Monday, July 7, 2025

Is social media good for mental health or not?

The latest two episodes of Minding the Brain are now out. Jim Davies interviews Dr. Kim Hellemans and Dr. Andrea Howard in front of a live... More

Friday, July 4, 2025

PhD Student Brendan Conway-Smith Co-Authors Article in the Hill Times on Canada’s AI Strategy

Cognitive Science PhD student Brendan Conway-Smith recently co-authored an article in The Hill Times addressing Canada’s evolving artificial intelligence (AI) strategy. Here is the link to the article: AI action plan: rewiring government for public good - The Hill... More

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

A.I. Challenge Podcast

Kathleen Fraser of National Research Council and Mary Kelly were invited as panelists at Carleton’s 2025 Challenge Conference on AI on May 13. While at the conference, Fraser and Kelly were interviewed by Carleton’s journalism students as part of the AI Challenge Podcast. Listen to the podcast... More

Monday, June 16, 2025

Congratulations Graduates!

Congratulations to the Class of 2025! Follow this link for details of the Departments' convocation ceremonies... More

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Departmental TA Award Winners

Akshaya Kirithy Baskar is the recipient of the 2024-25 Cognitive Science Teaching Assistant Award! Akshaya was selected "in recognition of her dedication as a tutorial leader for the honours seminar. Her ability to foster  discussions,  explain complex concepts, and provide supportive guidance during office hours significantly enhanced our... More

Thursday, May 22, 2025

NSERC $6,000 Student Research Awards

Congratulations to Leah Marshall, one of two Cog Sci undergrad students who were awarded funding to further their research. Leah, under the supervision of Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre, investigates how preschool-aged children understand number and quantity. She started this project as part of her honours thesis work and is excited to continue building on... More

Friday, May 16, 2025

New paper published on perceptions of ethics and AI

Zoe Roy-Stang's undergraduate research project has been published as an open access journal article with Jim Davies. This paper looks at a variety of human biases in thinking and explores how these biases might influence people's perception of the risk and dangers of advanced artificial intelligence. It also suggests remedies for these biases to... More

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Carleton Challenge Conference explores the AI Paradox

Read the article published in the Carleton Newsroom where our own Mary Kelly participated in a panel discussion on ethics, policy, bias, governance and risks involved with AI. Left to right: Carleton cognitive science researcher Mary Kelly, Assistant Secretary of the Artificial Intelligence Secretariat in the Privy Council Office Jordan Zed,... More

Monday, May 12, 2025

Contract Instructor Opportunities for Fall 2025 – Winter 2026

Contract Instructor opportunities for Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 are now open for application with a May 30, 2025 deadline. All courses are in-person. CI Ad for Fall 2025 and Winter... More

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

TikTok’s Cookie Challenge–Why do Some Children Share?

Rebecca Merkley and Liza Kawaji have an article published in The Conversation which includes several humourous videos. "The cookie challenge is one of the latest trends to go viral on TikTok. In the challenge, parents test how willing their child is to share a cookie. Typically, two adults and one young child each have... More

Friday, April 11, 2025

Sleeping well?

Jim Davies is interviewed in The Charlatan, Carleton's student newspaper, about the effectiveness of sleep podcasts. Published April 1, 2025. Like a kid again Graphic: Alisha Velji, the... More

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Rebecca Merkley wins 2025-26 Early Career Research Award

These grants are designed to support the development of research programs by newer faculty in FASS. Awardees will be required to use the funds to prepare and submit a formal application as the Principal Investigator (Applicant) for a major external grant, preferably to a Tri-Agency (SSHRC, NSERC, or CIHR) program, within two years of... More

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Why do we love April Fool’s day pranks?

Jim Davies talks about why we love pranks so much on this April Fool's day episode of CFRA's Ottawa at Work with Patricia Boal. Time 59:00 to 1:06. Aired April 1, 2025.... More

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Minding the Brain: Cognitive and Brain Science

Minding the Brain Cognitive Science professor Jim Davies along with Neuroscience professor Kim Hellemans interview each other about brain and mind topics related to their backgrounds and research. Minding the Brain is an award-winning science podcast that translates scientific topics in a way anyone can listen to and find meaningful. Follow this... More

Monday, March 31, 2025

Minding The Brain- – Interview with author Cat Bohannon about her book Eve

This latest episode of Minding the Brain is about the evolution of females. Jim & Kim interview Cat Bohannon about her book Eve:How the Female Body Drove 2000 Years of Human Evolution. Listen at: https://mindingthebrainpodcast.com/2025/03/01/the-evolution-of-women-with-cat-bohannon-84/ Or watch the video... More

Monday, March 24, 2025

Jim Davies interviewed on CBC Ottawa Morning re the use of AI in education

  Jim Davies and Julian Daher (of the Ottawa Catholic School Board) are interviewed by Rebecca Zandbergen on CBC Ottawa Morning (March 7, 2025) to talk about the promises and dangers of integration of generative artificial intelligence into school curricula. 10m. Listen at:... More

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Cognitive Science Spotlight

Calling all prospective students! Discover what it means to study Cognitive Science at Carleton University. Meet professors, current students, and visit three labs to better understand the program and opportunities it offers. This event features an introductory workshop that provides a glimpse into the intriguing research of Professor Jim Davies... More

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Newly released article in Cognitive Development

A newly released article entitled Early Number Acquisition in Bilingual Children was authored by Taeko Bourque; Rebecca Merkley; Pierina Cheung; and Daphne Ang. "The current study investigated whether knowledge of number words in one language predicted knowledge of those same number words in another language." To view a PDF of the English summary... More

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Uzma Khan, Cog Sci Grad Administrator, awarded King Charles III Coronation Medal (2025)

Our own Uzma Khann was awarded the prestigious King Charles III Coronation Medal (2025) in recognition of outstanding dedication to community service. This esteemed honor celebrates her efforts in supporting local food banks, raising awareness about cancer and diabetes, advocating for women’s shelters, and providing aid to flood victims in... More

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

The Ethics of AI with Mary Kelly and Shane Hewitt – check out this recent podcast!

