Category: Monthly Webinars

Abstract: The diffusion of information requires prior exposure: we cannot disseminate what we do not see. In online platforms, information exposure results from a complex interaction between social and algorithmic forms of curation that shapes what users see in their feeds. In this talk, I will discuss research using social media data that investigates the… Continue reading Social and Algorithmic Curation in the Transmission of Information

Abstract: In this talk, I will introduce my online experiments aimed at examining how people coordinate with each other in the presence of machine intelligence. I will begin by discussing the findings published by Nature in 2017, which involved the injection of bots into experimental networks where people (N = 4000 in total) were playing… Continue reading Experiments with Social Coordination in Hybrid Systems of Humans and Bots

Abstract: Social media have reconfigured the international relief landscape by opening discursive spaces for grassroots storytelling and activism. Bringing the images of distant suffering closer than ever before and affording an array of opportunities for framing, representing, and responding to crisis events, platforms have shifted the relationship between information and capacity for action. This shift… Continue reading Networked Humanitarianism in Russia’s War against Ukraine

Abstract: Biologically modern humans are more than 100,000 years old. Many scientists have devoted their lives to understanding how architecture, social structure, and language has changed over this history. Yet we know much less about the history of human minds. Behavioral science research has instead focused nearly exclusively on contemporary people, and psychological theories often… Continue reading The History of our Minds: Evidence for Co-Evolution of Cultural and Psychological Processes

Abstract: In this talk, we examine whether and how information flows across national borders. By developing a semi-automated system that combines deep learning and human annotation to find co-occurring content across different social media platforms and languages, we identify inflows of information from the global information ecosystem into China. We find that approximately one-fourth of… Continue reading How Information Flows from the World to China

Abstract: Why do some spatial patterns stick in our memory more than others? Spatial working memory involves numerous mechanisms, and in this study, I aim to integrate these mechanisms into a single conceptual model. To accomplish this, I conducted a large-scale experiment that gathered 35.4 million responses to test human observers’ memory using 80,000 different… Continue reading A Quasi-comprehensive Exploration of the Mechanisms of Spatial Working Memory

Abstract: Factor and sparse models are two widely used methods to impose a low-dimensional structure in high-dimensions. However, they are seemingly mutually exclusive. We propose a lifting method that combines the merits of these two models in a supervised learning methodology that allows for efficiently exploring all the information in high-dimensional datasets. The method is… Continue reading Bridging Factor and Sparse Models

Abstract: Sensors are ubiquitous in our daily life, from smartphones, wearable devices, internet of things, micro-satellites to self-driving cars in the future. We propose a new concept named Senseable Economics, which is about sensing the real-time dynamics of economic system by analyzing massive sensor data. In this talk, we will show how we use this… Continue reading Senseable Economics: From demystifying China’s economy to tackling climate change

Abstract: This talk outlines four methodological themes in spatial analytics with broad applications in social sciences and public policy, all grouped under the umbrella of “Computational Spatial Social Science”. Spatial accessibility measures the relative ease by which the locations of activities or services can be reached, and serves as a major matric for location advantages.… Continue reading Four Methodological Themes in Computational Spatial Social Science

Abstract: To link observed job mobility to the life chances of workers, this talk develops the notion of job mobility zone to describe the underlying labour market structure. Characterising jobs by occupations within industries, this talk models individual workers’ positions in the labour market revealed by their job mobility and discerns job mobility zones that… Continue reading Job Mobility and the Underlying Labour Market Structure