title: Toward Psychoinformatics: Computer Science Meets Psychology.
abstract: The present paper provides insight into an emerging research discipline called Psychoinformatics. In the context of Psychoinformatics, we emphasize the cooperation between the disciplines of psychology and computer science in handling large data sets derived from heavily used devices, such as smartphones or online social network sites, in order to shed light on a large number of psychological traits, including personality and mood. New challenges await psychologists in light of the resulting "Big Data" sets, because classic psychological methods will only in part be able to analyze this data derived from ubiquitous mobile devices, as well as other everyday technologies. As a consequence, psychologists must enrich their scientific methods through the inclusion of methods from informatics. The paper provides a brief review of one area of this research field, dealing mainly with social networks and smartphones. Moreover, we highlight how data derived from Psychoinformatics can be combined in a meaningful way with data from human neuroscience. We close the paper with some observations of areas for future research and problems that require consideration within this new discipline.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany; Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation/Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8112-0837
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Montag
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Éilish
authors.initials: É
authors.lastname: Duke
authors.affiliation: Department of Informatics, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Markowetz
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001519:Behavior; D003625:Data Collection; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D020407:Internet; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000379:methods*; D009488:Neurosciences / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D000068997:Smartphone; D012984:Software; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires