New Faculty: Nori Jacoby
Nori Jacoby, Psychology
Peter Loewen named dean of Arts and Sciences
Coming from the University of Toronto, where he was the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Loewen began his five-year appointment as the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Aug. 1.
New group unites, empowers female students of color
Women Leaders of Color at Cornell aims to increase representation of women of color in leadership positions across professions.
Nexus Scholars Program expands research opportunities to 101 students
This summer, 101 students in the College of Arts and Sciences will take part in groundbreaking research on campus with 61 faculty as part of the Nexus Scholars Program.
Students can now choose new minor in data science
The minor is distinctive in including courses from many disciplines, from across Cornell’s schools and colleges.
Nexus Scholar applications open for summer 2023
The program matches undergraduate students with summer opportunities to work side by side with faculty from across the College.
Philosophy on Main Street
Shaun Nichols, professor of philosophy and director of the cognitive science major in the College of Arts and Sciences, compares high-minded philosophical systems to the ways people approach everyday problems. Like picking wild blueberries.
More than $12M donated to support students in 24 hours
On Cornell’s eighth Giving Day, held March 16, 15,905 alumni, students, faculty, staff, parents and friends from more than 80 countries made gifts totaling a record-breaking $12,268,629.
Support Arts & Sciences on Giving Day March 16
Gifts allow the College to fulfill its mission: preparing students to do the greatest good in the world.
Students can major in cognitive science come fall 2022
The major combines interests in philosophy, psychology, computer science, linguistics and neurobiology and behavior.
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Psychology professor elected to Denmark’s Royal Academy
Morten H. Christiansen, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been elected a foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Nexus Scholars Program applications now open
The program connects undergraduates in A&S with opportunities to work side by side on research with Cornell faculty from across the College.
New A&S program expands undergrad research opportunities
The Nexus Scholars program will leverage the student-to-faculty ratio and the vibrant research enterprise in A&S to expand opportunities for students, while also enhancing the culture of collaborative scholarship at Cornell.
New moral psychology minor takes on challenging questions
The curriculum will offer students interdisciplinary engagement with moral psychology theory and research as well as hands-on experience applying moral psychology to practical ethical issues.
Applications open for Klarman fellowships
The three-year fellowships are available to early-career scholars conducting leading-edge research in any of the College’s discipline areas.
Cornell to host Semantics and Linguistic Theory conference virtually
<p> August 17-20, Cornell will host the <a href="https://events.cornell.edu/event/semantics_and_linguistic_theory_conference_2837">30th meeting of Semantics and Linguistic Theory</a> (SALT), one of the world’s leading conferences on the scientific study of meaning in natural languages. Originally scheduled to take place on the Ithaca campus in April, the meeting will be held virtually.</p>
Study finds hidden emotions in the sound of words
New research reveals that the sound of the word "virus" was likely to raise your blood pressure – even before “corona” was added to it.
Support Arts & Sciences students on Giving Day March 12
The College of Arts & Sciences is gearing up for Giving Day on Thursday, March 12 and we hope you'll join in the fun!
Our implicit attitudes: New research into human relationships
<p>This <a href="http://bit.ly/2EEXOJm">Curiosity Daily podcast series </a>features <a href="https://psychology.cornell.edu/vivian-zayas">Vivian Zayas</a>, associate professor of psychology and director of the Personality, Attachment, and Control Laboratory at Cornell. In this episide, Zayas talks about her new research into the implicit attitudes people have in close relationships with others.</p>
New book explores the meaning of being a human animal
Philosopher Laurent Dubreuil and primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh explore the theoretical and practical dimensions of being human.
Do you really love your valentine? How to analyze unconscious negative feelings toward our partners
<p>Vivian Zayas, associate professor of psychology, writes in this article in Newsweek with Yuichi Shoda, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, how thoughts and feelings people are not even aware of may shape their romantic relationships. </p>
Psychologists solve mystery of songbird learning
Animal models give us insight into how humans learn language, but it turns out a favorite research model has been entirely misunderstood.
Scientists tackle breeding challenges of land mine-finding rats
<p>Thousands of people – many of them children – are hurt or killed by land mines each year, so finding these devices before they explode is critical.</p>
Grad student works with indigenous speaker to document fading tongue
When linguistics Ph.D. candidate Simone Harmath-de Lemos started studying the indigenous Bororo language of Brazil, she was excited to expand her knowledge of her own culture – she has relatives who were members of the Bororo community.
