CHDH News

CHDH members Professor Simon Dennis and Dr Paul Garrett have helped advise the Australian Government on the impact of COVID-19 on the public sentiment in relation to privacy and the widespread use of data and technology by government in responding to the public health crisis.

The effect of 'bracing for the worst' and a future to strive toward.

Simon Cropper speaks to Behind the News.

Watch CHDH director, Professor Simon Dennis, discuss recent CHDH research about privacy in the world of COVID-19 and beyond.

What aspects of privacy influence people's willingness to accept projects and policies?
Register to find out!

The Complex Human Data Hub is moving to Melbourne Connect — a new initiative that connects industry, researchers, entrepreneurs and more  — in late 2020 / early 2021.

In an increasingly technology enabled society, our ability to gather large amounts of information is no longer a luxury, but an expectation in our lives. Information that determines the choices and decisions we make; information which can be generated by highly complex means. This event in The Connected You event series showcases concepts of artificial intelligence influenced decision making, the usage and application of our personal data and the balance between benefit and risk in an increasingly digital world. Feat. - Prof Simon Dennis, Complex Human Data Hub, University of Melbourne - Assoc. Prof Tim Miller, Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics, University of Melbourne - (Moderator) Garry Williams, Melbourne Connect The Connected You event series focusses on the relationship between humans and technology and is delivered by Melbourne Connect, a forthcoming innovation precinct and ecosystem co-locating industry, research, talent and entrepreneurs to establish Melbourne as a global innovation destination. Melbourne Connect opens late 2020. Find out more by visiting melbconnect.com.au

In this study, 45% of people had already downloaded the COVIDSafe app and a further 21% indicated that they intended to. We estimated the effective usage rate of those who downloaded the app to be 61%.

New research conducted by the Complex Human Data Hub suggests that support for the Australian Government introducing immunity passports in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is decreasing. In our survey conducted 7th May 2020, 61% of Australians showed little to no support for the introduction of immunity passports once they have considered the implications of such a policy, compared to 54.5% on 15th April 2020.

In this study, 44% of people had already downloaded the COVIDSafe app and a further 15.4% indicated that they intended to. Further, 91% of COVIDSafe app users are registered & have bluetooth switched on when they leave the house.

Applications are now open for a funded three-year PhD opportunity regarding mathematical modelling of brain changes in early Alzheimer’s disease within the ARC Training Centre in Cognitive Computing for Medical Technologies. For more information please contact pmaruff@cogstate.com.

CHDH Director Professor Simon Dennis recently appeared on episode 2 of the University of Melbourne's new 6-part web series ‘Life Beyond #Coronavirus: The Expert View’ to discuss, amongst other things, new CHDH research about how many Australians may opt in to the Government's COVIDSafe smartphone app and whether the Australian public support the introduction of 'immunity passports'.

73% of Australians say they would download and use a government COVID-19 tracking app to help reduce the spread of the virus if the government could guarantee it had a 6-month expiry date. In the absence of such a guarantee, 63% of Australians say they would use the app.

New research from the Complex Human Data Hub indicates that 54.5% of Australians show either no or little support for the Australian Government instituting ‘immunity passports’ in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

79% of Australians think it is acceptable for the government to work with telecommunication companies to track who has been in contact with people who have tested positive to COVID-19. If an option is added for people to opt-out of tracking, 92% support this strategy.

Applications are now open for a phD opportunity regarding complex dynamic systems using novel quantitative methods from ecology and applied physics. Applications can be lodged online here, with further information including entry requirements described here.

Missed the inaugural Pip Pattison Oration, delivered by Professor Yoshi Kashima? Watch it in your own time here.

The Complex Human Data Hub will be hosting a lot of events before the end of the year! These include The Pip Pattison Oration, EAR, Network Modelling, Gender Bias in film Narratives, Event Models Masterclass, Complex Human Data Summer School. Details below!

Save the date for the first Pip Pattison Oration: 3pm Monday 25 November

The Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences continues to produce ground-breaking research and innovative social impact through our research, engagements and teaching initiatives. Check out the CHDH section of the recently published IMPACT.

Please join us in celebrating the exciting news that A/Prof Charles Kemp and Dr Katie Greenaway have been awarded ARC Future Fellowships.

Dr Johan Koskinen uses Bayesian models to understand organisational networks.

***Applications due October 15th, 2019***Learn the skills needed to collect complex data, model the data, and evaluate models. Lectures & laptop-based sessions will provide hands-on experience of computational tools and approaches.

Could smartphone gps data be used to predict when a person is experiencing a manic or depressive episode?

These events were titled ‘Modelling Speeded Decision Making as Diffusions in Circles and Hyperspheres’ and they presented work that generalises the diffusion model to higher dimensions.

Throughout time, humankind has looked to the stars and recounted the meaning they see. We know this is true of many cultures, in many places. But time and place have influenced those narratives and how they were passed on.

Dr Nikita Basov presented work that blends qualitative, formal, and statistical socio-semantic techniques, to shed light on mechanisms of socio-cultural micro-dynamics in artist collectives.

Dr Mirko Uljarevic published a study on repetitive behaviors, anxiety and cognitive control in people who suffer from a rare genetic disease, with collaborators from Stanford and UC Davis.

SAVE THE DATES:  1pm-2pm on the following Tuesdays: Sep 3rd, Sep 10th, Sep 17th, Nov 12th

A/Prof Daniel Little was the First speaker for the 2019 Complex Human Data Hub Seminar Series

Constellations of stars have helped us shape our own ongoing narrative and culture – creating meaning in the night sky above us that guides us in our life on the ground below.

