Refereed Papers & Proceedings

Voiklis, J. and Corter, J. E. (2012). Conventional Wisdom: Negotiating Conventions of Reference Enhances Category Discovery. Cognitive Science.doi: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01230.x.

Collaborators generally coordinate their activities through communication, during which they readily negotiate a shared lexicon for activity-related objects. This social-pragmatic activity both recruits and affects cognitive and social-cognitive processes ranging from selective attention to perspective taking. We ask whether negotiating reference also facilitates category learning or might private verbalization yield comparable facilitation? Participants in three referential conditions learned to classify imaginary creatures according to combinations of functional features—nutritive and destructive—that implicitly defined four categories. Remote partners communicated in the Dialogue condition. In the Monologue condition, participants recorded audio descriptions for their own later use. Controls worked silently. Dialogue yielded better category learning, with wider distribution of attention. Monologue offered no benefits over working silently. We conclude that negotiating reference compels collaborators to find communicable structure in their shared activity; this social-pragmatic constraint accelerates category learning and likely provides much of the benefit recently ascribed to learning labeled categories.

Kapur, M. & Voiklis, J. (in press). Large-Scale Collective Dynamics: Theoretical and Methodological Arguments for Expanding the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) Research Agenda. Manuscript submitted for publication. (contact Manu Kapur for preprint)

Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., and Kinzer, C. K. (2008). Sensitivities to early exchange in synchronous computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) groups. Computers & Education, 51(1):54-66. (doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2007.04.007)

Kapur, M., Hung, D., Jacobson, M., Voiklis, J., Kinzer, C., & Chen Der-Thanq, V. (2007). Emergence of learning in computer-supported, large-scale collective dynamics: A research agenda. In C. A. Clark, G. Erkens, & S.Puntambekar (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference of Computer-supported Collaborative Learning, pages 323-332. Mahwah, NJ:Erlbaum. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)

Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., & Kinzer, C. (2007). Sensitivities to initial exchange in synchronous computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) groups. In C. A. Clark, G. Erkens, & S. Punteambekar (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference of Computer-supported Collaborative Learning, pages 333-343. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)

Voiklis, J., Kapur, M., Kinzer, C., and Black, J. (2006). An emergentist account of collective cognition in collaborative problem solving. In Sun, R. and Miyake, N., editors, Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 858–863, Vancouver, British Columbia. (download from Cogprints or here)

As a first step toward an emergentist theory of collective cognition in collaborative problem solving, we present a proto-theoretical account of how one might conceive and model the intersubjective processes that organize collective cognition into one or another—convergent, divergent, or tensive—cognitive regime. To explore the sufficiency of our emergentist proposal we instantiate a minimalist model of intersubjective convergence and simulate the tuning of collective cognition using data from an empirical study of small-group, collaborative problem solving. Using the results of this empirical simulation, we test a number of preliminary hypotheses with regard to patterns of interaction, how those patterns affect a cognitive regime, and how that cognitive regime affects the efficacy of a problem-solving group.

Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., and Kinzer, C. (2006). Insights into the emergence of convergence in group discussions. In Barab, S., Hay, K., and Hickey, D., editors, ICLS ’06: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Learning Sciences, pages 300–306. International Society of the Learning Sciences. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)

Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., and Kinzer, C. (2005). Problem solving as a complex, evolutionary activity: a methodological framework for analyzing problem-solving processes in a computer- supported collaborative environment. In Koschmann, T., Chan, T.-W., and Suthers, D. D., editors, Computer support for collaborative learning 2005: The Next 10 Years! , pages 252–261, Taipei, Taiwan. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)

Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., and Kinzer, C. (2005). Studying problem solving through the lens of complex systems science: A novel methodological framework for analyzing problem-solving processes. In Bara, B., Barsalou, L., and Bucciarelli, M., editors, Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 1096–1101, Stressa, Italy. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)

In Process

Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., & Kinzer, C. (in press). A complexity-grounded model of or the emergence of convergence in CSCL groups. In S. Puntambekar, G. Erkens, & C. Hmelo-Silver (Eds.), Analyzing Interactions in CSCL: Methodologies, Approaches and Issues. Springer.

Voiklis, J. and Nickerson, J.V. (under review). Revisiting “The [Social-Cognitive] Nature Of Salience”: Social-Cognitive Effort Focuses Attention on the "Next Most Obvious" Bargaining Compromise--Equal Shares.

