Research

In early 2008 I started a PhD at the University of Adelaide’s School of Psychology, under the supervision of Dan Navarro and Amy Perfors.  The work I do is probably best categorised as Computational Cognitive Science.  I use computers and mathematics to try to shed light on how the human mind works.  It’s a little bit like artificial intelligence in reverse, trying to figure out how a pre-existing intelligent machine works, rather than trying to build an intelligent machine from scratch.  It has nothing to do with most people’s intuitive idea of what psychology is, which is mostly people skills and psuedoscience.

Before getting into CompCogSci, I completed an honours degree in Pure Mathematics at Adelaide.  I was (and still am!) interested in computational number theory and algebra, particularly applications to cryptography.

Research interests

Broad interests

At the broadest level, I am interested in explaining the two faculties of human cognition which I think are the most uniquely characteristic of Homo sapiens: the faculty of language and the faculty of “intuitive science”.  By the latter I mean the ability to form theories which can explain and predict the things that happen around us in terms of abstract properties and principles.  This is something of a “meta faculty”, which groups together more familiar topics in cognitive science like categorisation, learning latent classes and structures, and forming theories of causality.

My preferred approach to these two problems can be characterised by three things:

  • Using formal mathematical models and computer simulations as primary tools, not intuitive and verbally specified ideas.
  • An interest in high-level, unifying principles which can explain many aspects of these cognitive faculties at once, e.g. the Uniform Information Density hypothesis in language, or Minimum Description Length in inductive inference.
  • An interest in explaining not just how our cognitive faculties work, but how they got to be that way, i.e. explaining the evolutionary emergence of cognition.  This goal has proven somewhat controversial, but to me it seems an obvious consequence of rejecting dualistic theories of mind and accepting facts of modern biology.

Specific interests

  • Language acquisition, particularly solving the infamous “poverty of the stimulus” problem with better statistical learning algorithms and also by extending the scope of “the stimulus” beyond the traditional notion (which I call “words in a vacuum”), so that it includes non-linguistic data from the physical and social worlds.
  • Language universals, particularly the prospect of explaining them as near-optimal solutions to information theoretic problems and/or adaptations to non-linguistic aspects of the world.
  • The dynamics of iterated learning/cultural evolution, and their application to language universals.
  • Learning latent structures in relational data.
  • Just about anything involving non-parametric and/or hierarchical Bayesian modelling.

