CDS Pre-conference

30th Anniversary of Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture

We are thrilled to announce a CDS pre-conference workshop, 30th Anniversary of Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture. This all-day workshop will take place on Thursday, March 21, 2023 at the Cognitive Development Society Biennial Meeting in Pasadena, CA.  

Published in 1994, Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture has been a theoretical force in the field of cognitive development. Edited by Susan Gelman and Lawrence Hirschfeld, the seminal essays in this volume were penned by luminaries in our field, who laid out foundational approaches to studying the origins of human thought that have shaped our field for three decades. This workshop will celebrate 30 years of Mapping the Mind. 

Ten original essayists will give talks on where they stand on their theoretical proposals about domain-specific cognition 30 years later: Scott Atran, Susan Carey, Rochel Gelman, Susan Gelman, Alison Gopnik, Paul Harris, Lawrence Hirschfeld, Frank Keil, Alan Leslie, Elizabeth Spelke, and Henry Wellman. Speaker roundtables will be moderated by Fei Xu. 

This full-day workshop will be $30 for students/postdocs, $50 for faculty. We anticipate opportunities to offer significantly reduced or complementary registrations to a small number of students who contact us with indications of real need (please contact us directly at our email addresses, below). 

We are also excited to announce that the workshop will have a poster session for early career scholars to share work inspired by Mapping the Mind. We encourage early-stage scholars (undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs) to submit 250-word abstracts on research that has not been presented elsewhere. Abstract must include data, and must be distinct from work that is already being presented at CDS. Abstracts should include how the research relates to the core ideas and theories in Mapping the Mind. Deadline for poster submissions is February 7, 2024. Decisions will go out by February 23, 2024. Abstracts can be submitted here.

Questions about the pre-conference or the poster submission process can be directed to Deb Kelemen (dkelemen@bu.edu) or Melissa Kibbe (kibbe@bu.edu).

We look forward to seeing you in Pasadena!