Program

See also Program and Abstracts.

The conference venue is the Lecture hall of the Museum of Applied Arts, Husova 14, Brno (number 1 on the map).

Thursday, October 25

10:00 – 12:30 Registration
13:30 – 14:00 Conference opening
14:00 – 15:00

Opening keynote lecture
Jesper Sørensen (University of Aarhus), “The Experimental Study of Religion – or There and Back Again”

15:00 – 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 – 17:00

Panel session I
Konrad Talmont Kaminski (University of Finance & Management in Warsaw), “Causal Opaqueness and the Ritualisation of Behaviour”
Kristoffer L. Nielbo (University of Aarhus), “Modeling Ritualized Behavior: A Dual Approach to Perception of Non-functional Event Structure”
Ulrik Lyngs (University of Oxford), “Effort, Loss Aversion, and Religious Behavior”

17:00 – 17:30 Coffee break
17:30 – 19:00

Panel Session II
Jonathan Jong (University of Oxford) and Jamin B. Halberstadt (University of Otago), “On Fear of Death and Religious Belief: Experimental Investigations of the Causal Connection”
Gordon Ingram (Bath Spa University), “Shifts in Religious Belief in Early Adolescence: Possibilities for a Neo-Piagetian Experimental Approach”
Karolina Prochownik (Jagellonian University), “Experimental Psychological Approaches in the Study of Moral Reasoning and Religious Beliefs: Implications for Evolutionary Religious Studies”

19:30 Welcome reception at the Moravian gallery (Governor’s Palace), Moravské náměstí 1a

Friday, October 26

9:00 – 10:00

Keynote lecture
Andreas Roepstorff (University of Aarhus), “Going Experimental: As Method, As Style and As Object of Study”

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee break
10:30 – 12:00

Panel session III
Daniel J. Shaw (Masaryk University), “It’s Like Looking in a Mirror”
Justin E. Lane (Oxford University), “Methods, Madness, and Multi-Agent AI”
Marc Andersen (University of Aarhus), “Maximizing Expectations: A New Experimental Approach to the Study of Religious and Spiritual Experiences”

12:00 – 14:00 Lunch break
14:00 – 15:00

Lecture of invited speaker
Emma Cohen (University of Oxford / Max Planck Institute), “Religion, Synchrony and Cooperation: A Study with Brazilian Drummers”

15:00 – 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 – 17:00

Panel session IV
Travis Chilcott (Iowa State University), “Religious Culture, Religious Practices, and Implicit Anthropomorphic Reasoning about Divine Agents: A Quasi-Experimental Ethnographic Study on the Cognitive Effects of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Religious Practices”
Martin Kanovský (Comenius University), “Cognition and Ethnography: Integrating Experimental and Ethnographic Evidence”
Jonathan Lanman (Queen’s University Belfast), “The Promise and Peril of Experiments on Ritual”

17:00 – 18:00 Poster session

Saturday, October 27

9:00 – 10:00

Keynote lecture
Pierre Liénard (University of Nevada), ”The Glorious Trinity: Cooperation, Commitment, and the Collective“, (in collaboration with M. Martinez and M. Moncrieff).

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee break
10:30 – 12:00

Panel session V
Esther Eidinow (University of Nottingham) and Tom Harrison (University of Liverpool), “Colliding Cultures: An Experimental Approach to the Study of Ancient and Modern Religions”
Eva Kundtová Klocová (Masaryk University), “Feeling the Kneeling: The Power of Body”
Michaela Porubanová-Norquist (Masaryk University), “What’s So Special about the Minimally Counter-intuitive Concepts?”

12:00 – 14:00 Lunch break
14:00 – 14:30

Lecture of plenary speaker
Dimitris Xygalatas (University of Aarhus/Masaryk University), “The Experimental Study of Religion: Are we There Yet? And Now What?”

14:30 – 15:00 Coffee break
15:00 – 17:00 “Summit” on experimental paradigms by representatives of all the leading centres/institutes: Professor Armin Geertz (University of Aarhus), Dr. William W. McCorkle Jr. (LEVYNA), Professor Ted Slingerland (University of British Columbia), Dr. Paulo Sousa (Queen’s University, Belfast), Professor Harvey Whitehouse (University of Oxford), and Dr. Dimitris Xygalatas (University of Aarhus / LEVYNA). Respondents will be professors E. Thomas Lawson (Western Michigan University), Luther H. Martin (University of Vermont) and Donald Wiebe (University of Toronto)
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