Talk Co-hosted by COGS & ECOM: Dr. Cat Hobaiter from the University of St Andrews

Date/Time: Friday, 11/14/25 from 4:00pm – 5:30pm EST

Location: McHugh Hall 205

Bio: Cat is a field primatologist who has spent the past 20 years studying wild primates across Africa. She is a Professor in Origins of Mind at the University of St Andrews where she leads the Wild Minds Lab. The main focus of her research is the communication and cognition of wild apes. Through long-term field studies she explores what the behaviour of modern apes living in their natural environment tells us about their minds, as well as about the evolutionary origins of our own behaviour. She is the director of three long-term chimpanzee field-sites in Uganda and Guinea.

Talk Title: Storytelling apes: ape gesture and the evolution of human language

Abstract: Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Three years ago, I was on a remote expedition with a small group of people with whom I had essentially no language in common. Over the weeks we found built huts, mapped the area, cooked, ate, and laughed together. We started to swap a few phrases, but most of our daily life was managed without language. A long list of human behaviours has been proposed as the reason we have language. But decades of research with other apes have shown us that 1) they have rich systems of flexible, intentional, meaningful, communication, and also that 2) apes and other species do not need language to learn from each other, to organize where and when to forage, to learn cultural knowledge about tools and songs, to co-ordinate hunting, or navigate social politics. It starts to look like human language didn’t evolve for anything useful. But could we simply have been looking in the wrong place? Ten years ago, anthropologist Polly Wiessner made the provocative suggestion that fire was the fundamental driver of human social behaviour. While the day-to-day conversations of the forager peoples she worked with were about mundane practicalities and gossip, fireside conversations are different: they are used for telling stories. I will review what we have learned about other apes’ rich systems of communication so far, and ask—at the end of the day—are we the storytelling ape?

Meetings: Dr. Hobaiter will be available for meetings at UConn from 11/12 – 11/14. If you are interested in meeting with her on any of these days or attending dinner in the evening on Friday, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu. 

Attached is the talk flyer for posting. Please email Crystal if you have questions.

Date/Time: Friday, 10/3/25 from 4:00pm – 5:30pm EST

Location: McHugh Hall 302

Meetings: If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Tamis-LeMonda during the day or attending dinner in the evening on Friday, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu. 

Talk Title: Word learning in context: Disambiguating the ambiguous

Abstract: The pace and breadth of early vocabulary development is impressive to say the least. Infants grow from producing their first words around 12 months to using over 500 words by 2 ½ years. How do infants crack the code to acquire so many words in a relatively short period of time? Our theoretical framework emphasizes the embodied and embedded nature of learning: Infants actively engage with their environments in the presence of socially responsive partners who provide semantically relevant input within a tight time window during highly specific activity contexts. The tight temporal connection between infant action, caregiver speech, and activity context cuts across word classes—nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions—thereby functioning to ‘disambiguate the ambiguous’.

Date/Time: Friday, 3/7/25 from 4:00pm – 5:30pm EST

Location: McHugh Hall 201

Bio: Brian Boyd, Ph.D., is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor in the UNC School of Education and interim director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was previously the director of the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project at the University of Kansas. Boyd is quite engaged in research that involves the most vulnerable, and often marginalized, populations. As a special educator by training, much of his research has involved the development and evaluation of evidence-based practices that could be implemented within school and home contexts. His more recent work has focused on how issues of implicit bias and race affect the outcomes of children with and without disabilities. Boyd’s research has been continuously funded by federal agencies such as the Institute of Education Sciences and National Institutes of Health. He is past vice president of the International Society for Autism Research. He also serves on multiple national boards that are dedicated to improving the outcomes of autistic persons and those from historically underserved communities.

Talk Title: Community-Engaged Research in Autism: Centering Marginalized Communities

Abstract: Community-engaged research (CER) is essential for addressing disparities in autism research by prioritizing the voices and experiences of marginalized communities. This presentation examines CER principles, challenges, and ethical considerations in working with diverse populations. It concludes with a discussion of how my research applies CER to foster meaningful partnerships, amplify community perspectives, and promote equity in autism services and outcomes.

Meetings: If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Boyd or attending dinner on Friday, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu

Flyer is attached for posting. Please email Crystal if you have questions.