Workshop: Coherence-Based Approaches to Decision Making, Cognition, and Communication

(Berlin, Germany, July 9-10, 2016)
One challenge in the field of decision-making is to develop detailed process models that can also be applied outside the lab and to complex societal challenges. Specifically, models should (a) provide valid descriptions of cognitive processes that are cognitively plausible and compatible with findings from controlled and simplified experimental paradigms and (b) sufficiently general and simple to apply them to real-world problems that involve communication between different agents, sense-making based on unreliable or missing information, and many other complications.

Coherence-based approaches provide one framework that allows addressing these challenges. They rest on the assumption that information processing can be described as a process of active information-structuring and sense-making. In this process, coherent interpretations (e.g., dominant options, gute Gestalten, stories) are formed by taking into account the incoming current evidence (bottom up effects) as well as prior knowledge (top down effects). Many of the models assume that this process can be modelled as spread of activation and interactive competition in network models. In contrast to most established models of decision-making as well as standard rational utility-maximisation approaches, coherence-based approaches therefore break with the basic idea that information processing is conducted in a serial, step-wise manner by applying (a set of simple) decision rules.

In a 2-day workshop in Berlin, Germany, we want to bring together researchers interested in coherence-based approaches to decision making, cognition and communication, to discuss and exchange recent ideas and developments. We particularly also aim to bridge the gap between basic cognitive research and applied real-world problem-solving using a coherence approach as connecting layer.

Keynote speakers will be Paul Thagard (University of Waterloo), Dan Simon (University of Southern California), and Bruce Edmonds (Centre for Policy Modeling, Manchester Metropolitan University).

The workshop will be held at the Berlin facilities of FernUniversität Hagen (SpreePalais am Dom) in collaboration with the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (FH Potsdam) on the 9th/10th of July, 2016. The event is sponsored jointly by the European Association for Decision-Making (EADM), FernUniversität Hagen, and FH Potsdam, so participation is free of charge (participants will cover their own travel costs).

If you are interested in presenting your work, please submit title and abstract (max. 1 page) of your possible contribution (20-minute presentation + 10 min discussion) no later than March 31st, 2016 to marc.jekel@fernuni-hagen.de

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Berlin,

Andreas Glöckner, Tobias Schröder, & Marc Jekel (organizer team)

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