I would like to use Gary Dell's connectionist model understanding how nonverbal utterances are turned into linguistic form to try to understand how a nonverbal command is turned into interaction with a computer. We can also use such a model to try to predict how small a linguistic "glove" the computer needs to catch the commands a human would want to utter in a constrained environment. We can also try to predict whether a Turing glove might be sufficient or if we might need a connectionist glove. Or perhaps we need a Turing glove and a connectionist catcher.
Gary Dell's work on heaviness of verbs might help in this quest.
Department has heavy emphasis on linguistics. Knowledge of the cognitive bases of linguistics can be applied to understanding the cognitive bases of computer-human language. In addition, William Brewer has done work in knowledge representation which would be useful in two ways. First, it could provide a framework for understanding the ways people represent procedures and agents cognitively. Second, through connections to linguistic concepts like semantic features and propositions we can start to discover what a cognitively consonant human-computer language would be.
Some of Kathryn Bock and Gary Dell's work in how we turn thoughts into language is also very exciting to me. Much of the dissonance in human-computer interaction comes from a mismatch between the kinds of language that we form naturally out of our thoughts and the kinds of language computers understand. Instead of the typical natural language approach, which is to build a computer that understands human language (a daunting task), I'd like instead to use cognitive theories like Dr.s Bock and Dell's to build a language that is manageable for a computer to understand and at the same time is fairly effortless for a human to generate.
There may be some connection to Brian Ross in terms of theories of how we solve problems and learn and use concepts in complex domains. Understanding how we solve problems to help develop technology that will interface well in that process.
In CS, Mehdi Harandi seems to be interested in HCI in software development.
In CS, Lenny Pitt has some relationship with Cognitive Science, learning