|
Dr Philip Beaman Tel: +44 (0) 118 378 7637
My brain (handsome, eh?)
Hold the front page…!
Click on the
front-covers to follow the links for these publications. Useful Stuff: Experimental Psychology Society Quasi-academic stuff: How
interesting ….. Sherlock Holmes
& the Philosophy of Science Elementary,
my dear Watson! (or, “knowledge of philosophy- nil”) How
to go about doing things the hard way. Why
do I have this seeming obsession with incompetence, I wonder….? “I
don’t belie-eve it….!” Really not very academic stuff: 221-BBC (4 novels & 56
short stories – a record) Snooks of Bridport (great name, great hats) The mystery place (Ellery Queen) PG Wodehouse Quotation Generator Everyone on their feet,
please! Evil, it turns out, has two names… …
and the imagined village again
Theo
the Portuguese Beach Boy (7 months)
Ol’ Brown Eyes (1 yr)
Yuletide fun (2 yrs)
Little Brother Joe (1 day), Dec 2010
Da Boyz |
Welcome to the homepage for the Cognitive Science
Lab. Dr Philip Beaman,
Lab Director Senior Lecturer
(Associate Professor) in Cognitive Psychology
Some Personal Background: I graduated from Cardiff
University with a BA and PhD in Psychology (supervised by Professor Dylan
Jones OBE DSc) and an MSc in Cognitive Science (under the instruction of
Professor Steve
Payne, now in the Computer Science Department at the University of Bath).
I then worked at the Medical Research Council’s Cognitive Development Unit at
University College London as a postdoctoral research fellow for the Unit
Director, Professor John
Morton OBE FRS (now at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience) before
coming to Reading as a lecturer. What
is Cognitive Science? Cognitive Science
is the interdisciplinary study of intelligent behaviour and mental function.
The cognitive sciences are those disciplines which are interested in the
nature of mind, including (but not limited to) anthropology, artificial
intelligence, cognitive psychology, education, linguistics, neuroscience and
the philosophy of mind. The underlying idea is that solving the problem of
intelligence and intelligent behaviour requires more than one approach, with
each contributing discipline providing a particular, distinct perspective and
methodology. This laboratory primarily, but not wholly, uses methods and
techniques from experimental psychology – we also employ aspects of
behavioural economics, computational and mathematical modelling,
neuroimaging, cognitive anthropology and philosophical analysis. Main Research Focus & Collaborations: Immediate Memory: What are the factors that limit immediate
memory capacity (decay of the engram? interference between representations?)
and the consequences that limited immediate memory has for other cognitive
capabilities. Interference between representations (or processes)
is a more likely reason why immediate memory is limited than some kind of
fixed-slot model, but this is an open question. Exploratory work has involved computational modelling of individual
differences in immediate memory, in collaboration with Ian Neath and Aimée
Surprenant (Memorial University of
Newfoundland) (paper available to download from below). Auditory Attention: Work carried out
a few years ago in collaboration with Dylan Jones and Bill Macken (Cardiff University),
Dianne Berry OBE (Reading) and Tom Campbell
(University of Helsinki), examined which tasks are most susceptible to
auditory distraction. A new collaboration (involving Dylan Jones and Rob
Hughes) focuses on meaningful auditory distraction. This "irrelevant
sound effect" has obvious practical implications for the design of work
places and study areas (research ongoing in
collaboration with Nigel Holt). In collaboration with Sophie Scott and colleagues (University College London) the
neural underpinnings of selective auditory attention have been examined.
Recent conversations with Andy
Bridges (Central Queensland University) have covered attention and
lateralization of function and collaboration with Fabrice
Parmentier (Universities of Western Australia and the Balearic Islands, lucky chap)
has examined timing and rhythm in attentional
capture. Work with Tim Williams
has examined “earworms” – those irritating tunes that get stuck in your head.
