If you’re at #CPC2026 come and visit Seps poster ! Sep is leading work testing how social environment complexity interacts during learning to form maladaptive beliefs using connectionist models

Mood a bit dampened by a somewhat humiliating ‘random’ check in the process of entering the US but still very excited to present some of the work we’ve been doing at the Social Computation and Representation lab, starting at Computational Psychiatry in New Haven tomorrow!

Look how far we've come in just a few years! We're fast as well! It turns out, recruiting reviewers is much easier when they're not being used as free labor for massively profitable publishers Support free-to-publish and Open Access science by submitting to Open Mind today! direct.mit.edu/opmi

Reminder, this is happening tomorrow!

1/11 Happy to share our TICS paper on using the flexibility of one of the most basic cognitive functions, perception, to understand one of the most complex cognitive dysfunctions, psychiatric conditions (also my first formal work in computational psychiatry 🎉) 📄: www.cell.com/trends/cogni... 🧵 : 👇

🌵🏜️🌵 Out now in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social with @rbhui.bsky.social! If your advisor sends you an unclear email, do you interpret it as good or bad? 😏😱 In a new paper, we show how people make inferences about this type of ambiguous feedback during learning. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Looking forward to it!

Coming up next week at the SoCR lab talk series is @alimahmoodi.bsky.social, who will be discussing his recent thought-provoking perspective, which advocates for a computational view of neural mechanisms of social cognition (contra an anatomical one).

Join us tomorrow afternoon at #APS2026BCN! @psychscience.bsky.social @ninarouhani.bsky.social @camillephaneuf.bsky.social @katieinsel.bsky.social

Sneak peek at the US cover for THE THINKING ANIMAL, coming Jan '27. Looking forward to sharing more - soon! @stmartinspress.bsky.social @zcosini.bsky.social

Reminder that this is happening later today 🙂

This Thursday, we’re delighted to welcome @carocharp.bsky.social, PI of the Social Learning and Decisions Lab at the University of Maryland. She will be delivering what promises to be an insightful talk: 'Seeking advice and seeking feedback: cognitive mechanisms and relevance for psychopathology.'

What connects difficulties in social cognition, self-awareness, and abstract reasoning in those with Corpus Callosum Dysgenesis (CCD)? Here, across three experiments, we find that the corpus callosum is integral to metacognitive efficiency - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I think Fodor & Pylyshyn's 1988 paper is possibly the most mischaracterized paper in the history of cognitive science. It's often cited as arguing that neural networks cannot achieve systematicity, compositionality, and productivity. But that's not what they actually argue...

A reminder that this is happening tomorrow!

🚨New pre-print🚨 osf.io/preprints/ps... What if the relationship between smartphone use and mental health depends not just on specific harmful or beneficial activities, but also on how users transition between activities?

Very happy to announce next week's SoCR lab guest, Andreas Hula, who will be talking about the uses and misuses of I-POMDPs in model-building human social decision-making 🧵

This is happening tomorrow!

Very much looking forward to this talk and interesting chats!

Apparently Ramsey invented polymarket…. (in Resnik _Choices: An Introduction to Decision Theory_)

It's a pleasure for me to announce our next Social Computation and Representation Lab invited speaker @mkwittmann.bsky.social for a talk on dimensionality reduction and basis functions in social cognition

This weekend, I'm going on a sponsored walk to help raise money for my friend's younger brother's cancer treatment. If able, I'd really appreciate if you could share or sponsor me here: sites.google.com/view/alex-wa...

New job alert 💫 We’re hiring a 3-year postdoc for the NEPTUNE project to study the causal mechanisms of paranoia and social learning. Work with us on experimental psychopharmacology (THC), social cognition, and psychosis 🧑‍🔬 Apply here: lnkd.in/gQqnNvjR](my.corehr.com/pls/kclrecru...) Please RT :)

Curious why we sometimes see minds where there are none? 🧠 Join us to uncover the foundations of attributed agency. Fully funded PhD for next year as part of DRIVE-Health, working with me, Adam Hampshire & @stefansarkadi.bsky.social Deadline: 12/1/26 Reach out for an informal chat!

