Startsymposium “Tussen Brein en Bewustzijn”
– “Between Brain and Consciousness”
Friday November 1st, 2002
Wetenschapsmuseum NEMO



The language of the symposium was Dutch, I will describe it in English.

It was held in the NEMO museum, the building shaped like a boat, close
to central station. In the breaks, we were free to look at and
interact with the exhibits.

1. talk:
Over het autobiografisch geheugen en hoe het te onderzoeken
About the autobiographical memory and how to explore it
Dr D. Draaisma (Grondslagen van de psychologie, Groningen)

No visual aids, just the man talking. 
He talked about two psychologists, Gelton and Ebbinghausen, who lived
in the 19th century and did some fundamental tests on how the memory
works.
He went on to explain a contemporary discovery called the
“reminiscence-effect”, which is that from the age of 60, people have
clear memories from the time they were between 15 and 25, but not from
more recent years. One illustration was a book of interviews with
people aged 100 and more. When they talk about the war, they mean the
First World War, not the second.

2. talk:
Cognitie van taal als taal von cognitie
Cognition of language as language of cognition
Prof.dr. P. Coopmans (Utrecht Institute for Linguistics OTS)

Slides, audio, many pictures and examples.
People seem to have an inborn knowledge of language, since children
know much more about language than what they explicitly
learn. Coopmans explained experiments he had done to prove some
theories scientists have about how we learn language.
An example of a sentence that is possible in the Dutch language:
“…dat Jan Marie Klas de oude man heft zien helpen laten oversteken.”

3. talk:
Robots, de oorsprong van taal, en zelfbewustzijn
Robots, the origin of language, and selfconsciousness
Prof.dr. L. Steels (Artificiële Intelligentie Laboratorium, Brussel)

This talk was about the question where language comes from, how it is
developed and why it influences the way we are. Steels showed an AI
experiment in which robots talk to each other, describing things they
see. They make up words for actions or things they don’t have a word
for yet, and some words are accepted by other robots and spread in the
community until all robots have the same understanding of a new word.

4. talk:
Onze levensloop is die van onze hersenen: Ontwikkeling, seksuele
differentiatie, veroudering, en de ziekte van Alzheimer
Our path in life depends on our brains: Development, sexual
orientation, getting old, Alzheimer
Prof.dr. D. Swaab (Nederlands Instituut voor Hersenonderzoek)

This was a very medical talk. Swaab explained how the development and
shape of your brain influences a persons sexual orientation and
susceptibility to diseases such as Alzheimer and Shizofreny.

Katharina Schwarz		07.11.2002