The talk will be from 12 to 1pm in science 3 room 204

Please read before the noon seminar on religion:
http://www.thisviewoflife.com/index.php/magazine/articles/darwin-day-evolving-perspectives-on-god

Biography
Dominic Johnson received a DPhil from Oxford University in evolutionary biology, and a PhD from Geneva University in political science. Drawing on both disciplines, he is interested in how new research on evolution, biology and human nature is challenging theories of international relations, conflict, and cooperation. He has published two books. “Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions” (Harvard University Press, 2004) argues that common psychological biases to maintain overly positive images of our capabilities, our control over events, and the future, play a key role in the causes of war. “Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics” (Harvard University Press, 2006), with Dominic Tierney, examines how and why popular misperceptions commonly create undeserved victories or defeats in international wars and crises. His current work focuses on the role of evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary psychology, and religion in human conflict and cooperation. For the 2012-2013 academic year Dominic is a senior fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, co-leading a residential research team of scientists and theologians on the implications of new research in evolution and human nature for our understanding of religion.

Colloquium

Vladimir Miskovic, Ph.D

University of Florida at Gainesville

“The Dynamics of Threat and Safety Perception: Clues from Affective Neuroscience”

Location: Clearview Hall, Rm. #49

Monday, January 28, 2013 4:00 p.m

Abstract: Sensitized processing of threat-related cures is an adaptive response whose dysregulation has been implicated in vulnerability towards a range of fear, anxiety and mood disorders. Associative learning mechanisms may represent one route by which such information processing biases are acquired. The accumulation of fear learning experiences across ontogenetic development is hypothesized to tune perceptual and attentional systems to salient cues that signal potential dangers or opportunities within the environment. In this talk I will review a set of studies that have employed novel measures of oscillatory neuronal activity in tracking the development of short-term experience-dependent changes within visual cortical networks when learning about and responding to threat and safety cues. I will also examine the results from a recently developed paradigm that we have designed to probe biases in sensory processing under conditions where the aversive outcomes associated with threat cues are capable of being avoided or terminated. Findings from these studies suggest that visual cortical systems exhibit experience-dependent changes, consistent with the amplification of threat-related stimuli and that, once established, such sensory biases seem relatively conservative and inflexible to being down regulated by competing information indicating safety. Finally, I will consider the functional implications of threat-related information processing biases in fear and anxiety disorders with a special focus on social anxiety.

Check out their official website athttp://psychologyjournal.binghamtonsa.org/. They are calling for writing sample submissions if you are interested in being an editor. Being an editor involves:

http://evostudies.org/evos-summit-2012-all-talks-from-conference-are-online/

Jennifer Surtees from SUNY Buffalo will speak from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 5, in S3-214. The talk is titled “Mismatch repair gone rogue: how Msh2-Msh3 can promote trinucleotide repeat expansions.” For more information, contact hfiumera@binghamton.edu.