MTS is the department’s Mind, Technology, and Society speaker series. It is hosted by a different faculty member each semester. Founded by a generous gift from Professors Robert Glushko and Pamela Samuelson, MTS brings researchers and industry professionals from across the globe to present a variety of interdisciplinary work in cognitive science. See our UCMerced CogSci youtube channel for videos of past MTS talks!
CIS graduate students, faculty, and staff, and all who are interested are invited! Members of other departments at UC Merced as well as the general public are encouraged to attend. (Note: current CIS Ph.D. students are required to attend MTS each semester in residence, to fulfill their COGS 250 course requirement).
Dr. Conroy-Beam's talk will be 3-4:30pm in COB 265, presenting on "Mating in Mind: Human Mate Choice in Evolutionary and Computational Perspective".
Abstract:
Mating is at the center of our universe. With whom we fall in love affects every corner of our lives, from the mundane to the momentous. Moreover, over deep time, mate choice has been one of the most potent forces responsible for shaping who we are as a species. Yet, despite longstanding interest, our understanding of how we choose our mating partners is shockingly imprecise. In this talk, I will present a series of studies developing and testing a novel computational model of the psychology of human mate choice derived from models of reinforcement learning. Specifically, I will present evidence that this model can reconstruct existing relationships around the world, can identify happy relationships, can predict future partner choices, and can recommend successful dating partners. I argue these results underscore the importance of developing computational models of social psychology for both understanding critical social phenomena and helping people form happer social relationships.
For more information or to sign up for email announcements, please contact the talk series organizer: cis-mts-lead@lists.ucmerced.edu.
