UCLA Communication

[Marschak Colloquium] Science as social learning: Computational, mathematical, and experimental investigations
2015-05-28 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences at UCLA

BEC Speaker Series: Jacob Foster "The Unknown Known: Science, Social Learning, and Cultural Evolution"
2015-05-18 12:00 - 13:30
Jacob FosterUCLA, Department of Sociology “The Unknown Known: Science, Social Learning, and Cultural Evolution” “Science is an incredibly successful instance of social learning. Its practices produce and subtly organize the attention, effort, and creativity of millions of scientists, leading to rapid and cumulative cultural evolution. In this talk, I outline the striking convergence between this view of science and the one developed in science studies. Using data from millions of scientific papers, I illustrate how scientists use social cues to select research problems and how these heuristics lead to more (and less) efficient discovery. I then argue that formal theories of learning and cultural evolution shine new light on old puzzles in the sociology of science–while the study of science provides provocative problems, parallels, and paradigms for theories of cultural evolution.” 12:00-1:30 PM Monday May 18th, 2015Haines Hall 352Lunch will be served on a first come, first serve basis; we request a $6 donation.

UCLA Alumni Day
2015-05-16 15:45 - 16:30
Professor and Chair Tim Groeling invites you to his State of the Departmentaddress for alumni where he will provide an update on academic programs and other important department happenings. Join other graduates of Communication Studies and learn about successes and future goals for the program.3:50 to 4:35 p.m.203 Covel CommonsEven if you have already registered for Alumni Day, please feel free to come by; you’re part of our family regardless of what box you checked. Click here for registration.

[Marschak Colloquium] The interface theory of perception
2015-05-14 15:00 - 16:30

BEC Speaker Series: Laurie Santos "The Evolution of Irrationality: Insights from Non-Human Primates"
2015-05-11 12:00 - 13:30
Laurie SantosYale, Department of Psychology “The Evolution of Irrationality: Insights from Non-Human Primates.”“I will explore the evolutionary roots of some of our species’ irrational decisions. I will start by reviewing some classic biases in the field of judgment and decision-making and will then turn to the question of how these biases came about in the first place by exploring some recent experiments in exploring similar biases in monkeys. I will then discuss new work suggesting ways that the human species is uniquely irrational.”12:00-1:30 PM Monday May 11th, 2015Haines Hall 352Lunch will be served on a first come, first serve basis; we request a $6 donation.

BEC Speaker Series: Lera Boroditsky "How the Languages We Speak Shape the Ways We Think"
2015-05-04 12:00 - 13:30
Lera Boroditsky USCD, Department of Cognitive Science “How the Languages We Speak Shape the Ways We Think” “How do the languages we speak shape the ways we think? Do speakers of different languages think differently? Does learning new languages change the way you think? Do bilinguals think differently when speaking different languages? Does language shape our thinking only when we’re speaking or does it shape our attentional and cognitive patterns more broadly? In this talk, I will describe several lines of research looking at cross-linguistic differences in thought.” 12:00-1:30 PM Monday May 4th, 2015Haines Hall 352Lunch will be served on a first come, first serve basis; we request a $6 donation.

[Marschak Colloquium] Climate forcing and infectious disease dynamics in changing human landscapes
2015-04-30 15:00 - 16:30

PAC-12 Student Training Program
2015-04-18 08:00 - 12:00
• Gain hands-on behind-the-camera experience• Tour full production truck• Learn to operate equipment• Shadow the crew at a Pac-12 live event• Gain the opportunity to be hired for future events• Lunch will be providedWhen: Saturday, April 18Where: Easton StadiumTime: 8:00AM – 12:00PMTo Sign Up: www.pac-12.com/studenttraining OR wgulley@athletics.ucla.edu 310-825-2476For more information visit: www.pac-12.com/studenttraining

[Marschak Colloquium] Collective computation and social evolution
2015-04-16 15:00 - 16:30

[Marschak Colloquium] Two faces of subjective uncertainty
2015-04-02 15:00 - 16:30

