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UID:564@fds.yale.edu
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230503T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230503T170000
DTSTAMP:20250916T142122Z
URL:https://fds.yale.edu/events/fds-seminar-wei-ji-ma-process-models-of-co
 mplex-mental-computation/
SUMMARY:FDS Seminar: Wei Ji Ma\, "Process models of complex mental computat
 ion"
DESCRIPTION:"Process models of complex mental computation"\n\n\nSpeaker: We
 i Ji MaProfessor of Neural Science and PsychologyCenter for Neural Science
 New York University\n\n\n\nLocation: 211 Mason or remotely via Panopto: ht
 tps://yale.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=77784297-c06b-4
 41e-b2d8-af93011fd6e8\n\n\n\nAbstract: Computational cognitive models comm
 it to a sequence of steps in which an observer/agent mentally processes in
 formation leading up to a behavioral response. Typically\, both the model 
 parameters and the model structure have to be inferred solely from stimulu
 s-response pairs. For more complex mental computations\, these inferences 
 tend to be more challenging\, yet potentially yield greater insights. I wi
 ll illustrate this using two examples from disparate domains. In the first
  study\, we test whether people perform unconscious Bayesian inference in 
 visual search\, specifically\, whether they marginalize over nuisance vari
 ables. In the second study\, we model human planning in a two-player board
  game using a “humanized” variant of best-first search. I will describ
 e the methodological challenges associated with unbiased estimation of log
  likelihoods and with parameter fitting\, and our proposed solutions. \n\
 n\n\nSpeaker bio: Wei Ji Ma is Professor of Neural Science and Psychology 
 at NYU. His lab studies decision-making in planning\, social cognition\, w
 orking memory\, perception\, and attention\, using a combination of human 
 behavioral experiments\, computational modeling\, and - through collaborat
 ions - electrophysiology and neuroimaging. Wei Ji grew up in the Netherlan
 ds and received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Groningen. He 
 continued as a postdoc in computational neuroscience\, first with Christof
  Koch at Caltech and then with Alexandre Pouget at the University of Roche
 ster. He was Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medi
 cine from 2008 to 2013. He has been at NYU since 2013. He has affiliate ap
 pointments in the Neuroscience Institute\, the Institute for the Study of 
 Decision Making\, the Center for Data Science\, and the Center for Experim
 ental Social Science\, and is Collaborating Faculty of the NYU-ECNU Instit
 ute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai. With Xiao-Jing Wang\, 
 Wei Ji is Program Director of the NIH-funded Training Program in Computati
 onal Neuroscience at NYU. Moreover\, Wei Ji is active in mentorship\, comm
 unity-building\, and outreach. He is a founding member of the Scientist Ac
 tion and Advocacy Network and of NeuWrite NYU. Wei Ji co-founded and leads
  the Growing up in Science seminar series\, in which scientists tell their
  "unofficial stories". Read or listen to Wei Ji's own unofficial story. Be
 sides his academic work\, Wei Ji is the co-founder of the Rural China Educ
 ation Foundation.\n\n\n\nHosted by John Lafferty\n
CATEGORIES:FDS Events,Seminar Series
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