With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world: gershmanlab.com/textbook.html It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class. My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.

no they do not, thanks for coming to my tedtalk.

*smiles in infant researcher* (condolences to the rest of you)

New paper from the IMC lab! I am very excited about this one. For years, I have been arguing that one of the main claims of the so-called "simulation heuristic" is likely not true for episodic counterfactual thinking, namely that the harder it is to mentally simulate it, the less plausible (1/n)

who spams the spammer? just found the university-run 'spam detected' digest email in my...spam folder. very meta.

TOTD "8 yoked bears" -> "8 yoked pairs" #CogSciSky

And again, the most common harm of deep fakes & these AI image generators is non-consensual porn, typically to punish women (for having power, for rejecting a man, for existing in public). We don't have to accept this as a "pesky side effect" of technological progress. Regulation & enforcement now!

ACADEMIC JOBS IN CANADA -- please share and repost www.uottawa.ca/research-inn... #PSYCHSCISKY #neuroskyence #neurojobs

I am “I never made a conference poster out of 8.5x11 sheets” years young but also “I never made a cloth conference poster” years old #AcademicSky

🧵New preprint: Adults often agree with their ingroup even when evidence says otherwise. Why? To find out, we studied kids, who show the same tendency but *before* political identities take hold. With developmental data, we can see the basic psychological ingredients. doi.org/10.31234/osf... 1/11

Copy Editing Matters, from HHS's release on the new childhood vaccine schedule: All the diseases will still be available to anyone who wants them

The district court injunction that prevented NIH from capping indirects at 15% was upheld today on appeal! www.reuters.com/world/trump-...

I can’t fully articulate the way my stomach dropped when I saw this headline. Please know the evidence has not changed. The people in charge have changed, and they did not consult any relevant experts or the public. “This new policy has not been vetted with pediatricians, the public, or the ACIP”

Hossein was supposed to come to my lab as a grad student but couldn’t because of the travel ban. I had a blast writing this paper with him, but it was bittersweet knowing he should have been in person with us. ❤️ check out 🧵below. part of a special issue on kissing led by Deb Lieberman.

I don't think you non-science people realize what it takes to get a grant funded by NIH. Started experiments in Sept 2021 to generate 3 new mouse mutants to model human disease. Prelim dara shows they have relevant disease phenotypes worthy of study. Need a small grant first to characterize /1

I believe this meme speaks for most in healthcare, science, public health, global health, research, and anyone wanted a return to precedented times.

The ACM Digital Library, where a LOT of computing-related research is published (I'd say at least 75% of my own publications), is now not only providing (without consent of the authors and without opt-in by readers) AI-generated summaries of papers, but they appear as the *default* over abstracts.

Many thanks to cofounder @asinclair.bsky.social & the entire SCIMaP team (scienceimpacts.org) for collaborative work to confront federal cuts to science and medical research; together, our effort was recognized as a 2025 Public Health Hero in @thenation.com. a 🧵 www.thenation.com/article/soci...

"We and our students can choose not to use these technologies. Just like we have banned smoking from public spaces, we could foster that process of banning both by choosing to individually quit smoking & by demanding regulation of the tobacco industry” Guest et al. (2025) zenodo.org/records/1706...

This research on using AI during note taking looks important. Students like using the AI and they find it easier. But the cognitive offloading decreases comprehension and memory. Students often prefer less effective techniques for studying. They sometimes avoid the harder work that actually works.

My response to anything over the next two weeks

Very excited to share the first empirical paper from LEVANTE: we describe the LEVANTE core tasks, a set of nine open source tasks for measuring learning and development in kids ages 5-12 years. osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵

Today's list of HHS grant terminations includes 7 programs run by American Academy of Pediatrics that RFK Jr. killed out of spite. Programs to: - Reduce sudden infant sleep deaths - Screen newborns for hearing loss - Treat babies with birth defects 🧵

I'll forever be reminded of this blog post blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...

Ending a $5 million research study when it is 70% complete does not save $1 million, it wastes $4 million. When a project loses federal funding before completion, finding alternative resources is challenging. Most philanthropies do not have comparable resources. 🧪 www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...

