Each year in May since 1982, Western Canadian universities have jointly hosted a conference known as BASICS (Banff Annual Seminar in Cognitive Science). The 36th meeting of BASICS will be held in 2017 on Friday, May 5 and Saturday, May 6.

The conference will begin Friday afternoon with an invited talk at 5:00; four other talks will be presented on Saturday. There will be a poster session and reception Friday evening after dinner, and another poster session will be held Saturday after lunch. Submissions for the poster sessions are invited on any aspect of cognitive science. (Each participant should submit no more than one poster.) If you plan on presenting a poster, please list the title and authors on the registration form and send it in before April 4. Please note that data on which posters are based must be collected and analyzed at the time of submission. Graduate and postdoctoral students are especially encouraged to present. (Information for poster presenters is available here.)

As in the past, the invited presentations are like colloquia and allow a scientist ample time to lay out a course of research, rather than simply to discuss the results of one or two experiments. An extensive question period and break follows each 45 minute presentation and provides time for detailed questions and discussion.

This year’s speakers will include:

  • Craig Chapman (University of Alberta), “The deciding hand: Understanding attention and cognition by studying reaching movements” (abstract)
  • Anthony Singhal (University of Alberta), “Neural bases of attention in action and emotion” (abstract)
  • Susanne Ferber (University of Toronto), “Attention: Work(ing memory) in progress” (abstract)
  • Daniel Smilek (University of Waterloo), “Attentional disengagement in the laboratory and in everyday life” (abstract)
  • Alejandro Lleras (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), “Towards a better understanding of early, parallel attentive processing in vision” (abstract)

The final draft of the program is available here. A paper copy will be available with registration materials at the conference.

BASICS will be held this year at the Inns of Banff. A block of rooms at the Inns has been reserved for the conference dates at the conference rate of $119/night (Canadian) for a single or double occupancy, excluding tax. This block of rooms will be held until April 4, 2017, although rooms may be available for some period of time after that date.

To book a room at The Inns, you should:
  • visit the website, http://www.bestofbanff.com;
  • under “Reservations,” click "BOOK NOW";
  • under "Hotel Name," select "Inns of Banff";
  • select reservation details (dates, rooms, no. of people);
  • under "Addition Search," select "Group";
  • enter “BASICS2017” as the promotional code;
  • select "Search Now."

The registration deadline is April 4. Late registrants should contact Peter Dixon (peter.dixon@ualberta.ca).