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Causal inference from observational data provides strong evidence for the best action in decision-making without performing expensive randomized trials. The effect of an action is usually not identifiable under unobserved confounding, even…
While probabilistic models describe the dependence structure between observed variables, causal models go one step further: they predict, for example, how cognitive functions are affected by external interventions that perturb neuronal…
Isolated word meanings are inherently uncertain. This uncertainty reduces when they are combined and anchored in context. We propose that grammar compresses meaning uncertainty cross-linguistically, which is reflected in brain and…
Over the past two decades, considerable strides have been made in advancing neuroscientific techniques, yet challenges remain in attributing causality to observed associations. This review addresses a fundamental issue in observational…
This dissertation focuses on modern causal inference under uncertainty and data restrictions, with applications to neoadjuvant clinical trials, distributed data networks, and robust individualized decision making. In the first project, we…
Evaluating the causal effect of an intervention on multivariate outcomes is challenging when the outcomes are interdependent and derived rather than directly observed. Effective connectivity, which summarizes the directional neural…
The study of the brain's representations of uncertainty is a central topic in neuroscience. Unlike most quantities of which the neural representation is studied, uncertainty is a property of an observer's beliefs about the world, which…
We study causal inference under case-control and case-population sampling. Specifically, we focus on the binary-outcome and binary-treatment case, where the parameters of interest are causal relative and attributable risks defined via the…
The study of causality or causal inference - how much a given treatment causally affects a given outcome in a population - goes way beyond correlation or association analysis of variables, and is critical in making sound data driven…
A developmental disorder that severely damages communicative and social functions, the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) also presents aspects related to mental rigidity, repetitive behavior, and difficulty in abstract reasoning. More,…
In this work, we propose an approach for assessing sensitivity to unobserved confounding in studies with multiple outcomes. We demonstrate how prior knowledge unique to the multi-outcome setting can be leveraged to strengthen causal…
The primary method for identifying mental disorders automatically has traditionally involved using binary classifiers. These classifiers are trained using behavioral data obtained from an interview setup. In this training process, data from…
A key feature of human theory-of-mind is the ability to attribute beliefs to other agents as mentalistic explanations for their behavior. But given the wide variety of beliefs that agents may hold about the world and the rich language we…
Criticality is hypothesized as a physical mechanism underlying efficient transitions between cortical states and remarkable information processing capacities in the brain. While considerable evidence generally supports this hypothesis,…
In designed experiments and surveys, known laws or design feat ures provide checks on the most relevant aspects of a model and identify the target parameters. In contrast, in most observational studies in the health and social sciences, the…
Causal learning is the cognitive process of developing the capability of making causal inferences based on available information, often guided by normative principles. This process is prone to errors and biases, such as the illusion of…
Susceptibility to misinformation describes the degree of belief in unverifiable claims, a latent aspect of individuals' mental processes that is not observable. Existing susceptibility studies heavily rely on self-reported beliefs, which…
Statistics is sometimes described as the science of reasoning under uncertainty. Statistical models provide one view of this uncertainty, but what is frequently neglected is the 'invisible' portion of uncertainty: that assumed not to exist…
The idea that the brain is a probabilistic (Bayesian) inference machine, continuously trying to figure out the hidden causes of its inputs, has become very influential in cognitive (neuro)science over recent decades. Here I present a…
Inspired by Bayesian approaches to brain function in neuroscience, we give a simple theory of probabilistic inference for a unified account of reasoning and learning. We simply model how data cause symbolic knowledge in terms of its…