The Galatean Research Group

The Galatean Research Group is based on developing a psychological model of human classification which can be used as the core of computerised decision support systems. The galatean model of classification (for more information, see Christopher Buckingham's web pages) proposes that people represent categories by their most perfect example rather than the most typical one. Hence the prototypes are called galateas after Pygmalion's ideal woman.

This domain has just been launched and will be undergoing extensive changes and developments over the next few weeks. At present, you can access home pages of group members and a research project funded by the NHS which is developing a risk-screening tool for mental health patients. The eventual goal is to classify patients into risk categories using a galatean model of mental-health risk.

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General research interests of the group

The nature and development of expertise; reasoning with uncertainty; psychological classification and decision-making; computer modeling of human knowledge and cognitive processes; knowledge acquisition; machine learning; Intelligent Knowledge-Based Systems; in sum, the nature and symbiotic union of humans and artificially intelligent systems.