Reminder that this is happening tomorrow! Looking forward to seeing some of you there :)

I am pleased to announce that @davidschultner.bsky.social will be our next guest as part of the SoCR Lab's Invited Talk Series. Dr. Schultner will present recent work that offers evidence for a parsimonious and mechanistic explanation of human social learning strategies via reward learning!

New from us, led by the fantastic @elisavetpappa.bsky.social: Who Are People with Psychosis Delusional about? A Study of Social Agents in the Phenomenology of Delusions karger.com/psp/article/...

Proudly published with @andreaeyleen.bsky.social: A metatheory of classical and modern connectionism. doi.org/10.1037/rev0... We touch on what has been up with connectionism as a framework for computational modelling — & for everything it seems these days with AI and LLMs — pre-2010 vs post. 1/n

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Confederate flag in plain sight in affluent Britain…. 2025!

What a fantastic opportunity, consider applying!

This is a complete dereliction of responsibility from all involved. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

This is happening right now!

This is happening in two days! Cannot wait for this talk, please consider joining us

Successful British acculturation is seeing an Adrian Chiles headline and thinking « I see where he’s coming from »

Next week, we have the distinct pleasure of (e-)hosting the fantastic @hayleydorfman.bsky.social at the SoCR Lab's Invited Talk Series. Dr Dorfman will presenting some of her recent work on agency-modulated reinforcement learning 🧵👇

"Assuming that functional specialisation necessarily implies an ‘encapsulated module’ is a widely recognised error even in evolutionary accounts."

What a brilliant group of people to work with! Looking forward to expanding some of the crucial ideas only touched upon here. Feel free to share your thoughts, insights, etc.

📖 Our letter of reply to 'pseudosocial' cognition is now out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Led by the talented @srazavi.bsky.social + written with @vaughanbell.bsky.social, Peter Dayan, @nicholaraihani.bsky.social, Michael Moutoussis #NeuroPsychSky

🧠 We're hiring a computational postdoc! 3+ years with me & @mitulamehta.bsky.social on @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded social cognition/paranoia research at the IoPPN. Lead & develop computational work, collaborate with experimentalists on psychosis/THC data. DM for details! lnkd.in/eCMy9Jf5

Just a reminder that this is happening tomorrow :) Feel free to reach out to me or better yet @joebarnby.com for a link!

My father, Manès Sperber, told me a story that terribly resonnates today: In 1420, at a time of persecution known as the "Vienna Gesera", Jews were banned from the city. Many were killed. Others were placed on rudderless boats on the Danube River and left starving.

It is such a pleasure to kick off the SoCR Lab 2025-2026 talk series with Dr. Ismail Guennouni. His work with @maartenspeek.bsky.social was an early and significant inspiration. Reach out to @joebarnby.com or comment here for a link. Stay tuned as we will be organising monthly talks :) 🧵

Spelling error aside what is ‘beyond ignites curiosity’ supposed to mean?

Lilit, a trans human rights defender, was detained in Dubai, denied her rights, and humiliated – all during a layover. Emirates won’t investigate. Demand justice and accountability now. Sign and share! ✈️🏳️‍⚧️✊ a.allout.org/s/PyeDM/

Boiling here at home in Cyprus but I put the finishing touches a couple of days ago on this preprint: What Does 'Human-Centred AI' Mean? doi.org/10.48550/arX... Wherein I analyse HCAI & demonstrate through 3 triplets my new tripartite definition of AI (Table 1) that properly centres the human. 1/n

In the context of the Sycamore Gap tree sentencing today, I've written a short opinion piece for @lbc.co.uk on the role of landmarks in shaping place identity and connectedness. Find it here: www.lbc.co.uk/opinion/view... 🧠🌎 @rhulpsychology.bsky.social

If you’re at CPC come hang out with the star of the show @gjcooper.bsky.social

Having severe fomo not being able to attend #cpconf2025 this year but make sure to check out @gjcooper.bsky.social’s poster #50 today on making comp modelling scalable and intuitive to use 🖐️ ! Also say hi and buy phd student @srazavi.bsky.social a beer 🍺 to celebrate his first cpc