Tracking lies, minding memories: Psych in the City
Do we all sweat when we lie? SFU psychology chair Don Read and professor Steve Hart will offer their insights on deception when they join a cast of colleagues at the Psych in the City lecture series, coming to SFU Surrey.
Detecting deception, memory changes in older age and new ways to think about psychology are all key topics of the popular annual event, which runs on a series of Wednesday evenings, April 21, 28 and May 5, from 7 – 9 p.m.
Each lecture focuses on one area of psychology. The events feature two talks by faculty members from SFU’s psychology department followed by a question-and-answer period on these topics:
April 21 – Shifting Paradigms in Psychology; What’s in and What’s out, featuring Kathleen Slaney, who will contrast different approaches to studying the mind, and Tim Racine, who will compare evolutionary approaches including evolutionary developmental psychology, or “evo-devo”.
April 28 – Cognitive Brain Function: Injury, Aging and Health, features Urs Ribary, SFU’s B.C. Leadership Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience in Health and Development, who has studied the brain for more than three decades. He’ll talk about how brain network activity contributes to our sensory perception and cognition and how those networks are affected by disabilities, disorders and traumatic brain injury.
Wendy Thornton will shed light on the mature mind, how an aging memory can be bolstered later in life through lifestyle changes and how age differences in memory and other cognitive abilities are explained by individual differences in factors such as lifestyle and health.
May 5 – The Science of Deception, highlights Don Read, chair of psychology, who will talk about research on the reliability of presumed relationships between lying and behaviour. Steve Hart will explain how technology is used in uncovering deception and discuss whether we should employ such technologies as “bigger and better lie detectors” in making critical real-life decisions.
Psych in the City is free. For more information see www.psychinthecity.ca or call 778.782.3250.
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