Interrogation Theory

Prof. Andrew Curtis (School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh), Dr Michal Branicki

(School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh) and Drs. Stefano Albrecht, Chris Lucas &
Peggy Series (School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh)
Project Summary
Scientists interrogate the world for answers to questions by combining human knowledge and
data. Humans are biased and this affects answers. This project models biases computationally
to assess/minimise their effects.

Interrogation Theory (left) is a framework to design and interrogate systems of knowledge and data to
answer scientific questions, incorporating other theories of different types (inversion, design, elicitation,
etc.). However, knowledge that contributes to answers comes from humans who are always affected
by psychological biases (right). This project will investigate computationally and experimentally how
combinations of different biases affects risk interrogation problems.

Background and Rationale

Geoscientific investigations typically interrogate a natural or artificial phenomenon for answers
to a set of questions. Examples include using remotely sensed data to infer atmospheric, or
Earth subsurface properties; using past records, models and expert assessment to estimate
risk of geohazards such as floods, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions; or semi-autonomous,
artificially-intelligent robotic interplanetary exploration to investigate planetary environments.
In each case, background research reveals pertinent information discovered previously, new
observations are made, and an inference problem is solved to answer the questions using
both the previous information and new observations. This process is called an interrogation.
Such problems are often complex, nonlinear, have many-dimensional data and models, and
are uncertain. Little is known about how to interrogate optimally: how to explore lines of enquiry
effectively and efficiently; how to design algorithms to find reliable answers; what happens
when multiple agents (human or artificial) simultaneously interrogate the environment and
each other for information; and since humans are involved in instigating the interrogation, or
are being interrogated, how to reduce the influence of natural human biases on outcomes.
Human biases and human-human interactions play important roles in scientific information
processes, and the increasing use of autonomous, artificially intelligent agents to explore or
measure in inaccessible or hostile environments calls for a better understanding of human-
agent and agent-agent interactions. This project will represent biases using computational
models calibrated to human and artificial agents. By simulating millions of experiments with
individual or interacting humans or artificial agents, the project will quantify the bias effect on
key geoscientific problems including assessment of risk of volcanic eruption and earthquakes.

Key Research Questions

1. How can human individual or group biases be modelled effectively? How will we know that
they are successful?
2. How do biases affect the results of common geoscientific interrogations (e.g., risk
assessment; or injecting information to constrain images of the atmosphere or subsurface)?
How does this change when multiple humans interact?
3. Can an artificial agent (e.g., a planetary explorer) be designed to interact better with
humans by accounting for their biases?
4. Can we use models of these biases and interactions to reduce the risk of fuinding unreliable
answers in practical interrogation problems?
Methods and Timescale of Activities.
 Year 1 (2019/20): Learn about existing interrogation methods, models of human and
artificial agent biases and interactions, and identify which models and methods may be
used to solve the geoscientific problem that is of interest to you. Develop appropriate
computational methods and models, and conduct computational tests to evaluate their
effects. This in itself will lead to a scientific paper, so write this.
 Year 2 (2020/21): Design one experiment as a complete study, perhaps including data
acquisition and demonstration. Apply the new methods to human risk assessment
processes which are common to many fields. Further develop methods and models.
 Year 3 (2021/22): Deploy the methods to analyse a variety of scenarios including humans
and artificial agents, in different domains across the (geo)sciences.

Training
A comprehensive training programme will be provided comprising both specialist scientific
training and generic transferable and professional skills. You will receive specific disciplinary
training in all necessary methods and in computational modelling of bias. You will receive
multidisciplinary training in elicitation methods that are used to obtain uncertain information
from people, and in how they are used to assess risk and other parameters. You will learn
how to program high-performance computers efficiently, and will be rooted in your supervisors’
leading research groups on geophysical, mathematical and informatics methods. You will
receive support to attend national and international conferences and workshops to
disseminate findings to the scientific community, and learn to prepare and submit scientific
papers to peer-reviewed literature. You will participate in transferrable skills training run by the
University of Edinburgh, and benefit from working within an international team across all
students in the NERC E4 Doctoral Training Partnership.
Requirements
We seek a mathematically, statistically or computationally focussed student with a suitable
Undergraduate and/or Masters Degree qualification who is interested in the Earth Sciences or
cognate disciplines.
References (further reading):
Background Reading: Polson & Curtis (2010) – pdf available at:
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/acurtis
Albrecht, S., Stone, P., 2018. Autonomous Agents Modelling Other Agents: A Comprehensive
Survey and Open Problems, Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 258, pp. 66-95.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.08071
Bes, B., Sloman, S., Lucas, C. G., & Raufaste, É. (2012). Non-Bayesian Inference: Causal
Structure Trumps Correlation. Cognitive Science, 36(7), 1178–1203.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01262.x