Dr Adam Linson

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Computing & Communications at the Open University (UK). I develop neurobehavioural models of how perceptual uncertainty is resolved under stress and time pressure, in relation to impaired or enhanced cognitive flexibility. My research focus is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which I study using multiple methods that connect theoretical neurobiology, psychiatry, evolutionary ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. My work also links to other fields including cognitive science and music psychology. I was previously an Anniversary Fellow in Computing and Philosophy at the University of Stirling, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford, the UCL Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, and the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI, Austria).

I am also Co-Director of the Innogen Institute (connecting life science innovation and policymaking), based jointly at the Open University and the University of Edinburgh.

I am a team member of two current interdisciplinary research projects. One is on Art and Inequality in the Shadow of the Black Death, c.1275-1525 (€2.4 million ERC Advanced Grant, PI: Samuel Cohn, University of Glasgow), which combines medieval history, art history, inequality studies, and spatial digital humanities (GIS). The other project, Puzzled (£25,000 pilot funding, PI: Andrea English, University of Edinburgh), aims to provide educators with insights into student learning processes with a student privacy- and equity-centred approach to AI and Education that combines philosophy of education, learning science, computer vision, data visualisation, and interactive interfaces (HCI).

Apart from academic research, I perform and compose music across various contexts. My main instrument is the double bass, and current musical collaborations typically involve improvisation and digital media. In 2021, I was commissioned to compose a new work, partnering with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, that premiered live on BBC Radio 3. I continue to perform internationally at festivals, concert halls, clubs and galleries, and can be heard on a range of live and studio recordings.

PhD supervision

PhD supervision areas:

• Simulation models for theoretical life sciences
• Music perception / cognition / psychology / neuroscience
• Interfacing with complex data (interactive pattern exploration and discovery by domain experts)

Current PhD students:

• Andrea Bolzoni
• Nikos Tzagkarakis
• Anna Jędraszkiewicz (University of Warsaw)

Accepting new PhD students: yes

Selected publications

Linson, A., Parr, T., & Friston, K. J. (2020). Active inference, stressors, and psychological trauma: A neuroethological model of (mal)adaptive explore-exploit dynamics in ecological context. Behavioural brain research, 380, 112421, doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2019.112421

Linson, A., & Friston, K. (2019). Reframing PTSD for computational psychiatry with the active inference framework. Cognitive neuropsychiatry, 24(5), 347-368, doi:10.1080/13546805.2019.1665994

Linson, A., Clark, A., Ramamoorthy, S., & Friston, K. (2018). The active inference approach to ecological perception: general information dynamics for natural and artificial embodied cognition. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 5, 21, doi:10.3389/frobt.2018.00021