Abstract:
Since its birth in the 1950's cognitive science has had close ties with computer science. Automata theory, artificial intelligence, connectionism/neural networks, robotics, and expert systems are some of the areas of collaboration. This talk will present a brief overview of this history to show how it underpins new research on modeling forecast information going to hurricane evacuation decision-making and resultant effects on evacuation traffic. The principle tool for this work will be agent-based modeling, but the agents modeled will have to employ cognitively realistic processes to work.

Biography:
Hugh Gladwin got his PhD from Stanford in 1970 having studied cognitive and linguistic anthropology. Before coming to FIU in 1981 he did field research in Ghana and Mexico and cognitive research at UC Irvine. At FIU he joined the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (now Global Sociocultural Studies) and in 1983 began directing the Institute for Public Opinion Research. Since Hurricane Andrew in 1992 his primary publication area has been hurricane-related research, particularly on hurricane evacuation behavior. He also coordinates the external evaluation for FIU's Global Cyberbridges program.