Pete Trimmer

Address Mr Pete Trimmer, PhD Student Department of Computer Science University of Bristol Lab 1.15, Merchant Venturers Building Woodland Road BRISTOL BS8 1UB United Kingdom E-Mail: Use this form to send me an e-mail Phone: +44 117 33 15045 Mobile: +44 7745 842772 Fax: +44 117 954-5208

Research

I am studying the evolution of decision-making from a theoretical perspective. I'm interested in how our minds reach decisions and how our decision-making strategies develop to influence perceptions, both within and between individuals. My interest is at both the general level (for instance, how traits such as optimism and pessimism are sustained within a population) and at a more detailed level, of how specific interactions occur between different parts of the brain.

Ultimately, I would like to better understand the human mind. Toward this end, and as an enjoyable rabbit-warren, I am attempting to build mathematical models of organisms with somewhat less sophisticated brains.

If you have similar research interests or questions, please contact me.

The research is co-supervised by James Marshall (Computer Science), John McNamara (Maths) and Alasdair Houston (Biology).

At the University of Bristol, I am part of the Machine Learning and Biological Computation group in the Department of Computer Science.

Journal Papers

Trimmer, PC, Houston, AI, Marshall, JAR, Bogacz, R, Paul, ES, Mendl, MT, McNamara, JM (2008) Mammalian Choices: combining fast-but-inaccurate and slow-but-accurate decision-making systems. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 275(1649), 2353–2361. ISSN 0962-8452. doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.0417

Trimmer, PC, Houston, AI, Marshall, JAR, Mendl, MT, Paul, ES, McNamara, JM (2009) Decision-making under uncertainty: Biases and Bayesians. Submitted to Cognitive Psychology.

McNamara, JM, Trimmer, PC, Eriksson, A, Marshall, JAR, Houston, AI, (2009) Environmental variability can select for optimism or pessimism. Submitted to Nature.

Others in the pipeline:
Modelling the placebo effect: an evolutionary perspective.
Optimist or Optimal? A review of optimism from a behavioural perspective.
Evolving the Rescorla-Wagner rule.

Upcoming talks

Sept 09. Mathematical Models in Ecology and Evolution conference: Evolving Optimism

Sept 09. Evolution, Cooperation & Rationality conference: Bayesian Decisions in Humans

Oct 09. Applied Animal Behaviour degree programme: Guest lecture on Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs

Dec 09. BBSRC Animal Welfare workshop: Guest lecture on Mammalian Decision-Making

Past Lives

Previously, I worked in the defence industry for 11 years, analysing aircraft and aircrew performance in a variety of tasks.

I have also worked as a dance instructor and am an ITEC qualified masseur.

Interests

I enjoy a wide variety of interests, such as partner dancing (jive, lindy hop and Argentine tango), croquet, wing chun, unicycling and juggling.