Earlier this month, Dr. Mary Kelly discussed the ethics of A.I. with Shane Hewitt and the Nightshift: Listen... More

Friday, February 28, 2025

2025 Carleton Cognitive Science Student Conference

2025 Carleton Cognitive Science Student Conference April 10, 2025, at 12:00 PM to 4:30 PM Location: Nicol Building Cost: Free About This Event The central aim of our conference is to provide a venue for graduate students in all areas of cognitive science–at both the Master’s and Ph.D. level–to present and receive feedback on... More

Monday, February 24, 2025

Brendan Conway-Smith wins Contract Instructor Teaching Award

Congratulations to Brendan Conway-Smith on winning this Award recognizing his teaching excellence. "Brendan’s passion for teaching and research focuses on metacognition—how people can better understand and guide their own cognitive processes. He combines insights from cognitive science, educational psychology and artificial intelligence to... More

Thursday, January 16, 2025

The resemblance between people and their pets

"In the Disney animated film 101 Dalmatians, there’s an amusing sequence in which lookalike pairs of people and their dogs parade across the screen, the resemblances between human and canine in both shape and facial expression comically exaggerated. It’s funny because it plays off the impression many people have that pets look like the... More

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Carleton’s Early Math Assessment Tool

A Success Story in Innovation and Licensing Have you ever thought about enhancing the impact of your research through commercialization? At the Carleton University Innovation Transfer Office (CITO) within Industry and Partnership Services (IPS), we specialize in helping faculty license their innovative work to achieve this goal. A prime example is... More

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Humanizing Artificial Intelligence

Read about Mary Kelly's research focusing on Making AI More Effective and Reducing Risks by Replicating Our... More

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

John Anderson receives a Canadian Hearing Services grant!

Improving the quality of life for deaf and hard of hearing communities. With support from Canadian Hearing Services (CHS), John Anderson, Ph.D. is leading an impactful study on the link between hearing loss and cognitive reserve — the brain's ability to resist damage caused by aging and pathology. This research holds tremendous potential to... More

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

New Episode of Minding the Brain podcast now available – #80

Do Babies Understand Math? Rebecca Merkley joins Jim to discuss the math abilities of babies. How early do children begin to understand math? What kind of mistakes do children make when it comes to understanding math? Why is math education important and how soon should children start learning... More

Monday, December 2, 2024

New episode of Minding the Brain podcast now available

This month's episode has Jim Davies interviewing Kim Hellemans about the Neuroscience of Emotion. Kim and Jim discuss the neuroscience of emotion: Which regions of the brain process emotions? What is the relationship between substance withdrawal and our natural stress responses? How do hormones influence these responses? Find the answers to these... More

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Congratulations to those who Convocated on Nov 9th!

Congratulations to all those who Convocated on Saturday November 9th! We wish you all the best with your future endeavours. Dalya Al-Khaldi Sabirin Cabdirashiid Maxamed Sarah Eslamdoust Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement Abagael Harvie Alexandre Jolin Haley Kingsley Oluwafoyinsola Ogbara Matthew Racine Ronald Rupiya Nkingi Sophie... More

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

New episode of Minding the Brain has just been released!

A new episode of the Minding the Brain podcast is out. This month's episode features Jim Davies interviewing the legendary psychologist Daniel Schacter about how we should think about memory errors. How and why is memory prone to failure? Do people repress traumatic memories? Does retrieving memories alter them? Can you slow down the process... More

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

FASS Graduate Studies Fair

Are you thinking about continuing on to grad school after your degree? If so, join us for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Graduate Studies Fair on Saturday, November 2, 2024! Current graduate students and faculty members from across our diverse programs will be on hand to answer any questions you may have and to... More

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Read about Professor Raj Singh’s successful collaboration with the Ontario Centre of Innovation (OCI)

The OCI program supports the collaboration between Academia and Industry to solve industry-based problems and drive the commercialization of Intellectual Property [IP]. The institution will leverage the unique skills and specialized infrastructure that is instrumental to streamline internal innovations and commercialization needs. Resulting in... More

Thursday, September 19, 2024

Volume 1 of the Cognitive Science Undergraduate Journal now published!

4th year undergraduate student Taran Allan-McKay began working on this Journal over the past year and it's now published! "I came up with the idea for the Carleton Undergraduate Journal of Cognitive Science (CUJCS) after learning about the amount of work undergraduate CogSci students produce that doesn't have a home. Undergrad student research is... More

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Cognitive Science Chair Jo-Anne LeFevre elected to the Royal Society of Canada!

Three remarkable Carleton University researchers have been elected to The Royal Society of Canada | La Société royale du Canada! Both Chancellor's Professor Jo-Anne LeFevre and Sarah Phillips Casteel will be inducted into the Class of 2024 Fellows. Canada Research Chair Maria Rogers is being welcomed as a College Member. Congratulations... More

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Research Showcase — September 2024 – – Akshaaya Kirithy Baskar

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