Marina Dubova
I am a Cognitive Science PhD student at Indiana University. My current research aims to understand and improve science. I develop formal (e.g. computational models) and empirical methods to put the foundations of scientific method to rigorous tests and use insights from cognitive science to better understand the mechanisms of scientific discovery. Some questions that I am currently focusing on:
How to best design a scientific experiment? When collecting new data, should we attempt to confirm our theories, falsify them, resolve theoretical disagreements, or sample the data in a way that is not primarily informed by theory? spoiler from my work: against common intuition, random experiments might help scientists develop more accurate & useful theories than the theory-informed experiments.
Which theory-building strategies facilitate scientific progress? Should we prefer theories that are simple and coherent? spoiler from my work: maybe not! developing theories with a complexity, instead of a simplicity bias might have some unanticipated benefits.
How can we develop better ontologies for sciences? What epistemic functions do scientific ontologies play? spoiler from my work: it is complicated; reengineering of scientific concepts should take into account the ways in which previous concepts might have affected the evidence.
Apart from these (already way too broad) issues, I am also studying language learning in humans and AI, mechanisms of language evolution, and conceptual influences on perception.
I combine theoretical analyses, behavioral experiments, and computational simulations in my research. I work at the intersection of cognitive science, philosophy of science, complex systems, and artificial intelligence.
When I am not learning or studying learning, I like to play music, sing, travel, conduct clay & glazing studies, work on my bird categorization skills, and attempt to sail away from and back to the marinas without sinking.
I am always enthusiastic to discuss your/my research and ideas. Please, feel free to contact me :)
email: mdubova@iu.edu
twitter: @dubova_marina
github: blinodelka
OSF: Marina Dubova
I am grateful to be supported by these people: Arseny Moskvichev, Ella Liu, Roman Tikhonov, Rob Goldstone, Sabina Sloman, Sebastian Musslick, Jamie Michelson, Sander Beckers, Will Hayes, Polina Greskova, Alexey Filippov, TCTS community + many others
News
August 16-21st: I am visiting the Autonomous Empirical Research group at Brown University
July 27th 2023: I am (virtually) presenting the "Excess Capacity Learning" paper at CogSci
July 18-21st 2023: I am participating at the MathPsych conference
July 10-15th 2023: I am participating at the workshop on Scientific and Statistical Inference and presenting some ideas on why parsimony principle in model building should be abandoned
June 14th 2023: our paper "Carving joints into nature: reengineering scientific concepts in light of concept-laden evidence" is published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, and is featured in the cover:)
May 9th 2023: I am presenting a poster on computational modeling of experimentation strategies in science and giving a talk on autonomous empirical research at Metascience 2023
May 3rd 2023: I am giving an invited talk "Computational investigation of experimentation strategies in science" at the Computational Social Science Society of Americas webinar. My talk is paired with Abdullah M. Almaatouq's talk on integrative experimental design:)
April 2023: I received the Outstanding Research in Cognitive Science award at IU!
April 2023: I received the Teaching Excellence award at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at IU:)
November 29-December 4: participating at NeurIPS conference and presenting the work on "Generalizing with overly complex representations"
November 17-20: participating at the Psychonomic society meeting and presenting a poster "The role of active perception and naming in sameness comparison"
November 9-12: participating at the Philosophy of Science Association, and giving a talk on the (controversial) work "Against theory-motivated experimentation in sciences"
Summer 2022: I am supported by the CNS-NRT summer fellowship
May 2022 - ...: I am co-organizing the Augmented Intelligence Workshop
April 29, 2022: I gave a talk "Against theory-motivated experimentation" at the Pittsburgh Formal Epistemology Workshop
January 21, 2022: our (with R. Goldstone) work showing unequal influences of categories on the color perception of simultaneously present objects is published in Cognition
January 18 - May 6, 2022: I am visiting the Center for Formal Epistemology and Department of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University!
December 30, 2021: my (solo-author!) review paper on building human-like communicative AI is published in Cognitive Systems Research
December 28, 2021: I am awarded with IU Cognitive Science supplemental fellowship
September 13, 2021: I successfully defended my PhD qualification papers:)
August 22, 2021: I submitted two PhD qualification papers to IU cognitive science program! The papers are on 1) making progress in cognitive science and 2) grounded language learning in AI.
July 26-29, 2021: I am presenting a poster "Categories affect color perception of only some simultaneously present objects" at the Cognitive Science Society conference.
July 21, 2021: I am giving an invited talk "Growing opportunities to grow: towards a model of open-ended communication learning" at the Social Learning and Cultural Evolution workshop
July 18 - July 23, 2021: I am participating at my favorite ALIFE conference, where I am presenting some preliminary results on modeling open-ended communication learning in groups!
June 14 - July 2, 2021: I am participating at the SFI Complexity Interactive summer school! Our group project is called "Mapping Complexity: An Epistemological Look at Methods of Study & Discovery"
June 1 - August 23, 2021: I am supported by the CNS-NRT summer fellowship
May 21, 2021: my very first journal paper "The Influences of Category Learning on Perceptual Reconstructions" got published in the Cognitive Science journal!
April 6, 2021: I am participating at the Mechanisms of Learning Forum at Emory University as an affiliate of the Building a Mind Lab
March 26, 2021: I gave an invited talk "Categorical Perception Meets El Greco" at the HSE Cognitive Research Lab Meeting
Sept 17 - Sept 25, 2020: I am presenting our work "The Influences of Category Learning on Perceptual Reconstructions" at the 61st Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society: check out our poster here!
Sept 17 - Sept 25, 2020: Presenting our work "Reinforcement Communication Learning in Different Social Network Structures" at NetSci!
July 29 - Aug 1, 2020: Participating at CogSci annual conference!
July 18, 2020: Presenting our work "Reinforcement Communication Learning in Different Social Network Structures" at ICML Language and Reinforcement Learning workshop!
July 16, 2020: I'm presenting the work "Effects of Supervision, Population Size, and Self-Play on Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning to Communicate" at ALIFE conference (feel free to join the discussion!)
July 13 - July 18, 2020: I am participating at ALIFE and ICML conferences!
June 22 – July 3, 2020: I will attend SINSA2020 (won fee remission by IUNI-SINSA Scholars program)
June 14 – July 10, 2020: I will attend the Complex Systems Summer School at Santa Fe Institute (whoa!)
March 12 – .... 2020: I am isolating at home, drinking tea, and working *very productively*
March 1 – March 3, 2020: I gave a talk on the mechanisms of categorical perception at Emory University, Georgia (Mechanisms of Learning Forum)