I'm told that HHS has just terminated all funding agreements with the American Academy of Pediatrics. Here's a letter HHS sent canceling one of the grants, relating to work on birth defects. Canceled because the project "emphasizes equity, diversity, and inclusion as key foundational components"

dear students, you don't have to beg questions. Ask them! Pose them! Begging ain't it. #AcademicSky

It's disability history month in the UK. Here's my favourite sketch and something to think about.

code review as russian literature: each unhappy script is unhappy in its own way.

ooh, intriguing. will read the paper with interest!

NSF now planning to let POs largely decide what gets funded, and to send PIs reviews that are only 3-5 sentences long. They don't have to use outside reviewers (except maybe 1) and don't have to convene panels. (1/5)

Two things: *They are only cutting these funds in seven states that lean Democratic *Support for people with disabilities was a relatively bipartisan position. Trump has repeatedly made clear he does not see them as people worthy of support or dignity.

It needs to be said. It's the guns. It needs to be said over and over until we finally do something to stop the corruption that has led to this insanity.

I teach Sociology of Childhood, and when we talk about school shootings, my students tell me about how they also do these checks in their classes--noting locks on doors, thinking about how to escape and where to hide. I hate that they have to mind those risks while trying to learn.

those of you aghast at how young you look in photos from 10 years ago clearly haven't looked at a folder of data and relevant code, graphs, etc. that you made 10 years ago and it shows #AcademicSky

I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students. I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

we're just heard from an SRO that for a grant review they're likely only discussing the top 30-35% instead of the usual 50% based on prelim scores. Anyone know what this means does to percentile calculations & paylines? E.g. Fs at NICHD have paylines ~30th-35th% but if fewer are discussed..? #NIH

anyone else have the experience in grad school of feeling a little guilty that you hadn't fully read every single paper in your citations list (but had at least skimmed it & read the real abstract of the real article you cited)? oh what sweet summer children we were.

So...my undergrad thesis student is doing a quality analysis of studies found in meta-analyses. She identified a few and we contacted the authors to request their effect sizes and other variables for the studies in their papers. Here's what happened: scientiapsychiatrica.com/index.php/Sc...

I missed this from a couple of weeks ago, but if you're an NIH-funded investigator, please read. Peer review will exist to make things look legitimate, but can, and will, be over-ruled. Funding decisions, ultimately, will be done by political appointees. grants.nih.gov/news-events/...

Just finished my last class of the semester🎉Reminded of how much I love teaching this academic writing class for grad students. We focus on improving our writing but also reducing anxiety and becoming a more consistent & productive writer Some of the students favorite writing tips/learnings below:

Boston Data Show Streets With New Bike Lanes Successfully Shift Traffic, With Fewer Cars and Way More Bikes - mass.streetsblog.org/2025/12/05/b...

today's toddler-inspired mentorship metaphor: if you're trying to help someone who wants to get their thumb in the thumbhole of their mittens, it's good to first make sure they know which finger is their thumb. #AcademicSky

We are hiring an assistant professor in cognitive neural systems in the department of psychology at the university of arizona. please use this link to check out the requirements and apply! arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Great question! 1) First and foremost, we evaluate a candidate based on the departmental guidelines and expectations provided. We don't hold the candidate to arbitrary standards, or even to those of our own institution unless asked to do so. We assess the materials against the guidelines provided.

Ooh might have to try this in my seminar!

Fav thing to do in the last class is to have the students pick their top 3 readings that I *must* include the next time I teach the class. Then they get into small groups and have to produce a new top 3 list. Solidifies all that they got from the readings (and gives me some ideas for the future).

Fadeout of cognitive training remains one of the more replicable findings in psychology in this preregistered study of 300 preschool children. Well-done study with a 4 year follow up. The language gains either faded or the control group caught up. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

geomtextpath can really help make a plot easier to interpret. Nice to avoid using a legend. #rstats #dataviz

My email spam box today 🤝 12-yr-old waiting for the late bus in the sleet "it's giving Tuesday" (thanks @apmackey.bsky.social for the inspiration)