Talk by Niels Taatgen: The Skill-based Method of Modeling Human Intelligent Behavior (2023-03-15)

Humans are capable of performing many novel tasks with little or no 
instruction, contrary to machines. A possible solution -- modelling a 
set of cognitive skills that can be recombined to carry out tasks -- is 
the topic of "The Skill-based Method of Modeling Human Intelligent 
Behavior", a talk by Niels Taatgen of the University of Groningen. The 
talk is part of the 2023 Winter/Spring Lecture Series of the Austrian 
Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI).

Members of the public are cordially invited to attend the talk via Zoom 
on Wednesday, 15 March at 18:30 CET (UTC+1):

URL: 
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84282442460?pwd=NHVhQnJXOVdZTWtNcWNRQllaQWFnQT09
Meeting ID: 842 8244 2460
Passcode: 678868

Talk abstract: Humans are capable of performing many novel tasks with 
little or no instruction, contrary to machines. Unfortunately, research 
in cognitive science and psychology pays very little attention to this. 
Because of this, many cognitive models focus on exhaustively explaining 
data from single experiments, but ignore the question where that 
knowledge originates from, and how it can be reused in other contexts. A 
possible solution is to assume people have a set of cognitive skills 
that they can recombine to carry out tasks. The idea is analogous to the 
idea that words in a language can be combined in many different ways to 
create new meaning. I will demonstrate this idea using the PRIMs 
cognitive architecture, which is derived from the ACT-R architecture, 
for example with the Attentional Blink task. The model of that task only 
consists of skills taken from models of other tasks.

Speaker biography: Niels A. Taatgen is a professor of artificial 
intelligence at the University of Groningen. He holds degrees in 
computer science and psychology, and has published in the areas of 
psychology and cognitive science. Until recently, he worked as a 
research psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University, collaborating with 
John Anderson and others on the ACT-R cognitive architecture project.


-- 
Dr.-Ing. Tristan Miller, Research Scientist
Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI)
Freyung 6/6, 1010 Vienna, Austria | Tel: +43 1 5336112 12
https://logological.org/ | https://punderstanding.ofai.at/