CWU Lecture to Take the Spin out of Spin

February 2, 2007

ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Geometric metaphors for knowledge, information, and opinion abound. Journalist and politicians talk about angles, points of view, left and right wings, and spins on information. These spatial metaphors are indicative of one aspect of human thinking.

So says Dr. Robert Sorrells, Central Washington University psychology professor.

"A wealth of cognitive and neurological studies have demonstrated that temporal, spatial, and relational information is represented structurally in the brain" he says.

Sorrells will discuss how semantic or mental space is analogous to physical and mathematical space during the next presentation in the CWU winter quarter Social Science Lecture Series. Titled "A Connectionist Model of Political Spin," Sorrells' free, public presentation is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 8, at 4 p.m., in Science Building 147.

"In politics, speakers carefully choose which ideas and their relations to stress; they spin their presentation of all of their ideas to a subset that the audience will hopefully respond to," Sorrells adds. "I have designed a computer program and a procedure for the mathematical modeling and manipulation of political spin, along with a way to measure if that spin has taken."

For more information about Sorrells' lecture, or for persons of disability to arrange for reasonable accommodation, call 509-963-2227, or (for the hearing impaired) TDD 509-963-2143.

Contact: Dr. Hong Xiao (509-963-2227/fax 509-963-1308/e-mail: xiaoh@cwu.edu)