Jim Davies (cognitive scientist)

Last updated
Jim Davies
Nationality American, Canadian
Citizenship United States, Canada
Alma materSUNY Oswego, Georgia Tech
Scientific career
Fields Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence
InstitutionsCarleton University
Doctoral advisor Ashok K. Goel, Nancy J. Nersessian

Jim Davies is an American/Canadian cognitive scientist, playwright, artist, and author. [1] He received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from the State University of New York at Oswego, his masters in psychology and his Ph.D. in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a full professor of Cognitive Science at the Institute of Cognitive Science and the School of Computer Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario where he is the director of the Science of Imagination Laboratory. [2] [3] His research focuses on visual reasoning, analogy, and imagination.

Contents

Biography

Jim Davies was born in Glens Falls, New York. He attended Lake George High School and then majored in philosophy at the State University of New York at Oswego, during which he was an exchange student in Beijing, graduating in 1993. [4] He worked in automated text retrieval at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. Timothy Thomas before attending graduate school at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received his M.S. in psychology in 1997 under the advisement of Dr. Dorrit Billman. He also received his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in 2004, under the advisement of philosopher of science Nancy J. Nersessian and artificial intelligence researcher Ashok K. Goel. [4] [5] He worked in bioinformatics as a postdoctoral fellow at Queen's University with Dr. Janice Glasgow and is currently a professor at the Department of Cognitive Science at Carleton University.

Research

Davies studies imagination through the use of computer simulations of visual imagination, which attempt to model the results of studies of how humans typically imagine visual scenes. [6] In addition to his work at the Science of Imagination Laboratory, Davies is editor of the Cognitive Science Summary website [7] and is on the editorial board of The Open Artificial Intelligence Journal. [8] He presented a TEDxCarletonU talk on his research at Carleton on March 30, 2010 [9] and another at Google on August 8, 2010. [10] He has published three books of popular science: Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe (2014)., [1] Imagination: The Science of Your Mind's Greatest Power (2019), and Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are: The Science of a Better You (2021).

Art

Davies is also a comic improvisor, playwright and theater director. He helped found the VisionQuest theater company, [11] cited as one of the best new theater troupes in Atlanta, [12] and for whom he directed The Devil and Ben Jones. [13] As a playwright, his plays include Medea: The Fury [14] and Read It Twice... It's Real, concerning falling in love with robots, was produced by the Sock 'n' Buskin Theatre Company. [15] He was also involved in improv in Atlanta [16] and Kingston [17] and was in a troupe in Ottawa. [18] His serialized fiction, Eve Pixiedrowner and the Micean Council, appears monthly in Altered Reality Magazine.

Davies is also a visual artist focusing on non-orthodox calligraphy [19] and Pac-Man art. [20]

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Improvisational theatre</span> Theatrical genre featuring unscripted performance

Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script.

Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen – but it is also related to both the old French word "emprouer" and the English "improve", to improve. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of improvisation can apply to many different faculties, across all artistic, scientific, physical, cognitive, academic, and non-academic disciplines; see Applied improvisation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Analogy</span> Cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another

Analogy is a comparison or correspondence between two things because of a third element that they are considered to share.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laughter</span> Expression of amusement

Laughter is a pleasant physical reaction and emotion consisting usually of rhythmical, often audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to certain external or internal stimuli. Laughter can rise from such activities as being tickled, or from humorous stories or thoughts. Most commonly, it is considered an auditory expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, mirth, happiness, or relief. On some occasions, however, it may be caused by contrary emotional states such as embarrassment, surprise, or confusion such as nervous laughter or courtesy laugh. Age, gender, education, language, and culture are all indicators as to whether a person will experience laughter in a given situation. Other than humans, some other species of primate show laughter-like vocalizations in response to physical contact such as wrestling, play chasing or tickling.

In the philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and cognitive science, a mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of "perceiving" some object, event, or scene but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses. There are sometimes episodes, particularly on falling asleep and waking up, when the mental imagery may be dynamic, phantasmagoric, and involuntary in character, repeatedly presenting identifiable objects or actions, spilling over from waking events, or defying perception, presenting a kaleidoscopic field, in which no distinct object can be discerned. Mental imagery can sometimes produce the same effects as would be produced by the behavior or experience imagined.

Witzelsucht is a set of pure and rare neurological symptoms characterized by a tendency to make puns, or tell inappropriate jokes or pointless stories in socially inappropriate situations. It makes one unable to read sarcasm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Birbiglia</span> American comedian, actor, director, producer, and writer

Mike Birbiglia is an American stand-up comedian, actor, storyteller, director, producer and writer. He is a frequent contributor to This American Life and The Moth, and has released several comedy albums and television specials. His feature-length directorial debut Sleepwalk with Me (2012), based on his one-man show of the same name and in which he also starred, won awards at the Sundance and Nantucket film festivals. He also wrote, directed, and starred in the comedy-drama Don't Think Twice (2016). His 2010 book Sleepwalk with Me and Other Painfully True Stories was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the 2011 Thurber Prize for American Humor. Birbiglia has appeared in films such as Your Sister's Sister (2011), Cedar Rapids (2011), and Trainwreck (2015), played a recurring role in Orange Is the New Black, Billions and has guest starred in episodes of Girls, Inside Amy Schumer, and Broad City. He also replaced Jimmy Kimmel on his talk show for a week, as Kimmel caught COVID-19.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Shepard</span> American psychologist (1929–2020)

Roger Newland Shepard was an American cognitive scientist and author of the "universal law of generalization" (1987). He was considered a father of research on spatial relations. He studied mental rotation, and was an inventor of non-metric multidimensional scaling, a method for representing certain kinds of statistical data in a graphical form that can be comprehended by humans. The optical illusion called Shepard tables and the auditory illusion called Shepard tones are named for him.