Forum highlights the connections between humans and apes
<p>In the early 1980s, Peter Gabriel sang “Shock the Monkey.” But about 15 years ago, the English musician became more interested in jamming with apes instead.</p><p>Bonobos, specifically.</p><p>“I had always been fascinated to see how we might interact musically,” said Gabriel. “I was blown away at the obvious intelligence of the beings that I was sharing the space with.”</p>
Forum to examine sustainability and nonhuman primates
<p>Humans share 98.8 percent of their DNA – as well as tool use and systems of communication – with bonobos and chimpanzees. Yet human activity threatens these “next of kin” great apes with extinction. In “Apes and Sustainability,” a forum on Nov. 15, activists, scholars, scientists and humanists will explore new perspectives on preserving nonhuman great apes in sustainable ways. The event will be held in the A.D. White House’s Guerlac Room 4:30-6:30 p.m., followed by a reception.</p>
A&S student spends summer studying perception and memory at UCLA
<p>After taking a philosophy of mind seminar last year, Marlene Berke ‘19 began thinking about connecting her research to the philosophy of perception and epistemology. </p><p>“This course familiarized me with the current philosophical discussion about cognitive influences on perception, providing philosophical motivation for my studies about whether what we remember and expect might ‘leak’ into perception.”</p>
New book analyzes poetry across the world
“What one cannot compute, one must poetize,” concludes a new interdisciplinary study of poetry.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda: the haunting regret of failing our ideal selves
“As the Nike slogan says: ‘Just do it.' Don’t wait around for inspiration," says psychology professor Tom Gilovich.
Psychologist explores happiness, memory and identity
A hike in a spectacular Utah canyon got Shimon Edelman thinking: Humans crave novelty; boredom creates unhappiness. But if happiness is only possible through the pursuit of new experiences, what role does memory have?
Ape communication explored at Cornell event
<p>In a talk on “Gestural Communication and Pantomime in Great Apes” March 6 in Cornell's Goldwin Smith Hall, evolutionary anthropologist Itai Roffman from the University of Haifa and three Cornell faculty respondents explored the implications of the latest findings on primate culture and communication.</p>
Simpler grammar, larger vocabulary: a linguistic paradox explained
<p>Languages have an intriguing paradox. Languages with lots of speakers, such as English and Mandarin, have large vocabularies with relatively simple grammar. Yet the opposite is also true: Languages with fewer speakers have fewer words but complex grammars.</p><p>Why does the size of a population of speakers have opposite effects on vocabulary and grammar?</p>
The Human Animal
The newest episode of the “What Makes Us Human?” podcast features Laurent Dubreuil, professor of Romance studies, comparative literature and cognitive science.
Workshop explores ape and human communication
“Our goal is to open up a new space for intense conversation between humanists, social scientists, and scientists.”
Workshop takes transdisciplinary approach to great ape communication
On Oct. 20-21, Cornell will host a trans-disciplinary workshop on apes, language and communication, “The Eloquence of the Apes,” featuring renowned primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Cornell researchers across multiple disciplines.
Christiansen elected fellow of Cognitive Science Society
Morten Christiansen, professor of psychology, was recently elected as a Society Fellow by the Cognitive Science Society.
Cognitive scientist calls for integration in language sciences
In a new opinion piece in a major publication, Morten Christiansen, professor of psychology, describes how the study of language has fragmented into many highly-specialized areas of study that tend not to talk to each other. He calls for a new era of integration in the paper, published July 31 in Nature Human Behaviour.
Memory limits give rise to open-ended language abilities
<p>A hallmark of human language is our ability to produce and understand an infinite number of different sentences. This unique open-ended productivity is normally explained in terms of “structural reuse”; sentences are constructed from reusable parts such as phrases. But how languages come to be composed of reusable parts in the first place is a question that has long puzzled researchers in the language sciences</p>
Cornell hosts international linguistics conference
<p>Cornell will host the Conference in Laboratory Phonology (<a href="http://www.labphon.org/labphon15/node/2">LabPhon 15</a>), an international meeting for researchers taking experimental approaches to the study of human speech sounds, July 13-17.</p><p>The conference theme, “Speech Dynamics and Phonological Representation,” will address sounds in human language as part of a linguistic, cognitive and communicative system.</p>
'Now-or-never bottleneck' explains language acquisition
<p>We are constantly bombarded with linguistic input, but our brains are unable to remember long strings of linguistic information. How does the brain make sense of this ongoing deluge of sound?</p>
New book reintegrates the science of language
<p>Is language innate? How did we get language? While researchers continue to debate, a new book offers a revolutionary, unifying framework for understanding the processing, acquisition and evolution of language. The book, “Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing” by Cornell Professor of Psychology Morten H.</p>
Book on thought unites neuroscience, humanities
<p style="line-height: 1.5">A new book tackles questions of thought and meaning.</p>