Tutorial - Theme

Analyzing individual and inter-individual behavior with theme: detection and analysis of hidden temporal patterns and experimental effects
Time - Friday 27th May 12:30-13:30

Location - Swift Suite

Instuctor - Prof. Magnus S. Magnusson, Human Behavior Laboratory, University of Iceland. Founder and COB of PatternVision Ltd.
Dr. Magnus S. Magnusson is research professor, founder and director of the Human Behavior Laboratory, University of Iceland. He is the creator of the t-pattern model and the ThemeTM software, which he has developed and applied over more than 30 years during research at psychological, ethological and anthropological laboratories of European universities including Copenhagen University, the University of Paris (V, VIII & XIII) and the National Museum of Natural History, Paris. Besides a long standing collaboration with researchers at The University of Chicago, he now also works amongst others with researchers at the University of Arizona, the University of California at Irvine and the University of Cambridge, UK and many others. He has lectured and organized workshops in the USA, Japan, and Europe.

Benefits - You will acquire understanding and skills regarding the analysis of behavior and interactions seen as the intra- and inter-individual construction and repetition of a particular type of (typically) hidden temporal patterns called t-patterns. The importance of such pattern detection for the detection of effects of independent (experimental) variables also allowing more economical data collection (coding).

Features
Participants will:

  • Learn about the use of this methodology and technology through presentation of example studies from both human and animal research
  • Learn how to analyze behavioral and interaction patterns you have detected and answer various questions about their content, complexity, meaning and functional aspects
  • Learn to detect how structure in behavior and interactions may be influenced by independent variables.
  • Learn about the new features in Theme 6.0 allowing amongst other the prediction (and retro-diction) of particular behaviors and detected behavior patterns.

Audience - Intended for researchers interested in gaining new insight into the structure and function of behavior and the detection of complex hidden effects of external factors.

Details - The presentation will be in the form of a mixture of a PowerPoint slide presentation, demonstration of the actual use of the Theme program, an overview of recent research involving the T-pattern model and Theme and short user presentations. Theme users who are interested in giving a short presentation are invited to send a short abstract to Dr. Gudberg K. Jonsson (gjonsson@hi.is).

Key references

  • Discovering Hidden Temporal Patterns in Behavior and Interaction. T-Pattern Detection and Analysis with THEME (2016). Editors: Magnus S. Magnusson, Judee K. Burgoon, Maurizio Casarrubea. Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
  • Casarrubea M, Jonsson G.K, Faulisi F, Sorbera F, Di Giovanni G, Benigno A, Crescimanno G, Magnusson M.S. (2015). T-pattern analysis for the study of temporal structure of animal and human behavior: A comprehensive review. J Neurosci Methods. pii: S0165-0270(14)00349-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2014.09.024.