Neil Bramley

Reader

  • Psychology
  • School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
  • College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Contact details

Address

Street

Room S40, Psychology Building

City
7 George Square, Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9JZ

Availability

Biography

Background

I am interested in higher level cognition, particularly how people represent the world and think about its alternatives, plus how they use these abilities to plan, imagine, explain, blame and solve problems. I generally use interactive online experiments and games combined with computational modelling to investigate these issues.

CV

PDF icon 92393.pdf

Qualifications

PhD Experimental Psychology; MRes Computer Science; MSc Cognitive & Decision Sciences; MA (Hons) Philosophy

Responsibilities & affiliations

Currently Director of Data and Open Research for School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences (2023-2026)

Previously Marketing Officer for Psychology Department (2019-2022)

Undergraduate teaching

I teach PSYL10160 Causal Cognition (http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/24-25/dpt/cxpsyl10160.htm) and Psychology General Tutorials.

 

 

Postgraduate teaching

I teach INFR11210 Seminar in Cognitive Modelling (http://www.drps.ed.ac.uk/23-24/dpt/cxinfr11210.htm).

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I am keen to supervise MSc and PhD students interested in cognitive science related topics

Current PhD students supervised

PhD primary

  • Stephanie Droop (funded by CDT in NLP, expected 2025)

  • Nicolas Navarre (funded by CDT in NLP, expect 2027)

  • Cyril Birks (funded by CDT in DRNLP, expect 2029)

PhD secondary

  • Ella Markham (funded by NLP CDT, expected 2026)
  • Ruaridh Mon-Williams (funded by Robitics CDT, expected 2026)
  • Max Taylor-Davies (Edinburgh, Robotics CDT)
  • Fahd Yasin (expected 2025)

PhD tertiary

  • Victor Btesh (UCL, expected 2025)
  • Susanne Haridi (Mac Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, expected 2025)

Past PhD students supervised

PhD primary

  • Jan-Philipp Fränken (funded by Studienstiftung, graduated 2022 -> Research Scientist at Deep Mind)

  • Bonan Zhao (funded by CAHSS, graduated 2023 -> Postdoc at Princeton with Tom Griffiths & Nadia Vélez -> Faculty position Edinburgh ILCC)

  • Tianwei Gong (funded by PPLS, graduated 2023 [winning $10,000 Glushko dissertation prize] -> Postdoc at Edinburgh -> British Academy Postdoc at UCL)

PhD secondary

  • Simon Valentin (funded by ILCC, Data Scientist at Amazon)

  • Yuan Meng (Berkeley, graduated 2022)

Research summary

Computational cognitive science. The goal of my research is to better understand the algorithms, processes and representations that underpin human intelligence. I generally approach this by developing computational theories of human learning representation and control, designing challenging and interactive tasks that distill elements of the challenges faced by natural cognition (see Demos) and having people and my models attempt to solve them. By comparing the behaviour of models to that of people, I try to gain insight into the mechanisms that people use to to solve problems and adapt their behaviour. As well as helping to understand human intelligence, insights from my research inform the development of artificial systems capable of learning and behaving in more flexible and human-like ways.

Causal cognition, active learning, hypothesis generation, control, judgment and decision making, resource rationality, game theory, optimal teaching, iterated learning, rational analysis, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science (see Research)

Current project grants

EPSRC New Investigator Grant investigating Computational Constructivism: The Algorithmic Basis of Discovery (2021-2024)

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