Rapid progress is being made in understanding how the human brain responds to risk and uncertainty in several distinct scientific disciplines. Unfortunately, the lack of interaction between risk researchers across fields has hampered the spread of important new insights. Strategies for Risk Communication: Evolution, Evidence and Experience, is a symposium bringing together scholars in risk communication, risk perception, the evolutionary social sciences, and neuroscience and functional brain imaging. These researchers will explain recent findings and emerging ideas regarding the mental calculators that humans use to reckon about risks, explore their evolutionary origins, and examine their proximate neurological bases. Attendees will include ten invited speakers and up to 80 other participants. This cross-disciplinary interaction will encourage collaborations between already productive scientists, foster new ideas, promote low-cost synergism between laboratories and researchers with complimentary capacities, and make current research results accessible to policy makers and the general public. Symposium proceedings will form the kernel of an edited volume intended to advance the frontier of risk communication science and provide an active agenda for future collaborative research.