The Whole World Theatre is an improvisational theatre located in Atlanta, Georgia.

"The Secret" is the thirteenth episode of the second season of the American comedy television series The Office and the show's nineteenth episode overall. It was written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky and directed by Dennie Gordon. The episode first aired on January 19, 2006 on NBC.

<i>Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose</i> 2006 studio album by Meat Loaf

Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose is the ninth studio album by Meat Loaf, and the third and final album in the Bat Out of Hell trilogy. It was released in Ireland on October 20, 2006, 29 years after Bat Out of Hell (1977), and 13 years after Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell (1993). It was released in the UK on October 23, 2006, and in the US on October 31, 2006.

Jim David is an American stand-up comedian, actor and writer. He is originally from Asheville, North Carolina, and lives in New York City.

Zenon Walter Pylyshyn was a Canadian cognitive scientist and philosopher. He was a Canada Council Senior Fellow from 1963 to 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Imagination</span> Creative ability

Imagination is the production of sensations, feelings and thoughts informing oneself. These experiences can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes. Imagination helps apply knowledge to solve problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process. As a way of building theory, it is called "disciplined imagination". A way of training imagination is by listening to storytelling (narrative), in which the exactness of the chosen words is how it can "evoke worlds".

It has been said that many benefits that come with experiencing laughter and mirth. But why do we experience this emotional expression? There are many theories of humor which attempt to explain what humor is, what social functions it serves, and what would be considered humorous. Although various classical theories of humor and laughter may be found, in contemporary academic literature, three theories of humor appear repeatedly: relief theory, superiority theory, and incongruity theory. These theories are used as building blocks for the rest of the theories. Among current humor researchers, there has yet to be a consensus about which of these three theories of humor is most viable. Proponents of each one originally claimed their theory to be capable of explaining all cases of humor. However, they now acknowledge that although each theory generally covers its area of focus, many instances of humor can be explained by more than one theory. Similarly, one view holds that theories have a combinative effect; Jeroen Vandaele claims that incongruity and superiority theories describe complementary mechanisms that together create humor.

<i>The Act of Creation</i>

The Act of Creation is a 1964 book by Arthur Koestler. It is a study of the processes of discovery, invention, imagination and creativity in humour, science, and the arts. It lays out Koestler's attempt to develop an elaborate general theory of human creativity.

Robert M. French is a research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. He is currently at the University of Burgundy in Dijon. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, where he worked with Douglas Hofstadter on the Tabletop computational cognitive model. He specializes in cognitive science and has made an extensive study of the process of analogy-making.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arts in Atlanta</span> Cultural resources in Atlanta

The arts in Atlanta are well-represented, with a prominent presence in music, fine art, and theater.

Aphantasia is the inability to create mental imagery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashok Goel</span> Indian-American computer scientist

Ashok K. Goel is a professor of computer science and human-centered computing in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, and the chief scientist with Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities. He conducts research into cognitive systems at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cognitive science with a focus on computational design and creativity. Goel is also the executive director of National Science Foundation's AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education and an editor emeritus of AAAI's AI Magazine.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Davies, J (2014-08-05). Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN   978-1-1372-7901-9.
  2. ↑ "Jim Davies:Carleton University".
  3. ↑ "Science of Imagination Laboratory".
  4. 1 2 "Jim Davies CV". Jim Davies. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
  5. ↑ "Jim Davies". Carleton University . Retrieved 2011-07-13.
  6. ↑ TEDx Spreads Worthy Ideas
  7. ↑ "Cognitive Science Summaries".
  8. ↑ "Open Artificial Intelligence Journal". Archived from the original on 2010-06-16.
  9. ↑ "Jim Davies TEDx Talk". YouTube .
  10. ↑ "Jim Davies Google Talk". YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-15.
  11. ↑ Holman, C (2003-08-02). "Incubation period". Creative Loafing (Atlanta) .
  12. ↑ "Best up-and-coming theater". Creative Loafing (Atlanta) . 2002-10-16.
  13. ↑ "The Devil and Ben Jones". TheaterReview.com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-16.
  14. ↑ Holman, C (2004-01-15). "The Greek system". Creative Loafing (Atlanta) .
  15. ↑ "Read It Twice Its Real". 30 October 2009.
  16. ↑ "Jim Davies:Dad's Garage". Archived from the original on 2011-07-16.
  17. ↑ Davies, Jim. "Improv Documentary".
  18. ↑ Mannixvermette, K (2008-03-14). "Improv troupe gives two hours of unadulterated fun". Metro Ottawa .
  19. ↑ "Thunderwords".
  20. ↑ "Pac-Man Art".
  21. ↑ "Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are: The Science of a Better You". www.jimdavies.org.
  22. ↑ "Imagination: Understanding Our Mind's Greatest Power". www.jimdavies.org. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
  23. ↑ Noble, Barnes &. "Imagination: The Science of Your Mind's Greatest Power|Hardcover". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
  24. ↑ . ASIN   1643132032.{{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  25. ↑ Davies, Jim (5 November 2019). Imagination: The Science of Your Mind's Greatest Power. Pegasus Books. ISBN   978-1643132037.
  26. ↑ "Interview of Davies. Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, & Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe" (PDF). CUOL Newsletter. February 2015. Retrieved March 26, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.