The Reasoning Lab at the Naval Research Laboratory focuses on building AI systems capable of rich inferential interactions based on interpreting the environment into meaningful representations. The lab conducts basic research into how people reason in a variety of domains (spatiotemporal, causal, explanatory, probabilistic, and epistemic reasoning). It investigates the constrained, iconic mental simulations that people rapidly build, as well as their ability to overcome potential reasoning errors.
The lab develops cognitively plausible computational simulations of human performance in deductive, inductive, and explanatory reasoning tasks. AI systems equipped with the ability to reason like humans should better interact with human counterparts in real-world environments.
Current lab members
Dr. Sangeet “Sunny” Khemlani (sunny.khemlani@nrl.navy.mil)
Principal investigator
Dr. Laura Kelly (laura.kelly.ctr@nrl.navy.mil)
Postdoctoral researcher (2018 – present)
Dr. Hillary Harner (hillary.harner.ctr@nrl.navy.mil)
Postdoctoral researcher (2019 – present)
Dr. Greg Trafton (greg.trafton@nrl.navy.mil)
Section Head, Human and Machine Intelligence Section
Lab alumni
Neha Bhat
Summer Intern, Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (2019)
Dr. Zach Horne
Postdoctoral researcher (2016-2017)
Now: Assistant Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University
Nikhil Khosla
Summer Intern, Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program (2017, 2018)
Now: Undergraduate at University of Michigan
Dr. Joanna Korman
Postdoctoral researcher (2016-2018)
Now: Social Cognitive Scientist at MITRE Corporation