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Researcher spotlight#16 - Joshua Skewes

A short talk with Joshua Skewes about his research and role in COBE Lab.

Hi Joshua, what is your background and job role at AU?

I'm Associate Professor in Cognitive Science. I'm also Head of the Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Semiotics at Arts, and Co-Director of the Interacting Minds Centre.

I'm Australian and have degrees in psychology, philosophy, and cognitive neuroscience.  

What are your main areas of research?

My main interest is cognitive modeling. At the moment I'm working mostly on building models of how people make decisions. I'm collaborating with Hanna Thaler from Munich MPI on perceptual decision making in Autism, and with Andreas Roepstorff, Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson, and Trine Bilde from AU on agent based models of collaborative decision making in leaderless groups. You can read a pre-print of our project here

Are you involved with any teaching at the moment?

I teach on the BSc in Cognitive Science.  

How did you hear about Cognition and Behavior Lab?

I helped design the lab, and helped out in developing some of the procedures. I worked for the Human Subjects Committee for a while, and still consult with them now and then.  

Have you used the Lab? If so, what are the benefits for researchers?

I've done studies on autism and attention through the lab. It's a great place to run studies, and everything is extremely well organized. The subject pool is nice and diverse for a university pool, and the layout is appropriate for almost all kinds of behavioral research.  

Is there a particular recommendation you would like to pass on to other researchers? Something you wish you had known before you started, or just a useful trick.

Collect as much data as possible. You always need more data.
Finish projects before starting new ones!  

Could you recommend one academic book to fellow colleagues that you think is of great interest?

Michael Lee and E. J. Wagenmakers Bayesian Cognitive Modeling is always open on my desk. Fantastic resource if you want to get into Bayesian Graphical Modeling (which you should)   

Away from your research, what do you enjoy doing?

Playing with my children. Playing music when I get time. Trying to learn some French.  

Finally, which Associated Researcher would you like to see under 'Spotlight' next time?

Cordula Vesper