The Prospective Brain: May 27-28, 2009
In recent years there has been a surge of experimental and theoretical work in neuroscience and psychology concerning how the brain imagines, plans, and predicts future events. This research is providing new insights into a variety of topics, including the relation between remembering the past and imagining the future, reward processing, planning, economic decision making, predictions and affective forecasting, and mental time travel in humans and other animals. Our conference on The Prospective Brain brings together leading researchers in a variety of fields to discuss key issues and findings in this emerging area.
The event will take place at the Norton Woods Conference Center at The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy is located at 136 Irving Street in Cambridge. Click here for directions.
Registration is now closed for this event
and space is no longer available on the waiting list.
The conference is open to registered guests only!
Thank you for your understanding!
SCHEDULE FOR WEDNESDAY, MAY 27
8-8:30 a.m.
Continental Breakfast |
General Introduction
8:30-9
Daniel Schacter
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
The prospective brain |
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Prospection and the Brain
9-9:30
Marcus Raichle
Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering, Washington University
The brain's default mode: An evolving concept
9:30-10
Randy Buckner
Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
Self-projection and the brain
10-10:30
Moshe Bar
Associate Professor in Radiology, Harvard Medical School
The proactive brain: Analogies, memory and inhibition in the service of predictions |
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Break |
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Simulation, Imagination, and Memory
11-11:30
Donna Rose Addis
Lecturer in Psychology, University of Auckland
Constructive episodic simulation of past and future events
11:30-12 p.m.
Kathleen McDermott
Associate Professor of Psychology and Radiology, Washington University
Episodic future thought and its relation to remembering
12-12:30
Eleanor Maguire
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London
Is scene construction the 'how' of prospection? |
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Lunch |
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Functional, Emotional and Social Aspects of Simulation
2-2:30
Shelley Taylor
Distinguished Professor of Psychology, UCLA
Envisioning the future and self-regulation
2:30-3
Arnaud D'Argembeau
Professor of Cognitive Psychopathology, University of Liege
Self-referential processing in future thinking
3-3:30
Yaacov Trope
Professor of Psychology, NYU
Mental construal and psychological distance
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Break |
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Neurophysiological Perspectives
4-4:30
Matthew Wilson
Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience and Picower Scholar
& Associate Head for Education, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT
Prospective coding in the hippocampus
4:30-5
John Lisman
Professor of Biology, Brandeis University
Hippocampus and predictions
5-5:30
Howard Eichenbaum
University Professor and Director, Center for Brain and Memory, Boston University
Relational processing and past-future events |
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Reception |
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SCHEDULE FOR THURSDAY, MAY 28
8-8:30 a.m.
Continental Breakfast |
Planning, Frontal Lobes, and Development
8:30-9
Robert Knight
Evan Rauch Professor of Neuroscience
& Director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Center, University of California-Berkeley
Time, planning, and the frontal lobe
9-9:30
Paul Burgess
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London
Prospective memory and the frontal lobes
9:30-10
Cristina Atance
Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Ottawa
The development of episodic future thinking |
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Break |
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Choices and Temporal Discounting
10:30-11
David Laibson
Harvard College Professor
& Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Neuroeconomics and hyperbolic discounting
11-11:30
Marc Hauser
Harvard College Professor
& Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
Back to the future: The timing of monkey economics
11:30-12 p.m.
George Loewenstein
Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University
Intertemporal choice |
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Lunch |
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Hedonic Forecasts and Reward
1:30-2
Brian Knutson
Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Stanford University
Neural basis of reward prediction
2-2:30
Antoine Bechara
Professor of Psychology, University of Southern California
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex: A neurological approach to understanding decision making
2:30-3
Daniel Gilbert
Harvard College Professor
& Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
Timothy Wilson
Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia
Affective forecasting
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Break |
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Mental Time Travel
3:30-4
Thomas Suddendorf
Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Queensland
Mental time travel
4-4:30
Nicki Clayton
Professor of Comparative Cognition, Cambridge University
Planning in scrub jays
4:30-5
Endel Tulving
Tanenbaum Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience, Rotman Research Institute
& University Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto
The medium and the message of time travel |
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5-5:30
Final Discussion |
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