CogSci 2026

Welcome to CogSci Conference 2026!

The 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Cognitive Science Society plans to host a fully synchronous hybrid conference for 2026 Rio de Janeiro. Therefore all presenters will have the option to present in-person in Rio, or virtually, from anywhere in the world. Similarly, attendance will be available both in-person in Rio, and virtually. Post conference, there will be an ‘on-demand’ service making all presentations accessible to all for 24 calendar months.

Letter from the President

Welcome to the 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society! I’m delighted that many members of our community have gathered here in Rio de Janeiro. This year marks the first time that the conference has been held in South America, and only the second time it has been held in the Southern Hemisphere. We are an international society, which makes it important for the conference to circulate between all of the regions in which cognitive scientists live and work.

Students are a key part of our community and this year the Cognitive Science Society (CSS) is proud to encourage student participation by providing roughly three times as many student travel awards as normal. I extend a special welcome to students and others who are attending the conference for the first time, and hope that this community will become your intellectual home and that you will be inspired to return in the future.

Attending in person is not possible for many members of our community, and the CSS remains committed to facilitating remote participation. This year’s conference is fully hybrid, and researchers from all around the world will be joining us online to present their work and listen to on-site presentations. The Japanese Cognitive Science Society has also organized a satellite event in Hamamatsu, Japan, and researchers will be gathering there on July 23 and July 24 to interact with each other and engage with material streamed from Rio.

This year’s conference is made possible by the hard work of many people. Many thanks to Gemma Boleda, Isabelle Dautriche, Mora Maldonado, Carmen Saldana, and Tiago Torrent for their tireless efforts in organizing this year’s scientific program. They have assembled an extraordinary set of invited talks and symposia and spent many hours coordinating the review process for member submissions. Thanks also to Marischal De Armond, Cendrine De Vis, Emily Heffernan Ho, Jude Ross, and Rachel Waller from Podium Conferences for their support of our society and for adeptly handling all of the logistical issues involved with the conference. Special thanks to CSS Executive Officer Stephanie Denison not only for her vital role in planning the conference but also for keeping all of the Society’s many activities on track.

The CSS Governing Board works around the year on tasks related to the conference along with initiatives related to mentorship, outreach, communications, industry, higher education, and many other areas. If you’d like to get involved, please visit us at the Governing Board poster at one of the conference poster sessions this year. Our community is also supported by the many scholars who serve on the editorial teams for the two society journals, Cognitive Science and Topics in Cognitive Science. Many thanks to all involved, and especially to the executive editors of the journals, Rick Dale and Andrea Bender.

Over the next few days I hope that you will discover new ideas, develop new collaborations, and make new friends. Thank you for your part in making this a memorable experience for all of us.

Charles Kemp President, Cognitive Science Society

About

The Cognitive Science Society brings together researchers from around the world who hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The mission of the Society is to promote Cognitive Science as a discipline, and to foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education.

The Society is a non-profit professional organization and its activities include sponsoring an annual conference and publishing the journals Cognitive Science and TopiCS.

Our History

• Society Creation
  The Society was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit professional organization in Massachusetts in 1979. The organizing committee included Roger Schank, Allan Collins, Donald Norman, and a number of other scholars from psychology, linguistics, computer science, and philosophy.
  
  
• Conference Creation
  The first conference on cognitive science was held at La Jolla, California in August, 1979, and has occurred annually since then. The proceedings of each conference are published, and those from most years are available through Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. The annual proceedings of the Cognitive Science Conference represent a major source of information on new work and new ideas in the scientific study of thinking. In 1990, the Society, with help from an anonymous donor, established the David Marr Prize for the best student paper at each annual meeting.
  
  
• Journal Creation
  The Journal, Cognitive Science, began publication in 1976, and is now published by Wiley-Blackwell. The Executive Editor is currently Richard P. Cooper of Birkbeck, University of London, and there are 18 Associate Editors and a 30-member editorial board. It serves as the premier outlet for research reports that intersect two or more disciplines. Copyrights for articles published in the journal are held by the Society. The Governing Board of the Cognitive Science Society voted in late 2006 to found a new journal, Topics in Cognitive Science (topiCS). The Editor in Chief is Wayne Gray, Cognitive Science Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The journal seeks to fill a niche not occupied by Cognitive Science Journal or other cognitive science journals. Membership in the Society includes a subscription to Cognitive Science and TopiCS. Copyrights for articles published in the journal are held by the Society.

Code of Conduct

By attending the CogSci 2026 Conference, you are required to adhere to the society’s Code of Conduct.