Algorithms with People

New Behavioral Paradigms for Characterizing Representations

As large-scale online experiments are becoming increasingly configurable and adaptive, they blur the line between behavioral paradigms and computer algorithms. This perspective (sometimes referred to as Algorithms with People) inspires a new class of paradigms for characterizing representations. By treating representations as subjective probabilities we can design behavioral experiments that instantiate sampling algorithms from those representations. I have been involved in multiple projects that develop and leverage such paradigms for studying semantic and perceptual representations in humans and machines, including (i) Gibbs Sampling with People (Harrison* et al., 2020; Marjieh et al., 2024; Kumar et al., 2022), (ii) STEP-Tag (Marjieh et al., 2023; Marjieh et al., 2024), and (iii) Multimodal serial reproduction (Marjieh et al., 2023; Kumar* et al., 2024). For a recent summary of this approach, check out this book chapter that we recently wrote (Griffiths et al., 2024).

References

2024

Timbral effects on consonance disentangle psychoacoustic mechanisms and suggest perceptual origins for musical scales

Raja Marjieh, Peter MC Harrison, Harin Lee, and 2 more authors

Nature Communications. Listen to the experiments here , 2024

Bib HTML

@article{marjieh2024timbral,
  title = {Timbral effects on consonance disentangle psychoacoustic mechanisms and suggest perceptual origins for musical scales},
  author = {Marjieh, Raja and Harrison, Peter MC and Lee, Harin and Deligiannaki, Fotini and Jacoby, Nori},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  volume = {15},
  number = {1},
  pages = {1482},
  year = {2024},
  publisher = {Nature Publishing Group UK London},
  url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45812-z},
}

Characterizing the Large-Scale Structure of Grounded Semantic Networks

Raja Marjieh, Pol Rijn, Ilia Sucholutsky, and 3 more authors

PsyArXiv, 2024

Bib HTML

@article{PPR:PPR831252,
  title = {Characterizing the Large-Scale Structure of Grounded Semantic Networks},
  author = {Marjieh, Raja and van Rijn, Pol and Sucholutsky, Ilia and Lee, Harin and Jacoby, Nori and Griffiths, Thomas},
  journal = {PsyArXiv},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/phte5},
}

Comparing Abstraction in Humans and Machines Using Multimodal Serial Reproduction

Sreejan Kumar^*, Raja Marjieh^*, Byron Zhang, and 5 more authors

In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2024

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{kumar2024comparing,
  title = {Comparing Abstraction in Humans and Machines Using Multimodal Serial Reproduction},
  author = {Kumar, Sreejan and Marjieh, Raja and Zhang, Byron and Campbell, Declan and Hu, Michael Y and Bhatt, Umang and Lake, Brenden and Griffiths, Tom},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society},
  volume = {46},
  year = {2024},
}

Estimating Subjective Probability Distributions

Thomas L Griffiths, Adam N Sanborn, Raja Marjieh, and 3 more authors

In Bayesian Models of Cognition: Reverse Engineering the Mind, 2024

Bib HTML

@incollection{warwick180242,
  year = {2024},
  editor = {Griffiths, T. L. and Chater, Nick and Tenenbaum, Joshua B.},
  address = {Boston, MA},
  publisher = {MIT Press},
  title = {Estimating Subjective Probability Distributions},
  booktitle = {Bayesian Models of Cognition: Reverse Engineering the Mind},
  author = {Griffiths, Thomas L and Sanborn, Adam N and Marjieh, Raja and Langlois, Thomas and Xu, Jing and Jacoby, Nori},
}

2023

Words are all you need? Language as an approximation for human similarity judgments

Raja Marjieh, Pol Van Rijn, Ilia Sucholutsky, and 4 more authors

In The Eleventh International Conference on Learning Representations, 2023

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{marjieh2023words,
  title = {Words are all you need? Language as an approximation for human similarity judgments},
  author = {Marjieh, Raja and Rijn, Pol Van and Sucholutsky, Ilia and Sumers, Theodore and Lee, Harin and Griffiths, Thomas L. and Jacoby, Nori},
  booktitle = {The Eleventh International Conference on Learning Representations},
  year = {2023},
}

Analyzing Diffusion as Serial Reproduction

Raja Marjieh, Ilia Sucholutsky, Thomas A Langlois, and 2 more authors

In Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning, 2023

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{pmlr-v202-marjieh23a,
  title = {Analyzing Diffusion as Serial Reproduction},
  author = {Marjieh, Raja and Sucholutsky, Ilia and Langlois, Thomas A and Jacoby, Nori and Griffiths, Thomas L.},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning},
  pages = {24005--24019},
  year = {2023},
  volume = {202},
  series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research},
  publisher = {PMLR},
}

2022

Using natural language and program abstractions to instill human inductive biases in machines

Sreejan Kumar, Carlos G Correa, Ishita Dasgupta, and 7 more authors

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems. Outstanding Paper Award , 2022

Bib HTML

@article{kumar2022using,
  title = {Using natural language and program abstractions to instill human inductive biases in machines},
  author = {Kumar, Sreejan and Correa, Carlos G and Dasgupta, Ishita and Marjieh, Raja and Hu, Michael Y and Hawkins, Robert and Cohen, Jonathan D and Narasimhan, Karthik and Griffiths, Tom and others},
  journal = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems},
  volume = {35},
  pages = {167--180},
  year = {2022},
}

2020

Gibbs Sampling with People

Peter Harrison^*, Raja Marjieh^*, Federico Adolfi, and 5 more authors

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems. Oral Presentation , 2020

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{NEURIPS2020_7880d722,
  author = {Harrison, Peter and Marjieh, Raja and Adolfi, Federico and van Rijn, Pol and Anglada-Tort, Manuel and Tchernichovski, Ofer and Larrouy-Maestri, Pauline and Jacoby, Nori},
  booktitle = {Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems},
  title = {Gibbs Sampling with People},
  volume = {33},
  year = {2020},
}