Joshua Brett Tenenbaum (Josh Tenenbaum) is Professor of Computational Cognitive Science at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. He is known for contributions to

mathematical psychology Mathematical psychology is an approach to psychological research that is based on mathematical modeling of perceptual, thought, cognitive and motor processes, and on the establishment of law-like rules that relate quantifiable stimulus character ...

and

Bayesian cognitive science Bayesian cognitive science, also known as computational cognitive science, is an approach to cognitive science concerned with the rational analysis of cognition through the use of Bayesian inference and cognitive modeling. The term "computation ...

. According to the

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...

, which named him a

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 ind ...

in 2019, "Tenenbaum is one of the first to develop and apply probabilistic and statistical modeling to the study of human learning, reasoning, and perception, and to show how these models can explain a fundamental challenge of cognition: how our minds understand so much from so little, so quickly."

Biography

Tenenbaum grew up in California. His mother was a teacher and his father is Internet commerce pioneer

Jay Martin Tenenbaum Jay Martin "Marty" Tenenbaum is an American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is noted for his early work in artificial intelligence and as an Internet commerce pioneer. Biography Tenenbaum attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog ...

. His research direction was strongly influenced by his parents' interest in teaching and learning, and later by interactions with cognitive psychologist

Roger Shepard Roger Newland Shepard (January 30, 1929 – May 30, 2022) was an American cognitive scientist and author of the " universal law of generalization" (1987). He was considered a father of research on spatial relations. He studied mental rotation, a ...

, during his years at Yale. Tenenbaum received his undergraduate degree in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1993, and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1999. His work focuses on analyzing

probabilistic Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

inference Inferences are steps in reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences; etymologically, the word '' infer'' means to "carry forward". Inference is theoretically traditionally divided into deduction and induction, a distinction that in ...

as the engine of human

cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

and as a means to develop

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

. According to the

, "Tenenbaum is one of the first to develop and apply probabilistic and statistical modeling to the study of human learning, reasoning, and perception, and to show how these models can explain a fundamental challenge of cognition: how our minds understand so much from so little, so quickly." At MIT, Tenebaum is a professor of computational cognitive science and a member of

CSAIL Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He leads MIT's Computational Cognitive Science lab and is also head of an AI project called the MIT Quest for Intelligence. In 2018, ''R & D Magazine'' named Tenenbaum their "Innovator of the Year." In 2019, Tenenbaum was named a

. The MacArthur webpage describes his work as follows: "Combining computational models with behavioral experiments to shed light on human learning, reasoning, and perception, and exploring how to bring artificial intelligence closer to the capabilities of human thinking." Tenenbaum's recent research includes teaching AI systems to imitate human face-recognition methods and programming AI to understand cause and effect.

Publications

Tenenbaum has a list of his publications on hi
MIT web page
and o
Google Scholar

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tenenbaum, Joshua Living people Yale University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Fellows of the Society of Experimental Psychologists Artificial intelligence researchers MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory people 1972 births