Information-theoretic Approaches for Understanding Human Behavior: Part I

Greg Ver Steeg
University of Southern California (USC)
Information Sciences Institute

Information theory describes fundamental limits on communication that have enabled advances from cell phones to the internet. These concepts are increasingly appearing in diverse contexts far removed from their original motivation. The objective of this tutorial is to provide a gentle introduction to basic information-theoretic ideas and to demonstrate how they can be applied in the context of complex domains like human behavior. Applying information theory in new domains comes with new challenges. We will discuss some of the main problems and potential solutions: picking the right measures, estimating information measures from limited data, and interpreting results. Joint work with Aram Galstyan.

Presentation (PDF File)

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