Perceptual + Cognitive Biases in Data Visualizations Talk Abstract: Your visual system can crunch vast arrays of numbers at a glance, providing the rest of your brain with critical values, statistics, and patterns needed to make decisions about your data. But that process can be derailed by biases at both the perceptual and cognitive levels. I demonstrate 3 instances of these biases that obstruct effective data communication. First, in the most frequently used graphs – lines and bars – reproductions of average values are systematically underestimated for lines, and overestimated for bars. Second, when people see correlational data, they often mistakenly also see a causal relationship. I’ll show how this error can be even worse for some types of graphs. Third, we’ve all experienced being overwhelmed by a confusing visualization. This may happen because the designer – an expert in the topic – thinks that you’d see what they see. I’ll describe a replication of this [...]

Moderator: Robert Fullilove, EdD, Professor, Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center, Associate Dean, Community and Minority AffairsDiscussants: David Bell, MD, MPH, Associate Professor for Population and Family Health Jasmine McDonald, PhD, Assistant Professor, Epidemiology Frederica Perera, DrPH, PhD, MPH, Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, Director, Columbia Center for Children's Environmental HealthAfter the event, please join us for a reception in the VEC Lobby from 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM. Initiated in 2008, Grand Rounds is a community conversation on the science, education and practice of public health. The series provides an intellectual space within which to explore national and global public health challenges and the innovative approaches needed to transform the public's health in the 21st century. Each year, we select a theme for Grand Rounds to view from multiple dimensions and disciplines. In commemoration of the grim 400th anniversary of the first Africans sold into bondage in North America, Grand Rounds will examine how [...]

Speaker: Alicia Campi, President of the Asian Political and History Association; Adjunct Professor at the Reischauer Center, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University Moderated by: Elizabeth Wishnick, Professor of Political Science at Montclair State University; Senior Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University This event will discuss Alicia Campi’s new book, Mongolia’s Foreign Policy: Navigating a New World (Lynne Rienner, April 2019). Strategically located at the crossroads of Asia, Mongolia has long attracted the attention of major world powers. How has this traditionally nomadic, but resource rich, country used a "Wolf Strategy" to establish its own place in the modern world? What challenges does it now face? Answering these questions, Alicia Campi provides a multifaceted examination of the context, formulation, and execution of contemporary Mongolian foreign policy. She elaborates on how Mongolia has navigated the attention of major world powers, including China, Russia, India, Japan, the Koreas, EU countries, and the United States, [...]

Daniel Sobelman, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Moderated by Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs, Columbia University, and Member of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies Abstract Drawing on the conflict between Israel and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip since the mid-2000s, and on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in southern Lebanon during the 1990s, this seminar will explain the dynamics and long-term strategic implications of intra-war coercion in a protracted asymmetric conflict between an established state and an emerging violent non-state actor. These dynamics help to explain the current state of play between Israel and the Gaza Strip in general, and the impact this conflict has had on Israel’s strategic environment in particular. Bio Daniel Sobelman is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also obtained his PhD. Between 2014-2017, Dr. Sobelman was a research fellow at Harvard [...]

This seminar will spotlight novel research designs that examine interdependent individuals embedded within complex relational systems, from the interactions of couples, to middle-school friendships, to parent-child dynamics. Experimental interventions are becoming an increasingly popular research methodology in the neural and social sciences. Conventionally, animal and human intervention studies try to reduce the variability and complexity of the environment as much as possible. These studies focus on independent individuals, randomly assigning each one to either an experimental condition (intervention) or control condition, and look for changes to the brain and behavior. This seminar is not about conventional intervention research. Instead, we spotlight novel research designs that examine interdependent individuals embedded within complex relational systems, from the interactions of couples, to middle-school friendships, to parent-child dynamics. Speakers: Zoe Donaldson, Assistant Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder Howard Markman, John Evans Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Co-Director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies, University of Denver [...]

Dr. Boly Barry will present on her report to the United Nations on how the right to education contributes to the prevention of atrocity crimes and mass or grave human rights violations. She is a former Minister of Education in Burkina Faso and holds a PhD in Economic History. This event is co-sponsored by Columbia University's Teachers College International and Comparative Education Program and the University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute, and the Peace Education Network (PEN) of Teachers College. Event Contact Information: Alexandra Ronco 646-745-8536 ar3923@columbia.edu

The Human Development Colloquium Series Presents: Gabriele Oettingen Professor of Psychology New York University "Overcome Obstacles"  

Jeffrey Mogil from McGill University will be speaking on October 16th, 2019. The title of his talk will be: "Pain, Sex, and Death". The Departmental Colloquia are open to the public and take place in Schermerhorn Hall, Room 614 on Wednesdays from 4:10-5:30pm. There will be an informal reception immediately following the talk in the 3rd floor rotunda area. Jeffrey Mogil will be rescheduled for SPRING 2020 Event Contact Information: Center for the Study of Muslim Societies

Joshua Cole talks about his new book, Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria (Cornell UP, 2019), that explores an episode of anti-Jewish violence in the Algerian city of Constantine on August 3-5, 1934. The Constantine riots were an important event in Algerian, French, and Jewish history but their origins have been the subject of debate and uncertainty since the moment they occurred. Joshua Cole is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Michigan and the author of The Power of Large Numbers: Population, Politics and Gender in Nineteenth-Century France. Event co-sponsored by the Knapp Family Foundation, Department of History and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) Event Contact Information: Fanny N. Guex 212-854-4482 fng2108@columbia.edu