William A. Cunningham
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View article: Virtual Agent Economies
Virtual Agent Economies Open
The rapid adoption of autonomous AI agents is giving rise to a new economic layer where agents transact and coordinate at scales and speeds beyond direct human oversight. We propose the "sandbox economy" as a framework for analyzing this e…
View article: Towards Machine Theory of Mind with Large Language Model-Augmented Inverse Planning
Towards Machine Theory of Mind with Large Language Model-Augmented Inverse Planning Open
We propose a hybrid approach to machine Theory of Mind (ToM) that uses large language models (LLMs) as a mechanism for generating hypotheses and likelihood functions with a Bayesian inverse planning model that computes posterior probabilit…
View article: Tabula rasa agents display emergent in-group behavior
Tabula rasa agents display emergent in-group behavior Open
Theories on group-bias often posit an internal preparedness to bias one’s cognition to favor the in-group (often envisioned as a product of evolution). In contrast, other theories suggest that group-biases can emerge from nonspecialized co…
View article: Sorrel: A simple and flexible framework for multi-agent reinforcement learning
Sorrel: A simple and flexible framework for multi-agent reinforcement learning Open
We introduce Sorrel (https://github.com/social-ai-uoft/sorrel), a simple Python interface for generating and testing new multi-agent reinforcement learning environments. This interface places a high degree of emphasis on simplicity and acc…
View article: Resource-rational belief revision can mitigate as well as amplify polarization
Resource-rational belief revision can mitigate as well as amplify polarization Open
People's beliefs sometimes diverge after observing the same information, which has been interpreted as evidence of irrationality. This behaviour has been proposed to result from people's limited cognitive resources and motivated reasoning,…
View article: Societal and technological progress as sewing an ever-growing, ever-changing, patchy, and polychrome quilt
Societal and technological progress as sewing an ever-growing, ever-changing, patchy, and polychrome quilt Open
Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly placed in positions where their decisions have real consequences, e.g., moderating online spaces, conducting research, and advising on policy. Ensuring they operate in a safe and ethica…
View article: Social coordination perpetuates stereotypic expectations and behaviors across generations in deep multiagent reinforcement learning
Social coordination perpetuates stereotypic expectations and behaviors across generations in deep multiagent reinforcement learning Open
Despite often being perceived as morally objectionable, stereotypes are a common feature of social groups, a phenomenon that has often been attributed to biased motivations or limits on the ability to process information. We argue that one…
View article: A theory of appropriateness with applications to generative artificial intelligence
A theory of appropriateness with applications to generative artificial intelligence Open
What is appropriateness? Humans navigate a multi-scale mosaic of interlocking notions of what is appropriate for different situations. We act one way with our friends, another with our family, and yet another in the office. Likewise for AI…
View article: Temporal-Difference Learning Using Distributed Error Signals
Temporal-Difference Learning Using Distributed Error Signals Open
A computational problem in biological reward-based learning is how credit assignment is performed in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Much research suggests that NAc dopamine encodes temporal-difference (TD) errors for learning value predictio…
View article: Social coordination perpetuates stereotypic expectations and behaviors across generations in deep multi-agent reinforcement learning
Social coordination perpetuates stereotypic expectations and behaviors across generations in deep multi-agent reinforcement learning Open
Despite often being perceived as morally objectionable, stereotypes are a common feature of social groups, a phenomenon that has often been attributed to biased motivations or limits on the ability to process information. We argue that one…
View article: Exploring the link among injury severity, white matter connectivity and psychosocial outcomes in pediatric TBI: a probabilistic tractography approach
Exploring the link among injury severity, white matter connectivity and psychosocial outcomes in pediatric TBI: a probabilistic tractography approach Open
White matter structural connectivity may explain unique variance in long-term psychosocial and adaptive outcome in children with TBI, particularly in cases of moderate-to-severe injury.
