Curriculum Vitae

about
Author

Alexandr Ten

Published

2026-Sep

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Experience

Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology

 June 2022 – present    Postdoc    Tübingen, Germany 🇩🇪

  • Supervisors: Kou Murayama, Michiko Sakaki

Inria / Flowers Lab

 Feb 2018 – Aug 2018    Research Intern    Talence, France 🇫🇷

  • Supervisor: Pierre-Yves Oudeyer

Self-employment

 2016 — 2017    Software consultant    Remote

Developed interactive pedagogical tools for learning about connectionist networks (for “PSYCH 209: Neural Network Models of Cognition: Principles and Applications”).

  • Supervisor: James L. McClelland

Education

Inria / University of Bordeaux

 Sept 2018 – May 2022    Ph.D., Computer Science    Talence, France 🇫🇷

  • Thesis: Role of Progress-Based Intrinsic Motivation in Learning: Evidence from Human Behavior and Future Directions
  • Advisor: Dr. Pierre-Yves Oudeyer
  • Co-advisor: Prof. Jacqueline Gottlieb

Birkbeck, University of London

 Sept 2016 – Aug 2017    M.Sc., Cognition and Computation    London, United Kingdom 🇬🇧

  • Thesis: A Comparison of Recurrent Neural Network Architectures in Resolving Long-Distance Dependencies
  • Advisor: Michael S. C. Thomas
  • Kenway Scholarship Recepient

TMC Academy / University of Greenwich

 Fall 2013 — Spring 2015    B.Sc., Psychology with Counceling    Singapore 🇸🇬

  • Thesis: Differentiation of Basic-Level Personality-Trait Categories
  • Advisor: C. M. Hew D. Gill
  • First-class honours
  • TMC Merit Award (S$1000 prize)

KIMEP University

 Sept 2009 – Aug 2013    B.A., Marketing (major) & Accounting (minor)    Almaty, Kazakhstan 🇰🇿

Publications and preprints

  • Mats Abrahamse, Kou Murayama, Alexandr Ten, & Michiko Sakaki (in press). The Role of Prior Knowledge in Epistemic Curiosity Across Adulthood. Psychology of Aging.
  • Alexandr Ten, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Michiko Sakaki, & Kou Murayama (2025). The Curious U: Integrating theories linking knowledge and information-seeking behavior. Open Mind. https://doi.org/10.1162/OPMI.a.41
  • Alexandr Ten, Michiko Sakaki, Sebastian Breit, Aswath Chandrasekaran, Kou Murayama, & Charley M. Wu (2025). In search of lost memories: Modeling exploration with forgetful generalization [Preprint]. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hupq5_v1
  • Michiko Sakaki, Alexandr Ten, Hannah Stone, & Kou Murayama (2024). Role of metacognitive confidence judgments in curiosity: Different effects of confidence on curiosity across epistemic and perceptual domains. Cognitive Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13474
  • Alexandr Ten, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, & Clément Moulin-Frier (2022). Curiosity-driven exploration: Diversity of mechanisms and functions. In The Drive for Knowledge: The Science of Human Information Seeking. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026949
  • Alexandr Ten, Jacqueline Gottlieb, & Pierre-Yves Oudeyer (2021). Intrinsic rewards in human curiosity-driven exploration: An empirical study. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43. escholarship.org/uc/item/13b6p5ms
  • Alexandr Ten, Pramod Kaushik, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, & Jacqueline Gottlieb (2021). Humans monitor learning progress in curiosity-driven exploration. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26196-w

Teaching

Understanding Learning Processes through Experiments I

Master’s project seminar  Hector Institute

  • Winter 2026 (Oct 2026 – present)
  • Winter 2025
  • Winter 2024
  • Winter 2023

Understanding Learning Processes through Experiments II

Master’s project seminar  Hector Institute

  • Summer 2026
  • Summer 2025
  • Summer 2024

Curiosity and Epistemic Emotions I

Master’s project seminar  Hector Institute

  • Winter 2022

Curiosity and Epistemic Emotions II

Master’s project seminar  Hector Institute

  • Summer 2023

Supervision

Johanna Messner

 2025 – 2025    University of Tübingen

  • Master’s thesis: Psychological Mechanisms of State Curiosity: Testing Competing Accounts of Uncertainty-Driven Information Seeking

Jan Thiele

 2023 – 2024    University of Tübingen

  • Bachelor’s thesis: The Effect of Uncertainty on Expected Learning Progress in Curiosity-Driven Learning

Sebastian Breit

 2022 – 2023    University of Tübingen

  • Master’s thesis: In Search of Lost Memories: Modeling Forgetful Generalization

Maxime Balan

 2020 – 2021    University of Bordeaux

  • Master’s thesis: Remote Experimentation to Investigate the Relationship between Learning, Intrinsic Motivation, and Metacognition

Memberships

Invited talks and presentations

Forgetful generalization and exploration

  • [Poster] Computational Psychiatry Conference (CPC) (July 2025)
  • [Poster] Tübingen pre-CogSci workshop (July 2025)

The Curious U: Integrating Theories Linking Knowledge and Information-Seeking Behaviour

  • [Presentation] Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM) conference; PIMBAA workshop (June 2025)
  • [Invited talk] INRIA / Flowers Lab (April 2024)
  • [Invited talk] Tübingen AI Center / Human & Machine Cognition Lab (March 2024)

Humans monitor learning progress in curiosity-driven exploration

  • [Invited talk] Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (March 2023)

In search of origins of curiosity

  • [Poster] Tübingen Week on Education, Motivation, Meta-Cognition, Personality, and Self-Regulation (TEMMPS) (July 2024)

Skills

  • Languages: Julia, Python, R, JavaScript
  • Online experiments: JATOS, Labjs, jsPsych, Open Sesame, Prolific
  • Methods: computational modeling, frequentist and bayesian statistics

Reviewing activity

I have reviewed for Child Development, Cognition, CogSci Proceedings, Emotion, Nature Scientific Reports, and Peer Community In Registered Reports (PCI RR), Psychonmic Bulletin and Review.