Fernand
GOBET
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Professor of
Cognitive Psychology ESRC Research Fellow
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Centre
for the Study of Expertise
Centre for Cognition and
Neuroimaging
School of Social Sciences Email: fernand.gobet “at” brunel.ac.uk alternate email: fernand.gobet
“at” yahoo.co.uk |
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I'm running the
2012 London Marathon to fight animal cruelty! Please support me!
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PhD Opportunities
Please contact me if you are
interested in doing a PhD in my current domains of research, including:
- Psychology of expertise
- Computational modelling with the CHREST
architecture
- Modelling the acquisition of
syntax and/or vocabulary
- Foundations of computational
modelling
- Use of artificial-intelligence
techniques for semi-automatically developing scientific theories
Recent Research Funding
Economic and Social Research Council (2009-2012). Modelling the (expert) mind. (£385,024).
Economic and Social Research Council (2008-2011). Modelling the cross-linguistic pattern of verb-marking and utterance-internal omission errors in MOSAIC using syllabified input. With Julian Pine and Daniel Freudenthal. (£389,874).
The Leverhulme Trust (2008-2010). Title: Investigating the cognitive deficits that underlie specific language impairment. With Gary Jones and Julian Pine. (£101,053)
Economic and Social Research Council. PhD Studentship for Mazda Beigi (2007-2011). With Andrew Parton. (£45,000)
Brunel University. Complexity PhD Studentship (2007-2010). With Mark Atherton and Hamed Al-Raweshidy. (£54,505)
European Union: Explaining Religion (2007-2010) With Harvey Whitehouse and others. (£1,386,690)
Curriculum Vitae
Degrees
MA in
Psychology, 1986
Ph. D. in Psychology, 1992
Appointments held
2003-present. Professor of
Cognitive Psychology.
2000-2003. Allan Standen Reader in Intelligent Systems. ESRC Centre for Research in
Development, Instruction and Training,
1998-2000. Senior Research
Fellow / Lecturer. ESRC Centre for Research in Development, Instruction and
Training, Department of Psychology,
1996-98. Research Fellow /
Lecturer. ESRC Centre for Research in Development, Instruction and Training,
Department of Psychology,
1992-95. Post-doctoral
fellow,
1990-91. Visiting Researcher,
1987-89. Research assistant, Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg (Switz.)
1981-89. Co-editor of the Swiss Chess Review.
Research interests
My research spans cognitive science, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, artificial intelligence, education, and philosophy. It is centred around the development of the CHREST (Chunks Hierarchies and REtrieval STructures) architecture. CHREST has been applied to chess expertise, concept formation, the acquisition of multiple diagrammatic representations, and the acquisition of syntax and of vocabulary. I’m also interested in the methodology of developing computational models.
I'm trying to understand the mechanisms underlying the acquisition of expertise, with a special focus on learning, memory, perception and attention processes in skilled individuals. This interest in understanding expertise has also led me to research individual differences and teaching and training methods in education.
My research uses experimental investigations, computer simulations, and theoretical investigations.
Psychology of expertise
This project of studying
expertise under its various aspects has been carried out in collaboration with
the late Herbert Simon (
Main publications
Books
· Gobet, F., de Voogt, A., & Retschitzki, J. (2004). Moves in mind: The psychology of board games. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
·
de Groot, A. & Gobet, F. (1996). Perception and memory in chess.
Heuristics of the professional eye.
Assen: Van Gorcum. Contents Chapter
9; A discussion: Two authors, two different views?
· Gobet, F. (1993). Les mémoires d'un joueur d'échecs. Fribourg (Switzerland): Editions Universitaires. Contents (in French) Chapter 10: Conclusion
Articles
- Bilalić,
M., McLeod, P., & Gobet, F. (in press). Inflexibility of experts –
Reality or myth? Quantifying the Einstellung effect in chess masters.
Cognitive Psychology. Preprint
- Didierjean, A. & Gobet, F. (in press). Sherlock Holmes – An expert’s view of expertise. British Journal of Psychology. Preprint
- Gobet. F.
& Chassy, P. (in press). Towards
an alternative to Benner’s theory of expert intuition in nursing: A
discussion paper. International Journal of Nursing Studies. Preprint
- Gobet. F. & Campitelli, G. (2007). The role of
domain-specific practice, handedness and starting age in chess. Developmental
Psychology, 43, 159-172. Preprint
- Gobet, F., & Waters, A. J.