People find that very interesting for some reason. High-level Cognition: All kinds of
oddities to do with actual, deliberate thought. Included in this are:
cognitive evolution, and the possibility of non-halting procedures
in cognition and other things that are more related to philosophical
background than day-to-day lab-work. More prosaically, we examine the extent
to which seemingly complex decision-making and choice behaviours can be
accounted for (or supplemented by) a collection of fairly simple rules. Many
students take the view that the mind/brain is complex but easy to understand
– We work from the opposite assumption that the operating principles of the
mind are actually quite simple but the behaviours it produces can be hard to
understand. Most of this has been in collaboration with Rachel McCloy, Caren Frosch and Philip Smith. Cognitive Engineering: The application of cognitive theory to improve the usefulness and enjoyability of what the archaeologists call “material
culture”, i.e., any kind of tool or artefact from the simplest (documents,
hand-held tools) to the most complex (computers, high-technology) Following
on from this, we have attempted to apply some simple ideas and principles
about human thought and the control of behaviour to an important social
problem – the design of carbon neutral and energy-efficient sustainable
buildings for the future. Buildings engineered to be carbon neutral on paper
are found not to be in practice, and much of this difference between the
design intention and the actual performance can be laid squarely at the door
of occupant behaviour. A Research Engineer (Richard
Tetlow) sponsored by AECOM and the EPSRC is
working on this project in collaboration with this Lab and with Abbas Elmualim, through the auspices of the Technologies
for Sustainable Built Environments (TSBE) centre at the University. Richard
was recently awarded a best student paper for a presentation on this topic by
the Chartered Institute of Building –
well done, Rich! See the “Current and on-going work” section for the latest
developments on any of these projects. Keywords for my interests include: Subject areas: cognitive
architecture, cognitive modelling, cognitive science, cognitive engineering,
experimental psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science. Topics: attention, auditory cognition,
distraction, fast and frugal heuristics, judgement (judgment) and
decision-making, short-term memory, working memory. …although as the above indicates, I’m also interested in other things
besides. Multidisciplinary centres around the University with which I am
associated, or with whom I have links: Centre for Integrative
Neuroscience & Neurodynamics (CINN) Technologies for Sustainable
Built Environments (TSBE) Centre If you are interested in a topic close to any of my
research interests (auditory distraction, immediate memory, cognitive limits and high-level cognition
(problem-solving, decision-making….)), why not get
in touch with me to discuss ideas and opportunities for study at Reading. Past Members of this
Lab: Current Students: Emily Hancock (PhD) Publications by area: Cognitive Modelling: McCloy, R., Beaman, C. P., & Smith, P.
T. (2011). The
relative success of recognition-based inference in multi-choice decisions.
In: G. Gigerenzer, R. Hertwig, & T. Pachur (Ed.s). Heuristics:
The Foundations of Adaptive Behavior. pp. 351-361. New York: Oxford
University Press. Beaman, C.
P., Smith, P. T., Frosch, C., & McCloy, R. (2010). Less-is-more effects without the
recognition heuristic. Judgment & Decision-Making, 5, 258-271. Beaman, C. P., Smith, P. T. & McCloy,
R. (2010). Less-is-more effects in knowledge-based heuristic inference. In:
S. Ohlsson & R. Catrambone
(Eds). Proceedings of the 32nd Annual
Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society Beaman, C. P., Neath, I., & Surprenant, A. M. (2008). Modeling
distributions of immediate memory effects: No strategies needed? Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 34,
219-229. [Download] McCloy, R., Beaman,
C. P., & Smith, P. T. (2008). The relative success of
recognition-based inference in multi-choice decisions. Cognitive Science, 32, 1037-1048. [A spreadsheet to calculate
the success of the recognition heuristic according to different assumptions
is available here] Beaman, C. P., Neath, I., & Surprenant, A. M.
(2007). In: D.
S. McNamara & J. G. Trafton (Eds.), Phonological similarity effects without a
phonological store: An individual differences model. Proceedings of the
29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp 89-94).
Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. [Download] Beaman, C. P. (2006). The relationship
between absolute and proportion scores of serial order memory: Simulation
predictions and empirical data. Psychonomic
Bulletin & Review, 13, 92-98. [Download] Beaman, C. P., McCloy, R., & Smith, P. T. (2006). When does ignorance
make us smart? Additional factors guiding heuristic inference. In: R. Sun
& N. Miyake (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the
Cognitive Science Society, (pp.
54-58). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. (Winner
of the 2006 Cognitive Science Society prize for best high-level cognition
model) [Download] Beaman, C. P. (2000). Computational explorations of the irrelevant sound
effect in serial short-term memory. In: L. R. Gleitman
& A. K. Joshi (Ed.s). Proceedings of the
22nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 37-41).
Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. Beaman, C. P. (2000). Neurons amongst the symbols? Behavioral
& Brain Sciences, 23, 468-470. Beaman, C. P., & Morton, J. (1998). Modelling memory-updating in 3- and
4-year olds. In: F. E. Ritter & R. M. Young (Ed.s)
Cognitive Modelling II. Nottingham: Nottingham University Press. pp.
30-35. Jones, D. M., Beaman,
C. P., & Macken, W. J. (1996). The
object-oriented episodic record model. In: S. E. Gathercole
(Ed.) Models of short-term memory. Hove: Psychology Press. pp.
