News

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.

Special guest Dr Nikita Basov recently presented a talk for the seminar Complex Human Data Hub Series. Dr Basov presented on ‘Mixed-method socio-semantic network analyses of European creative collectives’ blending qualitative, formal, and statistical socio-semantic techniques developed to shed light on the mechanisms of socio-cultural micro-dynamics in local group contexts based on unique longitudinal mixed data collected in 2011-2015 by our international team in 7 European collectives of artists.

Dr Mirko Uljarevic is a new researcher within the Complex Human Data Hub. Last week, Dr Uljarevic, with collaborators from Stanford and UC Davis, published a study on repetitive behaviors, anxiety and cognitive control in people who suffer from a rare genetic disease.

SAVE THE DATES:  1pm-2pm on the following Tuesdays: Sep 3rd, Sep 10th, Sep 17th, Oct 8th, Oct 15th

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.