(2003). The role of constraints in expert memory. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 29,
1082–1094. Preprint
- Simon, H. A. & Gobet, F.
(2000). Expertise effects in memory recall: A reply to Vicente and Wang. Psychological
Review, 107, 593-600.Abstract
Preprint
- Gobet, F. (1998). Expert memory:
A comparison of four theories. Cognition ,
66, 115-152.Abstract
Preprint
- Gobet, F. & Simon, H. A.
(2000). Five seconds or sixty? Presentation time in expert memory.
Cognitive Science, 24, 651-682. Abstract
html
- Gobet,
F. & Simon, H. A. (1996). Templates
in Chess Memory: A Mechanism for Recalling Several Boards. Cognitive
Psychology, 31, 1-40. Abstract
- Gobet, F. & Simon, H. A.
(1996). The Roles of recognition processes and look-ahead search in
time-constrained expert problem solving: Evidence from grandmaster level
chess. Psychological Science, 7,
52-55. Abstract Preprint
Computational modelling
I believe that many theories in psychology are not expressed rigorously enough, which means that they are not testable. The best way to avoid this problem is to express theories as mathematical or computational models, and I have used the latter extensively in my research. In addition to models of expert behaviour (see above) and acquisition of language (see below), I have also developed models of concept formation, knowledge representation in law, development and ageing. In particular with Peter Lane, I have also developed new methods for developing computer modelling. Most of my modelling works uses the CHREST (Chunk Hierarchy and REtrieval STructures) cognitive architecture, which I originally developed with Herbert Simon and now am extending with Peter Lane. CHREST started as a model of chess expertise, but has now been applied to a number of domains from language acquisition to diagrammatic reasoning. In a different line of research, I have also used evolutionary computation for automatically developing computational theories.
Main publications
Methodology
Ø
Lane, P. C. R., & Gobet, F.
(2007). Developing and evaluating cognitive architectures with behavioural
tests. AAAI workshop on Evaluating Architectures for Intelligence. pdf
Ø
Gobet, F., & Parker, A. (2005).
Evolving structure-function mappings in cognitive neuroscience using genetic
programming. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 64, 231-239. Preprint
Ø
Lane, P. C. R., & Gobet, F.
(2003). Developing reproducible and comprehensible computational models. Artificial
Intelligence, 144 , 251-263. Preprint
Ø
Ritter, F. E., Shadbolt,
N. R., Elliman, D., Young, R., Gobet, F., &
Baxter, G. D. (2003). Techniques for modeling
human performance in synthetic environments: A supplementary review.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH: Human Systems Information Analysis Center.
Ø Gobet, F., & Ritter, F. E. (2000). Individual data analysis and Unified Theories of Cognition: A methodological proposal. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Cognitive Modelling, pp. 150-157. Veenendaal, The Netherlands: Universal Press. Abstract html
CHREST
Ø
Gobet, F. & Lane, P. (2005). The
CHREST architecture of cognition: Listening to empirical data. In D. Davis
(Ed.), Visions of mind: Architectures for cognition and affect. (pp. 204-224).
Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing
Ø
Gobet, F. (2001). Réseaux de discrimination en
psychologie: L'exemple de CHREST. Swiss
Journal of Psychology, 60,
264-277. Preprint
Ø Gobet, F., Lane, P. C. R., Croker, S., Cheng, P. C-H., Jones, G., Oliver, I. & Pine, J. M. (2001). Chunking mechanisms in human learning. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 5, 236-243. Abstract pdf
Ø
Gobet, F. (1996). Discrimination nets,
production systems and semantic networks: Elements of a unified framework.
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Learning Sciences.
(pp. 398-403). Evanston Il: Northwestern University. Abstract
html
All
publications on the methodology of modelling
Modelling the acquisition of
syntactic categories
This research represents an attempt to model the child's acquisition of syntactic categories. The aim of the project is to build a distributional learning mechanism that is not only capable of constructing grammatical categories, but also of doing so in a way that is consistent with recent findings in the developmental literature on the sequencing of grammatical category acquisition. In addition, this project aims at studying extensions of Simon and Feigenbaum's EPAM model, such as production system and semantic network capacities, and at applying this framework to the study of cognitive development.
