posters": poster presenters are also asked to prepare a three-minutes talk (with PowerPoint-like presentations) that summarizes and introduces the audience to the content of the poster;
[5] “One minute for you!” The last minute of the discussion, the discussion stops and the audience is asked to write down (either via paper or Padlet) one or more comments to the presenter.
[5a] "Verba volant, scripta manent" (aka, several anonymous reviewers):
attendees can write comments, criticisms and suggestions to the speaker via paper and pencil. Comments are delivered to the speaker at the end of the talk (or poster) session;
[5b] PADLET: we use padlet. Padlet
(
https://padlet.com/) is a virtual blackboard where you can write (anonymously or not: you decide!) questions, comments, criticisms, hurray, etc. while the speaker is giving his/her talk;
[6] In progress and high-risk research are welcome!
[7] New and fresh! Submitted abstracts can span from simple ideas to “in press”. Works with a DOI cannot be accepted (unless the DOI was assigned in the time window spanning from abstract submission to the dates of the conference).
Type of contribution: talk and poster
CSA is accepting two types of contributions: talks and posters. Talks consist of a 15 minute-presentation, followed by a 10-minute discussion. The poster session is divided in two moments. On the first day of the conference (Friday), poster presenters are asked to give a three minutes talk that introduces the audience to the content of the talk. The following day (Saturday) takes place the “You will never talk alone poster session” with regular posters and dedicated time and discussion for each poster presented in day one. A note for participants: this type of poster session (i.e., short talk plus regular poster) is strongly recommended for in progress or research ideas (i.e., research that has no data yet).
Abstracts submission and selection
Participants must submit an abstract through the conference website (please, specify "talk" or "poster" when submitting). First, abstracts are screened (i.e., in/out) for basic scientific soundness, then they will be selected on the basis of the principle "first come first served" until slots for talks and posters will be available. In case the number of submissions exceeds the availability, the scientific committee will operate a selection among the received contributions according to the following criteria: (i) limit the overrepresentation of one (or more) research group/institution (ii) increase diversity in the research topics. In addition, the scientific committee may change the type of submission (e.g., from talk to a poster) in the case the research submitted is more suitable for the other format. This is often suggested for studies with no data yet that we think are more suitable for the poster format. Authors are also asked to declare that the submitted work is not published yet at the moment of submission. In particular, the author is asked to declare that the submitted work has not yet a digital object identifier (DOI) provided by the publisher when the papers become available in the literature.*Abstract can be submitted starting from the 05/12/2022 12:00 to the 06/01/2023 12:00 (i.e., noon) CET*. The authors of the selected abstracts will be email-notified within one week after submission deadline, and will be asked to confirm their participation by replying to our email (those who will not reply on time will be excluded from the final program).
Registration fees
- 20 euros*** registration fee for participants presenting talks or posters. The fee has to be paid as soon as the participant is informed about the selection of his/her contribution. This fee is a deposit and a commitment to participate at CSA. Note: the fee is not returned if the participant withdraws the contribution.
- 60 euro*** is asked to tenured researchers;
- no fee for students, doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers that attend the conference without presenting any contribution.
- 10 euro*** for the methodology seminar by Psicostat that is held in the afternoon the day before the conference. Participants can be presenters of talks and posters but also attendees. Participants cannot be on a tenure track. The seminar accepts max 30 participants. Note: the fee is not returned if the participant withdraws the participation. In the case requests for participation will exceed the max availability, a waiting list will be created. Participants will be selected on the “first come, first served” basis. The admitted participants will be notified through email. The seminar will take place only with a minimum of 5 participants.
***Fees will be used to partly (or fully) cover the expenses of the conference (lunches at the canteen, coffee breaks and “Cheers, cheese & wine” buffet, to pay the staff to keep open the building till late in the evening of Saturday).
“Valiant" and "Painter" awards 2023
During the conference, the audience will vote for the best CSA talk and poster. At the end of the conference, the best speaker and the best poster presenter will receive a certificate and a monetary award.
Language
The official language of CSA is English.
Social events
CSA includes two worldwide famous social events: the “Friday night sleigh ride” (not included in the registration fee) and the “Cheers, cheese & wine" buffet (included in the registration fee). The sleigh ride is usually held the first evening of the meeting (i.e., Friday): be prepared! Contact
massimo.grassi@xxxxxxxx for further information. The "Cheers, cheese & wine" buffet is held Saturday, at the end of the conference.
Suggested (i.e., cheapest) accommodations
- Youth hostel:
http://brixen.jugendherberge.it/- Cusanus Academie:
https://www.cusanus.bz.it/de/information/index.aspHow to get to CSA:
The closest airports are Innsbruck (INN) and Verona (VRN). The city of Brixen-Bressanone is along the railway line connecting the two cities (see maps here:
https://cogsci.unibz.it/cityinfo.html)
Conference website
More information, abstract submission and registration forms can be found here:
https://cogsci.unibz.itContacts & info:
cog.sci.arena@xxxxxxxxxFacebook: Cognitive Science Arena
The organizing/scientific committee:
Demis Basso (Free University of Bolzano):
demis.basso@xxxxxxxxChiara Begliomini (University of Padova):
chiara.begliomini@xxxxxxxxMilvia Cottini (Free University of Bolzano):
milvia.cottini@xxxxxxxxLisa DeBruine (University of Glasgow):
Lisa.Debruine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxMassimo Grassi (University of Padova):
massimo.grassi@xxxxxxxxGiovanni Mento (University of Padova):
giovanni.mento@xxxxxxxxSupporting institutions:
- Faculty of Education, Free University of Bolzano
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova
- Associazione Italiana di Psicologia
- IMG Network APS
See you in Brixen!
The CSA team