Publications

Presentations

<p>Here's more information about me than anyone is ever likely to want to know...</p>
<h2>In a nutshell</h2>
<p>I am a young computer, maths and physics geek living in suburban South
Australia with my wife Kirsty and two cats.  I am <a href="/research.html">working on a PhD</a> in
computational cognitive science at the University of Adelaide (studying a range
of questions on language learning and use), while doing web application
development part-time for <a href="http://www.thirty4.com.au/">Thirty4 Interactive</a>.
Before that I did software development and customer data analytics stuff
at <a href="http://www.mnetcorporation.com.au">m.Net corporation</a>, Australia's leading
mobile solution comapny, which was a very cool place to work.</p>
<p>I listen to heavy metal, read science fiction (cyberpunk especially) and occasionally fantasy,
play <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game">RPG</a>s (on the PC, PS2, or with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_dragons">pencil, paper and dice</a>) and enjoy anime and manga.  I
have a strange fascination with abandoned places, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl">Chernobyl</a>
or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashima_Island">Hashima Island</a>, which scales
right down to abandoned buildings and cemeteries.  I love travelling, but spend
a lot more time fantasising about being able to afford it than doing it.  I am
slowly accumulating some sort of competence at speaking German and (less so) Japanese.
Random on-again off-again interests include Buddhism (particularly Zen), genealogy,
martial arts (particularly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iaido">iaido</a>) and associated philosophy (e.g. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido">bushido</a>) and meteorology.  If there was an English word that captured the
Swedish concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fika">Fika</a>, I'd be right into
that, too.</p>
<h2>Education</h2>
<p>I hold a "vanilla" Bachelor of Mathematical and Computer Sciences (B Ma. &amp;
Comp. Sci.) in Applied and Pure Mathematics, and an honours B Ma. &amp; Comp.
Sci. in Pure Mathematics, both from the <a href="http://www.adelaide.edu.au">University of Adelaide</a>
in South Australia.  My main interests were in computational algebra and
computational number theory, in particular their applications to cryptography /
information security.  Just about anything else with relevance to crytpography
is of interest too, with the exception of finite/projective geometry, which I
inexplicably seem completely incapable of enjoying (and am lousy at).  I'm also
interested in, but less well-versed in, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamical_systems">dynamical systems</a>
and associated ideas (like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory">chaos</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system">complexity</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence">emergence</a>), the numerical solution of
differential equations, and statistical / probabilistic modelling.  You can
read some things I've written on mathematics, including my honours thesis, on
my <a href="/writings.html">writings page</a>, and find some mathematical software I've
written on my <a href="/software/">free software page</a>.</p>
<h2>Computers</h2>
<p>I have been constantly fascinated by computers ever since my parents
bought a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64">Commodore 64</a> when I was very young.
These days I work almost exclusively with i386 machines (though I casually
collect "retro" machines from the days of Commodore, Atari and Amiga),
running Unix-like operating systems.  My love of Unix started in 2000 with
RedHat Linux 5.1 and continues today with my use of <a href="http://www.netbsd.org">NetBSD</a>.
I am a firm believer in the Unix philosophy and Unix traditions and stick to
there where I can.</p>
<p>I am a self-taught programmer who likes to write code when he can, for both fun
and profit.  I have varying degrees of familiarity and experience with the
languages C, <a href="http://www.java.com">Java</a>, <a href="http://www.perl.org">Perl</a> and
<a href="http://www.php.net">PHP</a>, but am most proficient and feel most at home
with <a href="http://www.python.org">Python</a>.  You can download software I've
written from my <a href="/software/">free software page</a> - I am a strong
supporter of free software (think "free speech", not "free beer") and
all of my software which you can download from this site is licensed
under the extremely liberal <a href="/software/bsdlicense.txt">BSD license</a>.</p>
<p>As for what I actually <i>do</i> with computers, some of my main interests are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Artificial intelligence and machine learning</li>
<li>IPv6</li>
<li>Security (network, application and data)</li>
<li>The Semantic Web</li>
<li>Numerical methods and simulation</li>
<li>Parallel and distributed computing</li>
</ul>
<h2>Music, Films and Literature</h2>
<p>I listen pretty much exclusively to music of the metal genre, but to be
clear I hate the rasping/screaming style of singing most people associate with
metal.  Most of what I listen to can generally be considered to fall under at
least one of categories "power metal", "symphonic metal" or "epic metal", with
a few exceptions.  Themes of fantasy and medieval combat are prevalent.  You
can find a list of <a href="links.html#music">links to band websites</a> on my
<a href="links.html">links page</a>.</p>
<p>I like anime and manga a lot.  I tend to be drawn to the more serious stuff,
and some of my favourites are Evangelion, Death Note, anything to do with Ghost in the
Shell, Hellsing, Last Exile and the Patlabor movies, but I also enjoy a lot of
biazrre commedies, like Azumanga Daoih, Excel Saga, Love Hina, Lucky Star and
the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  You can find a complete list of what I've
seen <a href="http://myanimelist.net/animelist/lmaurits">here</a>.</p>
<p>Some of my favourite live action films are <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0083658/">Blade Runner</a>, <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0057012/">Dr Strangelove</a>,
<a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0120907/">Existenz</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/">Fight Club</a>, <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0105435/">Sneakers</a>, the <i>original</i> Star Wars trilogy, and <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0086567/">Wargames</a>.  I
like Japanese monster movies which are so bad they're good, like anything
starring <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0059080/">Gamera</a> (everyone's favourite jet-propelled, child-protecting giant turtle),
and also the cult-classic samurai series <a href="http://imdb.com/title/tt0068815/">Lone Wolf with Club</a>.</p>
<p>Most of what I read can be considered science fiction, or more specifically
"cyberpunk".  William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson are favourites.
I have very recently been introduced to fantasy fiction by way of David Edding's
<i>The Belgariad</i> series, as recommended by my wife, and Jack Vance's
<i>Tales of the Dying Earth</i> as recommended by a co-worker.  Sci-fi is still
number one.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, what I probably consider to be my all time favourite book doesn't
fit into either of these categories, that being Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's <i>The
First Circle</i>.</p>
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