After two decades of success in neuroimaging, there is growing interest in achieving a more precise characterization of behavioral data in psychological experiments. This approach aims to provide a deeper understanding of how experimental manipulations affect behavior, and potentially the brain, beyond the important but somewhat limited information offered by mean reaction times and error rates.
The II Workshop on Computational Modeling of Behavioral Data (CMB) builds on the success of its inaugural edition, which brought together researchers from diverse backgrounds and promoted the exchange of cutting-edge knowledge in computational modeling of behavioral data. This second edition will further establish the workshop as a key platform for early-career researchers seeking to develop expertise in computational modeling techniques in cognitive science.
We especially encourage applications from people from groups underrepresented in computational modeling, as well as from those with non-traditional academic backgrounds.
All materials are available on the GitHub repository and on the workshop website.
Schedule
| Day | Time | Activity | Speaker | Material |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 9 | 9:00-9:30 | Registration and opening remarks | Carlos & Javier | Slides |
| 9:30-10:00 | Introduction to computational models on decision making | Carlos | Slides | |
| 10:00-11:00 | Drift-diffusion models | Mehdi | Slides, Code | |
| 11:00-11:30 | Coffee break | |||
| 11:30-13:30 | Hands-on session on drift-diffusion models | Mehdi | Slides, Code | |
| 13:30-15:00 | Lunch break | |||
| 15:00-15:30 | Introduction to computational models of reinforcement learning (RL) | Fran | Slides | |
| 15:30-16:30 | RL - Basic concepts | Francesco | Slides, Code | |
| 16:30-17:00 | Coffee break | |||
| 17:00-19:00 | RL - Model fitting | Francesco | Slides, Code | |
| June 10 | 9:00-9:30 | Introduction to Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) | Javier | Slides |
| 9:30-11:00 | DNNs | Juan Eloy | Slides 1, Slides 2, Code | |
| 11:00-11:30 | Coffee break | |||
| 11:30-13:30 | Hands-on session on DNNs | Juan Eloy | Code | |
| 13:30-14:00 | Closing remarks | Carlos & Javier |
Applications
The workshop is open and free of charge to early-career researchers (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) who are members of SEPEX and/or SEPNECA. Applications can be submitted here.
PhD students from outside Granada may apply for 100€ travel grants thanks to the generous support of SEPNECA and SEPEX. Please check the application section for more information.
I am a member of SEPEX or SEPNECA
Please complete your application here.
Please also indicate whether you would like to apply for a travel grant. The grant amount is expected to be around 100 euros.
I am not a member of SEPEX or SEPNECA
Please consider joining one of the two associations. You can find more information about SEPEX here and about SEPNECA here.
Are any programming skills required to attend the workshop?
No. The workshop is designed to be accessible to all early-career researchers, regardless of their programming background. However, basic knowledge of R or Python will be helpful for the hands-on sessions. If you would like to assess whether you are ready for these sessions, consider the following problem and whether you could solve it in R or Python in 10–15 minutes (without using ChatGPT or similar tools):
Write a script that loads different .csv files corresponding to the data of different participants of your experiment. Merge them into a single dataframe. Group the data by participant and condition, and calculate the mean and standard deviation of the reaction times for each participant. Plot the mean and standard deviation of the reaction times for each participant and condition, and save the plot as a .png file.