Course Finder

Data and the Brain: Understanding Human Behavior through Big Data

Data and the Brain: Understanding Human Behavior through Big Data


Data and the Brain: Understanding Human Behavior through Big Data

About this course

Technological advances present us with a unique opportunity to dramatically enhance our understanding of human behavior. How do people describe their thoughts, feelings, and their lives when unencumbered by the measurement biases and sampling issues inherent in psychological surveys? What can we learn by exploring the nature of the human condition, from personality, to political attitudes, to cognitive functions, to healthy or unhealthy behaviors, through the lens of Big Data?

In this course, we will discuss cutting-edge research on psychoinformatics, an interdisciplinary field where data science and technology meet the human mind. We will explore the theory and research underlying computational models of psychological processes, big data analytics and machine learning techniques for psychological data, and the social, cultural, and ethical implications of human-computer interactions.

Course Note: There will be no programming in the course, so prior experience is not required.

Syllabus

Preliminary Syllabus- Fall 2025

Go to syllabus

This is the most recent syllabus for this course

Pre-requisites

One course in neuroscience or psychology, as well as one course in research methods or data science at university level.

Faculty

Dan-Anders Jirenhed

Faculty

MSc in Cognitive Science from Linköping University (2001) and PhD in Neurophysiology from Lund University (2007). Prior to DIS, Dan worked as a Postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University in the US (2009-2011) and as a researcher and teacher at Lund University (2011-2021). With DIS since 2024.

We’ll support you every step of the way.
Do you need advice?