Abstract

When HCI was launched as a field, cognitive models were supposed to serve a central role in design, evaluation, and theory-formation. However, despite a decade of promising progress, that vision was never realized. Why did it fail and what could we do better now that we have modern machine learning methods?

In this talk, I discuss computational rationality, a computational theory of interaction that combines theoretical principles in cognitive sciences with machine learning in a new way. I review the key theoretical insights and advances in applications in HCI. I conclude with a discussion of where we are with cognitive models and what we need to solve to make them more broadly applicable.

Speaker

Antti Oulasvirta leads the Computational Behavior Lab (cbl.aalto.fi) at Aalto University and the Interactive AI research program at FCAI (Finnish Center for AI). Prior to joining Aalto, he was a Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics. He received his doctorate in Cognitive Science from the University of Helsinki in 2006, after which he was a Fulbright Scholar at the School of Information in University of California-Berkeley in 2007-2008 and a Senior Researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT in 2008-2011. He was awarded the ERC Starting Grant (2015-2020) for research on computational design of user interfaces and the ERC Advanced Grant (2024-2029) for studying computational models of human behavior. Dr. Oulasvirta serves as an associate editor for ACM TOCHI and has previously served International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, as well as served as a column editor for IEEE Computer. His work has been awarded the Best Paper Award and Best Paper Honorable Mention at CHI fifteen times between 2008 and 2024. He has held keynote talks at NordiCHI’14, CoDIT’14, EICS’16, IHCI’17, ICWE’19, Chinese CHI’19, and IS-EUD’23. He is a Fellow of ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems). In 2019, he was invited to the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. He was a SICSA Distinguished Visiting Fellow in 2011 and in 2022.

Time

2024.11.08 14:00-15:00 (BJT)

Venue

Zoom Meeting ID: 944 5948 9097 Passcode: HCI@GBA

https://duke.zoom.us/j/94459489097?pwd=qXdEJBofc0JXYie5lehdcZF0dc04Sk.1