Modelling the acquisition of syntactic categories
- Freudenthal, D., Pine, J. M.,
Javier Aguado-Orea, & Gobet, F. (in press).
Modelling the developmental patterning of finiteness marking in English,
Dutch, German and Spanish using MOSAIC. Cognitive Science. Preprint
- Freudenthal,
D., Pine, J. M., & Gobet, F. (2007). Understanding the developmental dynamics of subject
omission: The role of processing limitations in learning. Journal of
Child Language, 34, 83-110. Preprint
- Freudenthal,
D., Pine, J. M., & Gobet, F. (2005). Modelling the development of
children's use of optional infinitives in English and Dutch using MOSAIC. Cognitive
Science, 30, 277-310.
- Gobet, F., & Pine, J. (1997). Modeling the acquisition of syntactic categories. Proceedings of the 19th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Mawah, NJ: Erlbaum.
All publications on syntactic development
Modelling vocabulary acquisition
This research represents an attempt to model vocabulary acquisition in children. A computational model, based on Feigenbaum and Simon's EPAM theory of perception and learning, is being developed. The intention is to model both how new words are acquired and the relative distributions of categories of words acquired. In collaboration with Gary Jones and Julian Pine.
Modelling the acquisition of vocabulary
- Jones, G., Gobet, F., & Pine,
J. M. (in press). Linking working memory and long-term memory: A
computational model of the learning of new words. Developmental Science.
Preprint
All publications on vocabulary development
A computational model of learning to
solve problems with diagrams
In collaboration with Peter Cheng and Peter Lane. This project aims to build a computational model of learning to solve problems with diagrams, and has three main goals:
- Construct a model which learns internal representations based upon input perceptual patterns and output drawing actions. These representations will be used to drive a model of problem solving, e.g. taking the role of diagrammatic configuration schema.
- Test the EPAM-chunking theory for expert memory in a domain where visual patterns can be used as plans for problem solving behaviour.
- Provide a computer simulation of how human subjects learn to use AVOW diagrams.
A computational
model to learn to solve problems with diagrams
·
Lane,
P. C. R., Cheng, P. C-H. & Gobet, F. (2000). CHREST+: A simulation of how
humans learn to solve problems using diagrams. AISB Quarterly, 103,
24-30. Abstract
Preprint
· Lane, P. C. R., Cheng, P. C-H. & Gobet, F. (1999). Learning perceptual schemas to avoid the utility problem. Proceedings of the Nineteenth SGES International Conference on Knowledge Based Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge, UK. Abstract
Education
As a natural
consequence of my interests in expertise and learning, I have also carried out
research in education. Earlier in my career, I carried out investigations on
programming in Logo, and later have also done some work on reading (in
particular on reading in Thai). More recently, I have been interested in
education and training in chess, and also in showing what chunking mechanisms
can tell us about instruction methods.
Main publications
·
Gobet,
F. (2005). Chunking models of expertise: Implications for education. Applied
Cognitive Psychology, 19, 183–204.
·
Gobet,
F. & Wood, D. J. (1999). Expertise, models of learning and computer-based
tutoring. Computers and Education, 33, 189-207.Abstract
pdf
Individual differences
A somewhat
different approach to the study of expertise has been to look at individual
differences, mostly differences in intelligence and personality. Recently, with
Philippe Chassy, we have identified the rather curious phenomenon that chess
expertise shows a seasonality effect: on average, chess players tend to be born
more often in late winter and early spring than non-chessplayers.
Main publications
- Bilalić, M., McLeod, P., & Gobet, F. (in
press). Does chess need intelligence? A study with young chess players. Intelligence. Preprint
- Gobet. F. & Chassy, P. (in press). Season of birth and chess expertise. Journal of Biosocial Science. Preprint
- Gobet, F., Campitelli. G., & Waters, A. J. (2002). Rise of human intelligence: Comments on Howard (1999). Intelligence, 30, 303-311. Preprint
- Waters, A., Gobet, F., & Leyden, G. (2002).
Visuo-spatial abilities in chess players. British Journal of
Psychology, 30, 303-311. Preprint
All publications on individual differences
Last modified: 23/11/2011