[Marschak Colloquium] When morals matter in economic decision making
2015-03-05 15:00 - 16:30

[Marschak Colloquium] The art and science of high-fives: Field experiments at the intersection of social, developmental and educational psychology
2015-02-19 15:00 - 16:30

[Marschak Colloquium] Leveraging the science of health development: Designing systems that help children thrive
2015-02-05 15:00 - 16:30

Voice Studies Now Conference at UCLA
2015-01-31 09:00
Professor Greg Bryant and lecturer Kasia Pisanski will talk about the evolution of vocal emotion perception at the Voice Studies Now conference hosted at UCLA the last weekend in January.9:00 AM-4:00 PM: Conference Panels4:00 PM: Prof. Jody Kreiman (Keynote)

Voice Studies Now Conference at UCLA
2015-01-30 08:30
Professor Greg Bryant and lecturer Kasia Pisanski will talk about the evolution of vocal emotion perception at the Voice Studies Now conference hosted at UCLA the last weekend in January.8:30 AM-4:00PM: Conferecne Panels4:00 PM: Diamonda Galas (Keynote)

Voice Studies Now Conference at UCLA
2015-01-29 18:30
Professor Greg Bryant and lecturer Kasia Pisanski will talk about the evolution of vocal emotion perception at the Voice Studies Now conference hosted at UCLA the last weekend in January.6:30 PM: Conference Registeration7:30 PM: Concert

[Marschak Colloquium] The origin of ideas: Blending, creativity, and the human spark
2015-01-22 15:00 - 16:30

[BEC Speaker Series] Nature versus Nurture in the Inheritance of Social Status
2015-01-12 12:00 - 13:30
Most work studying the inheritance of aspects of social status across societies suggests two things. The first is that this inheritance is weak. Most social status for people is not determined by inheritance from parents. The second is that the strength of inheritance of status varies markedly across societies, so that status inheritance must be largely socially determined. In recent work using surnames as a means of measuring status inheritance across as many as twenty generations we show that in practice status inheritance is very strong, and that it varies surprisingly little across the societies and social systems. In this talk I propose that these surname results are compatible with genetics being the principle determinant of social status in most societies.

[Marschak Colloquium] Counting the many: The origins and limits of supermajority rule
2015-01-08 15:00 - 16:30

[BEC Speaker Series] Social and Physiological Resources and the Perception of Space
2014-12-08 12:00 - 13:30
Traditional theories of perception have assumed that visual processing is not influenced by top-down cognitive processes and is thus driven entirely by physical properties of the environment (Pylyshyn, 1984). For example, how a person sees stimuli such as a cup of coffee or a steep hill was thought to be only determined by factors such as the roughness of their surface and the amount of light entering the eye. However, recent research has shown that perception of space is also influenced by different bodily and experiential factors. I will review our recent work to suggest that perceptual processes take into account social and physiological resources, and that therefore perception of the world is a reflection of the extent to which one can act in it.

[Marschak Colloquium] Do justices defend the speech they hate? In-group bias, opportunism, and the first ammendment
2014-12-04 15:00 - 16:30

[BEC Speaker Series] Title: Sex Influences on Brain and Memory: The Burden of Proof has Shifted
2014-12-01 12:00 - 13:30
Abstract: Historically, neuroscience paid little if any attention to sex influences outside a limited area of reproductive functions. But all that is changing, and ever rapidly, with a flurry of discoveries the past 10 years in particular about sex influences on brain function down to the molecular level. My area of emotional memory is no exception. This talk will examine these developments, and detail how they are apparently irreversibly, and fundamentally, altering how the NIH funds not just neuroscience, but all of biological science.

