Past Seminars 2013-2014

Winter '13 / Spring '14

 

The seminars listed below were organized by the Advanced Research and Networking (ANR) Group, sporadically, and took place in the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University of Athens. Their scope extended over various research topics in the area of computer and telecommunication networks.

 

23/5/2014

 


 

Title : Introduction to Behavioral Decision Theory

Speaker: Dr. Konstantinos Katsikopoulos,  Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin

Room: A56

Time: 14:00–17:00

 

Abstract: Behavioral decision theory investigates how people actually make decisions under realistic conditions of limited time, scarce information and finite computational resources. Behavioral decision models may, and often do, contradict the ideal models developed in normative and prescriptive disciplines such as economics, operations research, computer science and engineering. For example, people appear to use simple rules of thumb as opposed to being Bayesian optimizers of utility. This course will give you an example-based introduction to developing mathematical models of people’s rules of thumb and empirically testing these models with data from experiments with human participants. The data refer to people’s abstract economic choices as well as to concrete situations in transportation such as drivers’ route and parking choice. The course can be held in either English or Greek, as decided by the audience.

Bio: Konstantinos Katsikopoulos is a senior researcher and associate professor at the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. He holds a Ph.D. in industrial engineering and operations research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and has been a visiting assistant professor of engineering systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He works on understanding how people reason and make judgments and decisions, and on applying this understanding in order to improve human performance.