The Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences is dedicated to exploring the workings of the mind and brain and how they affect human behavior and social interaction. Our goals are to advance the empirical study and theoretical understanding of cognition, culture and communication from an interdisciplinary perspective. In pursuing those goals, the Institute will promote the integration of diverse methods and theories from the social, human and life sciences.

- back to top -

1. The Institute is administered by a Director who is elected every three years.
2. The Institute is governed by an executive committee of four people, each serving for two years, with yearly elections for alternating pairs. The Director is an ex-officio member of the executive committee. The executive committee is responsible for all membership decisions. The current "renewal committee" will serve as the executive committee during the year of reorganization, 1999-2000.
3. After the 1999-2000 academic year, any changes in the governance of the Institute will be determined by vote of the current membership.
4. The physical space of the Institute consists of the office (Straub 38 & 40) and seminar room (Straub 51) in the basement of Straub, as well as the Hill Center for Social Cognition and Decision-Making (Straub 170-179).
5. Consistent with its mission statement, the Institute will be organized around a set of focus groups that will, presumably, change from time to time.

A focus group is a set of two or more people, open to faculty and graduate students, organized around a particular research interest within the scope of the Institute's mission statement. Focus groups are distinct from research groups, although they might well be co-extensive with them. Activities of focus groups may include organizing periodic discussions, symposia, seminars, and occasional conferences, and the sponsoring of outside visitors to the Institute. The Institute also sponsors a working paper publication series.

Focus groups will replace the three existing programs of the Institute (Language, Culture and Cognition, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Cognition and Decision-Making). The intent is to maintain a fluid structure that will be responsive to changing faculty and graduate student interests. Focus groups are expected to use the Institute web site on a regular basis to announce activities. They are also encouraged to publish reviews of new articles and books of interest to group members, post working papers, and provide links to other relevant sites.

There is no set number of focus groups. Inactive focus groups will be deleted from the list and new groups will be added in response to members' interests and willingness to organize them. The currently active focus groups are listed below.

1. Group Formation and Collective Action
2. Decision Making and Social Cognition
3. Event Representation
4. Evolution and Cognition
5. Language, Mind, Brain
6. Other Minds
7. Complex Adaptive Dynamical Systems
8. Music Cognition

- back to top -

Membership will be for renewable periods of three years. To be renewed, members should

1. Apply to the executive committee for such renewal;
2. Have clear research interests related to the Institute's mission statement;
3. Be actively involved in ongoing Institute and focus group activities;

Ordinarily, membership is confined to faculty. Graduate students will be encouraged to participate actively in focus groups, symposia and other Institute functions. Those who do so will qualify as "Graduate Affiliates of the Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences."

At the outset, the Renewal Committee will circulate the new mission statement and outline of the new structure of the Institute to the existing membership (and to others around campus we believe might be interested), soliciting their requests for membership. The committee will then determine membership in accordance with the above criteria.

A list of current ICDS members is available on-line.

- back to top -

The Committee believes that the active involvement of the Institute in teaching is important to its continued vitality. While the Institute is not a teaching unit, it can and should organize a program within the domain of its mission statement that consists of courses offered in diverse departments around campus. The Institute can and should also organize occasional special courses that will address aspects of its mission statement under the aegis of members' departments; an example is the Honors College course on the Evolutionary Basis of the Mind presently being prepared by several Institute members for the Winter of 2001. Such teaching activity should not only benefit the Institute but also the departments concerned-- who will be able to advertise the availability of these programs to their students.

- back to top -

The present weekly colloquium (Monday 3:30 p.m.) has been replaced by a monthly symposium on the last Monday of each month at the same time and location, with the remaining three weekly time slots being returned to the Psychology Department. This symposium is both a social and intellectual event and might take various forms; perhaps "set pieces" by Institute members or outside visitors, but perhaps also round table and panel discussions, poster sessions or reports on work in progress. Active focus groups will be expected to organize at least one symposium per year.

- back to top -

Under the current structure, it is the practice of Institute members to run their grants through their parent departments. We are funded by an annual budget of $30,000 from the Office of Research. Under the new structure approved by Vice Provost Tom Dyke and by department heads of associated departments, members can take their proposals through the Institute, and the Institute will receive appropriate overhead return without that return counting as a "deductable"toward the $30,000 subsidy. That subsidy will be retained by the Institute for at least three years, after which there will be a review of the funding basis of the Institute, taking into account our success in attracting grant money.

Overhead returned to the Institute will be used to support the activities of the Institute as described above. Decisions about such use will be made by the Director and Executive Committee in consultation with the grantee. We will work to develop economies of scale with the efforts of various departments to use money returned from overhead in the same manner.

Decisions about whether particular grants are taken through the Institute or the relevant Department will be made on a case-by-case basis in consultation with the Director, the relevant Department and the Vice-Provost for Research. However, when proposals submitted by Institute members are within that mission--especially when they propose to use Institute facilities--they will normally be taken through the Institute. We recognize, of course, that not all proposals submitted by Institute members will be within the Institute's interdisciplinary research mission.

- back to top -