[BEC Speaker Series] A Pan-Mammalian Tongue-Microbiome-Gut-Brain Axis? Implications for Health and Culture
2014-11-24 12:00 - 13:30
In a 2002 BEC talk, I described the working hypothesis that bittersweet taste is a marker for sensitivity to metabolic equanimity, manifested in ways ranging from responsiveness to energy balance to emotional reactivity and stress vulnerability; data from rats selectively bred on a saccharin phenotype and, to a lesser extent, humans, were presented in support of the hypothesis. This talk provides an update on our research program, including social behavior and evidence of an association between the taste phenotype and the gut microbiome. I will draw on others’ recent research with nonhuman primates (taste polymorphisms and behavioral ecology) and humans (embodied cognition) to advocate for refinement and testing of multilevel integrative models that link individual-level taste to processes at lower (gut-brain axis) and higher (sociality, culture) levels of organization.

[Marschak Colloquium] Climate Engineering: Challenges for international governance
2014-11-20 15:00 - 16:30

Communication Studies Info Session
2014-11-17 14:00 - 15:15
Questions about our major?If you would like more information about the Communication Studies undergraduate program, we invite you to attend our quarterly.We look forward to seeing you there!

[BEC Speaker Series] Males exist. Does it matter?
2014-11-17 12:00 - 13:30
A lot of evolutionary theory involves the concept of populations climbing towards peaks of higher fitness. Such theory has been written without taking into account that in most species there are two distinct classes of individuals — males and females — that influence the evolutionary process in a distinctly different way. I will talk about this, and try to shed some light on two quite broad questions: why do males exist, and what determines how they behave?

[BEC Speaker Series] Moral Babies: Preverbal Infants Know Who and What are Good and Bad
2014-11-10 12:00 - 13:30
How do humans come to have a “moral sense”? Are adults’ conceptions of which actions are right and which are wrong, of who is good and who is bad, who deserves praise and who deserves blame wholly the result of experiences like observing and interacting with others in one’s cultural environment and explicit teaching from parents, teachers, and religious leaders? Do all of the complexities in adult’s moral judgments reflect hard-won developmental change coupled with the emergence of advanced reasoning skills? This talk will explore evidence that, on the contrary, preverbal infants’ social preferences map surprisingly well onto adult moral intuitions. Within the first year of life, infants prefer those who help versus harm third parties, those who reward prosocial individuals and punish wrongdoers, and even privilege the intentions that drive actions over the outcomes they lead to. the second year of life, toddlers direct their own helpful actions toward helpful individuals, and harmful actions toward harmful individuals. These results suggest that our adult moral sense is supported, at least in part, by innate mechanisms for social evaluation.

[Marschak Colloquium] Quantifying country action on social policy and socio-economic rights: Can it improve transparency, accountability, and effectiveness
2014-11-06 15:00 - 16:30

[BEC Speaker Series] The Sound of Size: Human Vocal Communication of Body Size
2014-11-03 12:00 - 13:30
Body size can have an immense impact on the biology, ecology, and social status of an animal, but so too can ones ability to advertise or assess body size. Many species communicate their size vocally. Research investigating vocal communication of physical size in mammals, including humans, has focused on two salient and largely independent features of the voice: fundamental frequency and/or corresponding harmonics (perceived as voice pitch) and formant frequencies (resonance frequencies of the supralaryngeal vocal tract). In this talk, I will discuss the degree to which fundamental and formant frequencies reliably predict variation in body size controlling for sex and age, and their relative role in the perception or accurate estimation of body size in humans. The findings that I will present corroborate work on many other mammals whose mechanisms of vocal production, including anatomical constraints on size exaggeration, parallel those of humans. However, my findings also highlight the impact of psychoacoustic, sociocultural and perceptual biases on size communication in humans.

‘The Fonz’ goes to college — as a guest lecturer
2014-10-29 16:00
Henry Winkler–“The Fonz”–came to UCLA to speak as a guest lecturer for Fiat Lux freshmen seminar. Renowned for his 1970s sitcom “Happy Days” and a series of 29 children’s books, WInkler shared his process behind the books and personal anecdotes in “Collaborating in Hollywood: You’ll Never Make It in This Town Alone,” a class taught by communication studies chair Tim Groeling and two UCLA alumni working in Hollywood.
