|
Dominic W. Massaro is Professor of Psychology and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is best known for his fuzzy logical model of perception, and more recently, for his development of the computer animated talking head Baldi. Massaro is director of the Perceptual Science Laboratory, past president of the Society for Computers in Psychology, book review editor for the American Journal of Psychology, founding Chair of UCSC's Digital Arts and New Media program, and was founding co-editor of the interdisciplinary journal Interpreting. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a University of Wisconsin Romnes Fellow, a James McKeen Cattell Fellow, an NIMH Fellow, and in 2006 was recognized as a Tech Museum Award Laureate.
Massaro received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1965, and completed his Ph.D. in Mathematical Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1968. After his postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego, he was Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison from 1970 to 1979, before moving to UCSC where he has remained since.
Massaro's research focuses on applying an information processing approach to the study of language, perception, memory, cognition, and decision making. In collaboration with Gregg Oden, he developed the fuzzy logical model of perception, which stresses the integration of multiple sources of information when modeling perception. This model has been shown to be mathematically equivalent to Bayes' theorem. Massaro's approach conflicts with the motor theory of speech perception and Massaro has been a critic.
|
