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.
Syllabus
Prerequisites
One course in neuroscience or psychology, as well as one course in research methods or data science at university level.
Course note
There will be no programming in this course, so prior experience is not required.
This course was originally called Data and the Brain: Understanding Human Behavior Through Big Data. Starting in Spring 2027, the course title will be Psychoinformatics: Big Data, Big Brains.
