Dr. Kevin Dunbar's Psychoquium Talk Abstract
December 1995
The Department of Psychology and the Centre for Research in Child Development are pleased to announce Dr. Dunbar's participation in the PSYCHOQUIUM, a monthly colloquium series organized by graduate students in the Department of Psychology. Dr. Dunbar is a cognitive psychologist who is studying how scientists reason and solve problems in their scientific work. He has studied scientists in four molecular biology laboratories by observing laboratory meetings, interviewing participants, and examining drafts of papers and grant proposals. Using these data, he is building an account of the cognitive and social processes that are involved in reasoning, problem solving, and the
generation of scientific discoveries. In his presentation, he will focus on (a) how scientists use unexpected findings, heuristics and analogies to formulate new hypotheses, and (b) how social and cognitive mechanisms interact when scientists reason in groups. Finally, Dr. Dunbar will argue that high-level cognitive processes can and should be investigated using a both in vivo and in vitro methods, just as this combination is used to study basic processes in other disciplines.
Dr. Dunbar is a professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University.
Back to 1995-1996 Psychoquium Speakers page.