Coalitions

Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences

Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS)

“FABBS is a coalition of scientific societies that share an interest in advancing the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior. We communicate the importance and contributions of basic and applied research in these areas to policy makers and the public.”

FABBS represents the interests of its scientific societies by:

Educating federal representatives and Congress about the importance of research in the
sciences of mind, brain, and behavior
Advocating for legislation and policy that enhance training and research
Providing sources of expertise and knowledge to federal agencies, Congress, and the media
Encouraging the sound use of science in the creation of public policy
Fostering effective interaction between agencies and organizations that fund research and the
community of scientists and scientific societies
Facilitating information exchange among constituent societies as well as other scientific organizations

Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (PIBBS)

https://journals.sagepub.com/home/bbs

Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (PIBBS) use the FABBS journal, published by Sage, which presents research and scientific reviews relevant to public policy. The articles allow scientists to share research that can help build sound policies, allow policymakers to provide feedback to the scientific community regarding research that could address societal challenges, and encourage the scientific community to build models that seriously consider implementation to address the needs of society.

Neil Cohn

winner of the 2019 FABBS Early Career Impact Award

The Cognitive Science Society is pleased to announce that Neil Cohen has been awarded the 2019 FABBS Early Career Impact Award. This award is presented to early career scientists of FABBS member societies and recognizes scientists who have made major contributions to the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior. Neil Cohn has developed a detailed and original theory for a new domain of cognitive science research (including cross-cultural investigation); mounted an extensive experimental program testing the theory; made meaningful connections to other domains such as linguistic theory, psychology, and experimental work on verbal narrative – an exceptional record for a researcher only seven years out of graduate school.

Neil Cohn investigates how readers conceptualize drawings, and how they unify a sequence of individual wordless cartoon panels (comics and other sequential images) into narrative. A gifted cartoonist himself, Cohn approaches these questions through as a true cognitive scientist. He explores numerous aspects of narrative structure and their contribution to the reader’s understanding, many of which have parallels to verbal and film narrative. Comics make use of conventionalized symbolic devices such as thought bubbles, speed lines (representing motion), and light bulbs above a character’s head. Moreover, many of the connections between panels must be inferred by the reader. Cohn compares the construction of panels in Japanese and American comics, as well as the semiotics of Australian aboriginal sand paintings, which convey information quite differently from more familiar visual depictions. Cohn’s experimental work tests the psychological validity of his theoretical constructs. His techniques include subjects creating a narrative from individual panels, subjects’ timing in recognizing a probe panel, timing in self-paced reading, eye-tracking, ERPs, and more. The experimental results in large part parallel comparable results with language, suggesting that Cohn’s theoretical analysis reveals genuine structure in readers’ comprehension of sequential images.

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The Cognitive Science Society is pleased to announce the establishment of the CogSci Grove which aims to mobilise cognitive scientists to offset carbon emissions associated with their professional activities.

society secretariat