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Carsten Murawski

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ECAI Conference 2020 Conference Paper

Is Hardness Inherent in Computational Problems? Performance of Human and Electronic Computers on Random Instances of the 0-1 Knapsack Problem

Nitin Yadav
Carsten Murawski
Sebastian Sardiña
Peter Bossaerts

Many cognitive problems people face have been shown to be computationally intractable. However, tractability is typically defined in terms of asymptotic worst-case behaviour of instances. One approach for studying typical cases of NP-complete problems is based on random instances. It has been shown that random instances of many NP-complete problems exhibit a phase transition in solvability and that hard instances tend to occur in this phase transition. Here, we characterise a phase transition in solvability for random instances of the 0-1 knapsack problem in terms of two simple instance properties. Subsequently, we show that compute time of algorithms peaks in the phase transition. Remarkably, the phase transition likewise predicts where people spend the most effort. Nevertheless, their performance decreases. This suggests that instances that are difficult for electronic computers are recognized as such by people, but the increased effort does not compensate for hardness. Given the ubiquity of the knapsack problem in every-day life, a better characterisation of the properties that make instances hard will help understand commonalities and differences in computation between human and digital computers, and to improve both decision environments (contracts, regulation) as well as human-computer interfaces.

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YNICL Journal 2018 Journal Article

Food product health warnings promote dietary self-control through reductions in neural signals indexing food cue reactivity

Daniel H. Rosenblatt
Patrick Summerell
Alyssa Ng
Helen Dixon
Carsten Murawski
Melanie Wakefield
Stefan Bode

Modern societies are replete with palatable food cues. A growing body of evidence suggests that food cue exposure activates conditioned appetitive physiological and psychological responses that may override current metabolic needs and existing eating goals, such as the desire to maintain a healthy diet. This conditioned response results in unhealthy dietary choices and is a contributing factor in the current obesity epidemic. Prime based obesity prevention measures such as health warnings at point-of-sale or on product packaging may have the potential to counteract the influence of the obesogenic environment at the crucial moment when people make food purchasing or consumption decisions. Existing research into the efficacy of these intervention strategies has predominantly employed self-report and population level measures, and little evidence exists to support the contention that these measures counteract food cue reactivity at the time of decision making. Using a dietary self-control priming paradigm, we demonstrated that brief exposure to food product health warnings enhanced dietary self-control. Further, we analysed electroencephalographic correlates of selective attention and food cue evoked craving (N1, P3, LPP) to show that health warning exposure reduced the automatic appetitive response towards palatable food cues. These findings contribute to existing evidence that exogenous information can successfully prime latent goals, and substantiate the notion that food product health warnings may provide a new avenue through which to curb excessive energy intake and reduce rising obesity rates.

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