Calls for Papers

(See below for Journals.)

CALL FOR PAPERS
Pragmatics & Cognition announces a special issue on
FACIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING:
A MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE

Guest Editors
Itiel E. Dror and Sarah V. Stevenage

In many senses, faces are at the center of human interaction. At a very basic level, faces indicate identity. However, faces are remarkably rich information carriers. For example, facial gestures may be used as means of conveying intentions. Faces may also permit a direct glimpse into the person's inner self (by unintentionally revealing, for example, aspects of character or mood). Given their salient role, the processing of the information conveyed by faces and its integration with other sources of interactional information raise important issues in cognition and pragmatics.

Research on facial information processing has investigated these (and other) issues utilizing a variety of approaches and methodologies, and developments in both computer and cognitive sciences have recently carried this research forward. The emerging picture is that there are cognitive subsystems which specialize in different aspects of facial processing. This has been supported by neuropsychological evidence suggesting that brain damaged patients show dissociations between the different aspects of face processing. In addition, research on the development of facial processing abilities, and on aspects of the face itself which affect these processing abilities, has contributed to our understanding of how facial information is perceived.

This special issue of Pragmatics and Cognition is intended to provide a common forum for a variety of the topics currently under investigation. Given the breadth of issues and approaches used to investigate faces, we encourage submissions from a wide range of disciplines. Our aim is that this special issue will tie together the diverse research on faces, and show their links and interdependencies.

Deadline for submission: August 1, 1998
Editorial decisions: November 1, 1998
Revised papers due: February 1, 1999
Expected publication: October 1999

Papers should be submitted according to the guidelines of the journal (see WWW URL: Guidelines). All submissions will be peer reviewed. Please send five copies of your submission either to:

Dr. Itiel Dror (dror@coglab.psy.soton.ac.uk) or: Dr. Sarah Stevenage (svs1@soton.ac.uk)

Dept. of Psychology Southampton University Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ England

For additional and updated information see WWW URL: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~dror/faces.html or contact either of the guest editors.

The Monist, Edited by Barry Smith CALLS FOR PAPERS on:

82:1 January 1999
Philosophy of Computer Science
Deadline for Submissions: January 1998
Advisory Editor: Giuseppe Longo (Paris)
e-mail: Guiseppe.Longo@ens.fr

Computer science largely originated from mathematical logic in the thirties and forties, and it has to some degree retained =96 through logic -- its links to philosophy.

In the last few decades, however, computer science has become firmly established discipline in its own right. New tasks of language- and system-design have meant that relevant areas of logic have been revitalized: computability and proof theory, especially, but also category theory, universal algebra and other areas of mathematics, as tools for semantics.

Concrete problems have raised new abstract challenges which go well beyond the logical frame at the basis of early computer science. Thus the prevailing sequential view of logical reasoning seems no longer to be the core paradigm for computing, and parallelism and concurrency, distributed or asynchronous systems are affecting our understanding of both logic and computation.

It is time, then, to deepen our philosophical reflections on the methods, tools and aims of computer science as this has grown out of a blend of mathematical developments and engineering tasks. Logic in computer science has played the double role of foundation and tool. How has this modified our views about the foundations of knowledge and deduction or our understanding of constructive systems? Beyond logic, is mathematics or its philosophy affected?

82:2 April 1999
Continental Philosophy: For and Against
Deadline for Submissions: April 1998
Advisory Editor: J. Claude Evans (St. Louis)

Thirty years ago there was widespread hostility between representatives of 1analytic' and =91continental' philosophy. Today, in contrast, there is so= me significant positive interest in the work of thinkers such as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty in contemporary philosophy of mind and in cognitive science. Yet even in these areas many philosophers still reject any positive contribution by =91continental' thinkers, and many continental philosophers reject the attempts to assimilate continental thinkers such as Heidegger to the concerns of analytic philosophy.

Against this background, The Monist calls for papers on the topic of "Continental Philosophy: For and Against". The aim is to generate dialogue when this is appropriate, but also to encourage fruitful confrontation. "Continental philosophy" can be defined broadly or more narrowly, but in each case what is being attacked and what is being defended should be clearly specified.

82:4 October 1999
Cognitive Theories of Mental Illness
Deadline for Submissions: October 1998
Advisory Editor: Joelle Proust (Paris)
e-mail: proust@poly.polytechnique.fr

Cognitive models of the mind are based on the assumption that a mind is an assemblage of different sorts of functions, including those of extracting information from the environment, representing this information in various formats, and storing and retrieving it according to current needs and purposes. One way of learning more about the mind is to study variations and impairments in mental functioning. Cognitive neuropsychology has developed successful methods for exploring phenomena such as blindsight and aphasia. Cognitive psychopathology is still in its infancy. Its goal is that of understanding the cognitive processes associated with phenomena such as autism, schizophrenia, melancholy and depression. A wealth of new models emerge, offering promising areas of investigation for philosophers. Issues relevant to philosophical inquiry include the relations between perception, hallucination and judgment, agency and the self, consciousness, rationality and belief dynamics in the deluded, the understanding of other minds, and the control of action. Papers are invited on any of these and related topics. They should reflect current developments, but in such a way as to be intelligible to the general philosophical reader.

A full list of forthcoming issues is available at THE MONIST.

Dept. of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, NY 14260-1010 Tel. 716 645 2444 Ext. 711. Fax 716 626 5051 http://wings.buffalo.edu/philosophy/faculty/smith

JOURNALS

Send additions or corrections to cfreeland@UH.edu,

Dr. Cynthia A. Freeland, University of Houston

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