View article: Camouflaging, internalized stigma, and mental health in the general population
Camouflaging, internalized stigma, and mental health in the general population Open
Background: Camouflaging, the strategies that some autistic people use to hide their differences, has been hypothesized to trigger mental health ramifications. Camouflaging might reflect ubiquitous impression management experiences that ar…
View article: If not me then we: Goal tradeoffs in decision-making for the self, ingroup, and outgroup
If not me then we: Goal tradeoffs in decision-making for the self, ingroup, and outgroup Open
Navigating the social world requires individuals to balance multiple goals, including the drives to improve one's own outcomes, aid ingroup members, and help or hurt outgroup members. While self-interest and intergroup bias are both well-e…
View article: Generative agent-based modeling with actions grounded in physical, social, or digital space using Concordia
Generative agent-based modeling with actions grounded in physical, social, or digital space using Concordia Open
Agent-based modeling has been around for decades, and applied widely across the social and natural sciences. The scope of this research method is now poised to grow dramatically as it absorbs the new affordances provided by Large Language …
View article: 34 Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury Predicts Neurobehavioral Outcomes and White Matter Microstructure
34 Severity of Traumatic Brain Injury Predicts Neurobehavioral Outcomes and White Matter Microstructure Open
Objective: Pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of disability in children under the age of 15, often resulting in executive function deficits and poor behavioral outcomes. Damage to white matter tracts may be a drivi…
View article: 1 Social Brain Network Connectivity Relates to Social and Adaptive Outcomes Following Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury
1 Social Brain Network Connectivity Relates to Social and Adaptive Outcomes Following Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury Open
Objective: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a prevalent cause of long-term morbidity in children and adolescents and can lead to persistent difficulties with social and behavioral function. TBI may impact brain structures that support socia…
View article: The dimensional structure of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) and predictors of camouflaging in a representative general population sample
The dimensional structure of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) and predictors of camouflaging in a representative general population sample Open
The novel psychometric and socio-motivational evidence demonstrates camouflaging as a shared social coping experience across the general population, including autistic people. This continuity guides a clearer understanding of camouflaging …
View article: Shifting evaluative construal: Common and distinct neural components of moral, pragmatic, and hedonic evaluations
Shifting evaluative construal: Common and distinct neural components of moral, pragmatic, and hedonic evaluations Open
People generate evaluations of different attitude objects based on their goals and aspects of the social context. Prior research suggests that people can shift between at least three types of evaluations to judge whether something is good …
View article: Motivated Categories: Social Structures Shape the Construction of Social Categories Through Attentional Mechanisms
Motivated Categories: Social Structures Shape the Construction of Social Categories Through Attentional Mechanisms Open
Social categorization is often framed as the antecedent to stereotyping, with perceivers rationally sorting the social world on the basis of perceptually salient categories before applying biased or motivated beliefs about those categories…
View article: Decoupling the Conflicting Evaluative Meanings in Automatically Activated Race-Based Associations
Decoupling the Conflicting Evaluative Meanings in Automatically Activated Race-Based Associations Open
Implicit measures of attitudes have classically focused on the association between a social group and generalized valence, but debate exists surrounding how these associations arise and what they can tell us about beliefs and attitudes. He…
View article: The psychology of hate: Moral concerns differentiate hate from dislike
The psychology of hate: Moral concerns differentiate hate from dislike Open
We investigated whether any differences in the psychological conceptualization of hate and dislike were simply a matter of degree of negativity (i.e., hate falls on the end of the continuum of dislike) or also morality (i.e., hate is imbue…
View article: Pilot Study of Associations Among Functional Connectivity and Neurocognition in Survivors of Pediatric Brain Tumor and Healthy Peers
Pilot Study of Associations Among Functional Connectivity and Neurocognition in Survivors of Pediatric Brain Tumor and Healthy Peers Open
This pilot study examined the associations among functional connectivity in the salience, central executive, and default mode networks, and neurocognition in pediatric brain tumor survivors and healthy children. Thirteen pediatric brain tu…
View article: Predicting attitudinal and behavioral responses to COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning
Predicting attitudinal and behavioral responses to COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning Open
At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and …
View article: Novelty and uncertainty interact to regulate the balance between exploration and exploitation in the human brain
Novelty and uncertainty interact to regulate the balance between exploration and exploitation in the human brain Open
Recent evidence suggests that both novelty and uncertainty act as potent features guiding exploration. However, these variables are often conflated with each other experimentally, and an understanding of how these attributes interact to re…