Collaborators often invest unequal resources towards a common good. Without agreement on sharing that good, collaboration might devolve into parallel, possibly competitive, individual efforts. Reaching agreement requires bargaining. Before bargaining, collaborators independently decide how much to demand and how little to accept. These decisions constitute a tacit form of bargaining. When collaborators cannot verify a common construal of fairness, tacit agreement on equal shares offers the next-most obvious (least unfair) compromise between conflicting interests. Across two experiments, we show that reasoning to this conclusion requires more social-cognitive effort than people automatically expend. Participants played a card game with an alleged opponent and shared the resulting prize. Social-cognitive practice prior to tacit bargaining increased egalitarian proposals. Experiment 2 ruled out facilitation through general-cognitive effort or improvements in social-reasoning skills. Instead, we found that cognitive perspective-takers minimize unfairness, while affective perspective-takers seek minimal fairness. We discuss the differing implications of these motivations.

Voiklis, J. and Nickerson, J. V. (under review). Tort reform: cognitive perspective taking promotes attributions of “oblique” intent for side effects of intentional action.

A person’s actions often yield positive and/or negative side-effects in addition to directly-intended consequences. Legal opinion on negligence and recklessness attributes “oblique” intent to persons who foresee, but (intentionally) ignore, virtually certain negative side-effects of their actions. The law remains silent on any variety of intentionality for positive side-effects. In three experiments, we show that lay-people in the U.S. and India exhibit a similar asymmetry, attributing oblique intent to negative, but not positive, side-effects. Under most conditions, we show that inferring oblique intent requires increasingly skillful social reasoning. Nevertheless, priming belief-reading (as opposed to emotion-reading or cognitive reflection) can help anyone discriminate between oblique and direct intent. Priming works, we argue, because belief-reading and intention-reading both depend on cognitive (as opposed to empathic) perspective-taking. In sum, we naturalize the concept of oblique intent and socialize the debate over what aspect of individual reasoning—predictive/explanatory or evaluative--best explains mental-state attributions.

Voiklis, J. (in preparation). Happy talk: a fast and frugal measure of well-being based on online chatter.

Voiklis, J. (in preparation). Show me what I cannot show myself: deixis improves anomaly detection.

Voiklis, J. (in preparation). Perspective-taking dampens and empathy exacerbates in-group/out-group biases during tacit bargaining.

Voiklis, J. (in preparation). Perspective-taking dampens and empathy exacerbates power asymmetries and disgust during tacit bargaining.

Voiklis, J. (in preparation). Learning from predecessors dampens satisficing and pre-existing biases in discriminating friend from foe.

Presentations & Invited Talks

Voiklis, J. (2012). The pragmatics of category learning. Columbia University.

Voiklis, J. and Corter, J. E. (2011). The social pragmatics of category learning. In L. Carlson, C. Hölscher, & T. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, page 774, Austin, TX. Cognitive Science Society.

Voiklis, J. and Nickerson, J. V. (2011). Tort reform: negligence explains attributions of intentionality for negative side effects. In L. Carlson, C. Hölscher, & T. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, page 776, Austin, TX. Cognitive Science Society.

Voiklis, J. (2011). A social-pragmatic account of category learning. Columbia University.

Voiklis, J. (2010). Towards a pragmatic account of category learning. Yeshiva University.

Voiklis, J. and Nickerson, J. V. (2010). Responding to coordination problems before bargaining primes tacit agreement in distributive games. In Association for Psychological Science, 22nd Annual Convention. Boston, MA.

Voiklis, J. and Corter, J. E. (2009) Referential communication, not labeling alone, affects categorization. 50th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society. Boston, MA.

Voiklis, J. (2009). A thing is what we say it is: communication enhances category discovery. An invited talk at New York University.

Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., & Jacobson, M. J. (2009). A Complexity-Grounded Case for Integrating Computational, Quantitative, and Qualitative Methods. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.

Voiklis, J. and Corter, J. E. (2008). Cooperative categorization: Coordination of reference and categories in learning a joint prediction task. In Love, B., Mcrae, K., and Sloutsky, V., editors, Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, page 1206, Austin, TX. Cognitive Science Society.

Voiklis, J. (2006). An Active Walk through Semantic Space. Poster presented at the International Conference on Complex Systems, Boston, MA.

Voiklis, J., & Kapur, M. (2006). Two walks through problem space. Poster presented at the International Conference on Complex Systems, Boston, MA.

Ph.D. Thesis

Voiklis, J. (2008). A Thing Is What We Say It Is: Referential Communication and Indirect Category Learning. PhD thesis, Columbia University, New York.

Download from Cogprints or here.

See also: Voiklis, J. & Corter, J.E. (2008, July). Cooperative Categorization: Coordination of Reference and Categories in Learning a Joint Prediction Task. Poster presented at the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Washington, DC.

Download from Cogprints or here.