Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Steven Franconeri, Northwestern Psychology "A Neural Network Model of Human Perception + Understanding in Data Visualizations"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Steven Franconeri - Director, Cognitive Science Program and Professor of Psychology, Northwestern University
Title:
A Neural Network Model of Human Perception + Understanding in Data Visualizations
Abstract:
An analyst seeks a set patterns in a dataset, and later decides to communicate a given pattern to a non-expert audience in an intuitive way. Picking the right visualizations can vastly improve the speed, accuracy, and thoroughness of these steps, by orders of magnitude. Existing formal models for this choice are primitive, consisting of a few dozen rules of thumb with severely limited generalizability. Expert designers use intuition and iterative brainstorming processes that have proven too difficult to formally capture.
In collaboration with specialists in neural network modeling, cognitive science, and data visualization, we are building a realistic deep neural network model of how humans perceive and understand visually depicted data. The model will predict human performance on perceiving a given pattern within a given visualization. It will be sensitive to individual differences in graphical understanding and domain expertise, allowing it to diagnose why a viewer has made a mistake, and automatically prescribe either annotation or pedagogy as remediation.
Speaker Bio:
Steve Franconeri is a Professor of Psychology at Northwestern, and Director of the Northwestern Cognitive Science Program. He studies Visuospatial Thinking, especially within Information Visualization and Education, as well as Visual Communication.
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, January 15, 2020 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Fall 2026 Classes Begin
University Academic Calendar
All Day
Details
Fall 2026 Classes Begin
Time
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Contact
Calendar
University Academic Calendar
NICO Reading Group - Fall 2026 First Meeting
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
6:00 PM
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Chambers Hall
Details
The NICO Reading Group meets for the first this fall on Wednesday, September 23, 2026. Please contact Jaeseon Ha if you are interested in joining our group.
About:
The NICO Reading Group brings together people across disciplines to read and discuss important ideas in modern AI. We focus on topics such as AI agents, tuning, harnesses, evaluation, AI for scientific discovery, and applications of AI across different fields. The goal is to understand important ideas in AI more deeply by learning and thinking across disciplines.
Leadership:
Jaeseon Ha, a Kellogg MBA + AI student, will lead the reading group during the Fall 2026 term. Please contact Jaeseon with any questions or reach out to us at nico@northwestern.edu.
Meeting Times:
Date: Biweekly on Wednesday evening, starting on September 23, 2026
Time: 6-7pm
Location: NICO main office, Chambers Hall,
600 Foster St, Evanston, IL 60208
Time
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 at 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Location
Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO Seminar Series returns on September 30, 2026
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
The Wednesdays@NICO seminar series returns September 30, 2026, running through November 11, 2026, with the following speakers.
9/30/2026 - Luis Amaral, Northwestern University
10/7/2026 - Kristina Lerman, Indiana University
10/14/2026 - Tim Tangherlini, University of California, Berkeley
10/21/2026 - Andreia Sofia Teixeira, Northeastern University London
10/28/2026 - Rafael Prieto-Curiel, Complexity Science Hub, Vienna
11/4/2026 - Hamsa Bastani, University of Pennsylvania
11/11/2026 - Mayank Agrawal, Proof of Human
We will share detailed speaker information, talk titles and abstracts, in the coming weeks.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option TBA
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, networks, and artificial intelligence. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)