Algorithmic complexity for psychology: A user-friendly implementation of the coding theorem method

Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity has long been believed to be impossible to approximate when it comes to short sequences (e.g. of length 5-50). However, with the newly developed \emph{coding theorem method} the complexity of strings of length 2-11 can now be numerically estimated. We present the theoretical basis of algorithmic complexity for short strings (ACSS) and describe an R-package providing functions based on ACSS that will cover psychologists' needs and improve upon previous methods in three ways: (1) ACSS is now available not only for binary strings, but for strings based on up to 9 different symbols, (2) ACSS no longer requires time-consuming computing, and (3) a new approach based on ACSS gives access to an estimation of the complexity of strings of any length. Finally, three illustrative examples show how these tools can be applied to psychology.Comment: to appear in "Behavioral Research Methods", 14 pages in journal format, R package at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/acss/index.htm

Computing with Coloured Tangles

We suggest a diagrammatic model of computation based on an axiom of distributivity. A diagram of a decorated coloured tangle, similar to those that appear in low dimensional topology, plays the role of a circuit diagram. Equivalent diagrams represent bisimilar computations. We prove that our model of computation is Turing complete, and that with bounded resources it can moreover decide any language in complexity class IP, sometimes with better performance parameters than corresponding classical protocols.Comment: 36 pages,; Introduction entirely rewritten, Section 4.3 adde