209-238. Cognitive
Anthropology & Cognitive Evolution: Beaman, C. P., & Williams, T. I. (2010) Earworms (“stuck song syndrome”): Towards
a natural history of intrusive thoughts. British Journal of Psychology, 101, 637-653. [Links to ABC online and BPS Research Blog describing
this article.] Beaman, C. P. (2010). Working memory
and working attention: What could possibly evolve? Current Anthropology, 51, S27-S38. Beaman, C. P. (2007). Modern cognition
in the absence of working memory: Does the working memory account of Neandertal cognition work? Journal of Human Evolution,
52, 702-706. [Download] Beaman, C. P. & Harvey, A. J. (2005). Access to online resources: A case
study. Psychology, Learning & Teaching, 5, 47-51. Beaman, C. P. (2002). Why are we good at detecting cheaters? A reply to Fodor. Cognition, 83, 215-220. [Download] Neuroscience: Scott,
S. K., Rosen, S., Beaman, C. P., Davis, J., & Wise,
R. (2009). The neural processing of masked speech: Evidence for different
mechanisms in the left and right temporal lobes. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 125, 1737-1743. [Download] Beaman, C. P., Bridges, A. M., &
Scott, S. K. (2007). From dichotic listening to the irrelevant sound effect:
A behavioural and neuroimaging analysis of the processing of unattended
speech. Cortex, 43, 124-134. (Nominated for the 2008 BPS
Cognitive Section Prize) [Download] Hadlington, L., Bridges, A. M. & Beaman, C. P. (2006). A left-ear disadvantage for
the presentation of irrelevant sound: Manipulations of task requirements and
changing-state. Brain & Cognition, 61, 159-171. [Download] Experimental
Psychology: McCloy, R., Beaman, C. P., Frosch, C., & Goddard, K. (2010). Fast and frugal framing effects?
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 36, 1042-1052. Beaman, C. P., & Röer, J. P.
(2009). Learning and failing to
learn within immediate memory. In: N. Taatgen &
H. van Rijn (Ed.s) Proceedings of the 31st
Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive
Science Society. Beaman, C. P. & Holt, N. J.
(2007). Reverberant auditory environments: The effect of multiple echoes on
distraction by “irrelevant” speech. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21,
1077-1090. [Download] Beaman, C. P., & McCloy,
R. (2007). From base-rate to cumulative respect. Behavioral &
Brain Sciences, 30, 256-257. Frosch, C., Beaman, C. P., & McCloy, R. (2007). Deciding the price of fame. In: D. S. McNamara
& J. G. Trafton (Eds.), Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the
Cognitive Science Society. (pp 1001-1005). Austin, TX: Cognitive
Science Society. [Download] Frosch, C., Beaman,
C. P., & McCloy, R. (2007). A little learning
is a dangerous thing: An experimental demonstration of ignorance-driven
inference. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60,
1329-1336. [Link to
BPS Research Blog describing this article] Harvey, A. J., & Beaman, C. P. (2007). Input and output modality
effects in immediate serial recall. Memory, 15, 693-700. McCloy, R., Beaman,
C. P., Morgan, B., & Speed, R. (2007). Training conditional and
cumulative risk judgments: The role of frequencies, problem-structure and einstellung. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21,
325-344. [Download] Beaman, C. P. (2006). Attention and
change. Psychology Review, 12, 18-20. McCloy, R., Beaman,
C. P., & Goddard, K. (2006). Rich and famous: Recognition-based judgment
in the Sunday Times rich list. In: R. Sun & N. Miyake (Eds.) Proceedings
of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 1801-1805). Austin, TX:
Cognitive Science Society. [Download] Beaman, C. P. (2005). Auditory
distraction from low-intensity noise: A review of the consequences for
learning and workplace environments. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19,
1041-1064. Beaman, C. P. (2005). Irrelevant sound effects amongst younger and older
adults: Objective findings and subjective insights. European Journal of
Cognitive Psychology, 17, McCloy, R. & Beaman,
C. P. (2005). Problem structure and format in training conditional and
cumulative risk judgments. In: B.G. Bara, L. Barsalou,
& M. Bucciarelli (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the
Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 1449-1454). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. Beaman, C. P. (2004). The irrelevant sound phenomenon revisited: What role
for working memory capacity? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory & Cognition, 30, 1106-1118. [Download] McCloy, R. & Beaman, C. P. (2004). The
recognition heuristic: Fast and frugal but not as simple as it seems. In: K. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Regier (Ed.s). Proceedings
of the 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp 933-937). Austin, TX: Cognitive
Science Society. Beaman, C. P. (2003). Working
memory. Interview in: M. Cardwell, L. Clark & C. Meldrum. Psychology
for AS-level. Collins Educational (Reprinted, 2004, in Cardwell et al., Psychology
for A-level.) Beaman, C. P. (2002). Inverting the modality effect in serial recall. Quarterly
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55A, 371-389. Beaman, C. P. (2002). Review of "The nature of remembering". Quarterly
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55A, 1047-1049. Campbell, T., Beaman,
C. P., & Berry, D. C. (2002). Auditory memory and the irrelevant sound
effect: Further evidence for changing-state disruption. Memory, 10,
199-214.