Finding meaning in the starts is something almost all cultures across history have endeavoured to do, and many of us continue to interpret the night sky to this day.

Spearheaded by Dr Simon Cropper, the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences left an incredible footprint on National Science Week in 2019, with our most impactful contribution yet.

Do you ever get confused when you're struggling with a difficult subject, only to have everything click into place with sudden and certain clarity?

Professor Simon Dennis is leading the human research of the SWARM project that looks to improve intelligence assessments through crowd sourcing.

The Complex Human Data Hub will be sponsoring the 2020 Society for Ambulatory Assessment (SAA) conference that will be held at the University of Melbourne, Australia from January 15th to 18th, 2020.

Researchers have teamed up with the ABC to investigate the kind of sudden problem-solving insight that makes people spontaneously exclaim “yes” or “at last” or, indeed, “aha!”

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky hosted by CHDH to speak at the University of Melbourne.

In April and May of 2019 we had our inaugural R bootcamp sessions, which were run by A/Prof Amy Perfors (Deputy Director of the Complex Human Data Hub).

Associate Professor Charles Kemp uses computational models to understand how different languages organise the world into categories and what that means for our communication

The Complex Human Data Hub (CHDH) at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences recently launched a summer school to teach the relevant techniques to the next generation of researchers.

The University of Melbourne is delighted to host the 2019 Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference (AMPC19) in Melbourne, Victoria.The conference will run from February 14–16 2019.

Dr Peter Koval has been awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) and Dr Katharine Greenaway, Dr Pascal Molenberghs, Associate Professor Piers Howe and Associate Professor Charles Kemp have been awarded Discovery Projects.

We recently sat down with A/Prof Charles Kemp, who has rejoined the School after a long period in the USA.

The Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences is pleased to announce the first annual Complex Human Data summer school.

The launch of the Complex Human Data Hub is happening at 5pm Wednesday 21st of February at the Gryphon Gallery, 1888 Building. All welcome!

The Complex Human Data Hub (CHDH) in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne, is seeking a research associate for a full-time three-year fixed-term position involving the mathematical and computational study of human cognition. This full-time research-only position is not centred around a particular project, so self-starting scientists with an independent set of research interests are preferred.

The Complex Human Data Hub and Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences invites you to attend this public lecture, where cognitive scientist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky will explore the implications of the growing abundance of misinformation in the public sphere, how it influences people, and how to counter it.

The launch of the Complex Human Data Hub was a great success. I would like to thank everyone involved for the effort they put into the event. In particular, I would like to thank Cameron Fletcher and Aftab Hussain for their work organizing the venue and catering, and again to Cameron for the slide show. Professor Nick Haslam and Professor Sarah Wilson's guidance in the planning stages was also very helpful. I would also like to thank the Vice Chancellor and Dean Kapur for their insightful comments.

The recent focus on the reproducibility crisis screams for proper methodology and sound scientific practices.12 noon. Monday 26th February. Venue TBA.

Professor Newcomb is the James H. Glackin Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Temple University. She is a Canadian-American researcher in cognitive development, cognitive psychology and cognitive science, working on the development of spatial thinking and reasoning and on the development of episodic memory. She is the principal investigator of the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, one of six NSF-funded Science of Learning Centers.

Recent years have seen an explosion in the computational and mathematical study of social networks, cultural evolution, and population-level communication and change. Much of this work occurs in disparate fields, from computer science and mathematics to social psychology, cognitive science, biology, and ecology. Our common ground is a set of similar theoretical questions and common quantitative methodologies (although there are probably interesting differences even here!); we probably have less common ground when it comes to shared empirical and domain knowledge or shared vocabulary.

26th April 2018Singapore Theatre, Melbourne School of DesignThis paper longitudinally analyses how journalists at The Guardian engage with their audience in comment spaces, using an overarching quantitative analysis of comments; a content analysis of the comments by journalists; and interviews with journalists.  The paper finds that the total number of comments has risen exponentially (n=110m). Journalist participation in comments varies significantly, with a small number of "super-participants". There is a very strong pattern, with journalist comments rising rapidly until 2012, before declining quickly. Interviews find that this pattern is explained by the huge increase in the volume of comments; changes in editorial priorities; and a shift to engagement to Twitter. When journalists comment, they engage in a wide variety of actions, including arguing and debating, providing further information, correcting errors, and defending their journalism practice.

Big data and personal sensing technology are revolutionising psychology, opening new frontiers in our understanding of how our minds work and how we treat mental illness.By Andrew Trounson, University of MelbourneRead more ...

People learn and reason about animals, spatial relations, kinsfolk, and many other domains, and solve a broad range of inductive problems within each of these domains.  The full set of domains and the full set of inductive problems within these domains can be collectively described as the conceptual universe. I will present a systematic characterization of the conceptual universe that helps to clarify the relationships between familiar inductive problems such as property induction, categorization, and stimulus generalization, and that introduces new inductive problems for psychological investigation. I will illustrate the framework using case studies that include behavioral and computational studies of generalization, discovery and identification.

Jeff Zacks will be speaking at 12 noon Friday 23rd February.Venue: TBA

The School welcomes Professor Simon Dennis and Associate Professor Amy Perfors, as the inaugural Director and Deputy Director of our new Complex Human Data Research Hub.

Simon Dennis recently featured in a Computer World article, where he discussed the work of the Complex Human Data Hub. You can view the full article on the Computer World website.

The Complex Human Data Hub is hosting the 2nd workshop to prepare for the Centre of Excellence in Complex Behevioural Dynamics bid.