Abstract
Semantic representations are central to human thought and behavior, encapsulating the knowledge humans accumulate about objects and concepts in the world. These representations underpin various cognitive functions, such as language production or social reasoning. In this talk, I will present a series of projects that measure semantic representations through free associations, a method in which participants generate the first words that come to mind in response to various cues. The projects address diverse objectives, from establishing psychometric properties and identifying age-related differences in network structure and content to assessing alignment between human and AI representations. Together, these findings highlight free associations as a robust and versatile tool for investigating semantic representations.
Bioblurb
Dirk U. Wulff is a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, specializing in the use of big data and machine learning to investigate human decision-making and cognition. His research sits at the intersection of psychology, artificial intelligence, and metascience, employing diverse methodologies such as large-scale behavioral experiments, process tracing, network analysis, natural language processing, and large language models. Beyond his academic work, he is actively involved in data science education and provides consulting services.