Campbell, T., Beaman,
C. P., & Berry, D. C. (2002). Changing-state disruption of lip-reading by
irrelevant sound in perceptual and memory tasks. European Journal of
Cognitive Psychology, 14, 461-474. Beaman, C. P. (2001). The size and nature of a chunk. Behavioral
& Brain Sciences, 24, 118. Beaman, C. P., & Morton, J. (2000). The effects of rime on auditory recency and the suffix effect. European Journal of
Cognitive Psychology, 12, 223-242. Beaman, C. P., & Morton, J. (2000). The separate but related origins of
the recency and the modality effect in free recall.
Cognition, 77, B59-B65. [Download] Beaman, C. P. (1999). Memory's fragile power. Psyche, 5, http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v5/psyche-5-22-beaman.html Beaman, C. P. & Jones, D. M. (1998). Irrelevant sound disrupts order
information in free recall as in serial recall. Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 51A, 615-636. Beaman, C. P. & Jones, D. M.
(1997). The role of serial order in the irrelevant speech effect: Tests of
the changing-state hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory & Cognition, 23, 459-471. Misc: Beaman, C. P. (2007). Sherlock Holmes as a
philosopher? Elementary. Nature, 445, 593. [Download] Copyright disclaimer: Documents posted on this web site are
provided as a means of ensuring timely dissemination of scholarly and
technical work on a noncommercial basis. It is understood that anyone
accessing these documents does so only for their own personal use and will
not repost, reproduce or otherwise disseminate these documents without prior
permission from the copyright holders. Current & Ongoing Work (email
me for details)
Beaman, C. P. Cognitive
consistency within a society of mind Beaman, C. P. What is lost when
memory is overloaded? Beaman, C. P. Interesting and
rewarding aspects of the problem-space. Frosch, C., McCloy,
R., Beaman, C. P. & Goddard, K. Time to decide Marsh, J. E., Beaman, C. P., Hodgetts, H. M.,
& Jones, D. M. Input and output
modality effects in semantic auditory distraction. Parmentier, F. B. R., Elford, G., & Beaman, C. P. Varying content, not timing, of irrelevant speech stimuli disrupts verbal serial memory. Riddell, P. M., Beaman, C. P., & Gibbons, W. Discriminating visual from phonological noise as determinants of reading difficulty. Current Grants: Jones, D. M., & Beaman, C. P. (2009-2013). Auditory distraction during semantic processing: A process-oriented
view. ESRC grant ES/G027706/1,
£392,512 Other Activities: Society Membership British Psychological Society
(BPS) – Associate Fellow Society for the Study of
Artificial Intelligence & the Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) Consulting Editor: Memory
& Cognition, Psychology Review Programme Committee: Cognitive
Science 2011 (Boston, Ma., USA); Cognitive Science 2012 (Sapporo, Japan) Reviewer for the following: Journals: Acta Psychologica,
American Journal of Psychology, Applied
Cognitive Psychology, Attention,
Perception & Psychophysics, Australian
Journal of Psychology, Brain
& Cognition, Brain &
Language, Behavior Research Methods, British
Journal of Psychology, Canadian
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Revue Canadienne de Psychologie Expérimentale, CHI, Cognition,
Cognitive
Development, Consciousness & Cognition, European
Journal of Cognitive Psychology, European Journal of Psychology of
Education, Experimental
Psychology, Human Factors, Irish Journal of Psychology, Journal of
Applied Research in Memory & Cognition, Journal of
Environmental Psychology, Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Applied, Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, Journal of
Human Evolution, Journal of
Memory & Language, Memory,
Memory & Cognition,
Nature Reviews: Neuroscience,
Neuroscience
& Biobehavioral Reviews, Psychological
Science, Psychology of Music, Psychonomic Bulletin
& Review, Quarterly
Journal of Experimental Psychology, Scandinavian Journal of
Psychology, Schizophrenia
Research, Topics in
Cognitive Science. Funding Bodies: Biotechnology
& Biological Sciences Research Council, British Academy, Economic
& Social Research Council, Engineering & Physical
Sciences Research Council, Experimental
Psychology Society, Israel
Science Foundation, Leverhulme Trust, Natural Sciences & Engineering Research
Council Canada, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. Research supported by: AECOM, British
Academy, Economic & Social Research Council, Engineering &
Physical Science Research Council, Experimental Psychology Society, Leverhulme
Trust, Nuffield
Foundation, Royal
Society, Wellcome Trust. Last Updated: 18th July 2011 |
||||||
|
|||||||
