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... 🧵

I have been emailing with a student offering advice about navigating the post-PhD job market and it struck me that the advice was general enough that more people might benefit. So here you go! tl;dr: Figure out what you want your contribution to be, and make choices that can make that happen.

Each semester I go in my classroom and I try to figure out what we would use to block the doors, if it would be safe to crawl out the windows, where we could hide if there was a mass shooter in campus. It’s such an indictment of this country how we have normalized these preventable tragedies.

New paper with Junyi Chu, Tomer Ullman et al showing that kids think more difficulty is more fun! Fun isn't easy: Children selectively manipulate task difficulty when “playing for fun” versus “playing to win”. psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-...

New preprint: Empathy, Thick and Thin papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/

Officially out! In this review, Aaron Chuey and I discuss how existing work on ToM mostly focused on a single individual’s mental states (e.g., what Sally thinks). Extending ToM, we argue for ToMS—an understanding of how multiple individuals communicate and influence each others’ minds. t.ly/u4rtb

This is a fundraising post! An anonymous donor is matching contributions to Children Helping Science up to 100K through the end of the year - if it's in your giving budget, please consider supporting open science infrastructure! giving.mit.edu/search/node/... Details below...

Canada is announcing program details for science talent recruitment from abroad. The first one across my desk this morning is support for 600 doctoral students and 400 post-docs. Research investment is greatly appreciated, especially trainees and early career. www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/research_tra...

🚨Super excited that Dartmouth's Society of Fellows is hiring a postdoc with the Program in Cognitive Science 🚨 Specialization in computational and empirical approaches to artificial and natural intelligence, including perception, representation, and complex planning: apply.interfolio.com/176946

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:

New job opening in social psychology at UW-Madison! at the associate prof level. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/associa...

🚨Job Alert plz RT! Johns Hopkins Psych & Brain Sciences is looking for a new colleague using behavioral or computational approaches to study cognition! We are excited about many areas of (esp higher) cognition in human adults, children, or nonhuman animals Open-rank apply.interfolio.com/178146

My first time taking my cat to work:

The weirdest recommendation letter question that I’ve seen so far: “If you fast forwarded 10-20 years, who would this student most closely resemble?”

New perspective paper (w/ @sedaakbiyik.bsky.social, Joseph Outa, & @minjaek.bsky.social ) in @natrevpsychol.nature.com ⚽💭🧠👶 : www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Looking for a funded Ph.D. in #CogSci in an interdisciplinary, research-first program? Apply to CEU! cognitivescience.ceu.edu/admission Deadline February 4, 2026. Please share with any interested students! #PsychSciSky #DevPsych #CogPsych

🚨🚨🚨 Our 52nd Annual Meeting will be held from June 18–20, 2026 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, with a pre-conference on Mental Control and Agency held at JHU on June 17 🚨🚨🚨 We are currently inviting submissions of papers (talks and posters)!

We are recruiting a lab manager/research assistant to start in early 2026! The successful candidate will conduct awake infant fMRI, meet cute babies, and join a fun team! More details (e.g. responsibilities): soc.stanford.edu/people/#join... Apply here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/social-...

WE JUST KEEP WINNING. (UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program RESTORED!!!!)

The Trump administration demanded UCLA pay $1.2 billion to restore frozen research funding and ensure eligibility for future funding after accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus. n.pr/4hYa0pY

I'm recruiting a grad student! My lab at NYU (psych dept) studies the computational basis of moral cognition and aims to build AI systems that are aligned with human values. Now admitting a PhD student for Fall 2026. Apps due 12/1. sites.google.com/corp/site/sy...

Interested in understanding how young humans think about social relationships? I am reading PhD applications this year! **Please note**, that Harvard now requires the GRE. More information here: www.ashleyjthomas.com/workwithme

A devastating set of decisions on the part of UC leadership to withdraw support from our nationally recognized postdoc program that prioritizes research excellence combined with addressing our university public service mission. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

It’s grad school application season, and I wanted to give some public advice. Caveats: -*-*-*-* 
> These are my opinions, based on my experiences, they are not secret tricks or guarantees 
> They are general guidelines, not meant to cover a host of idiosyncrasies and special cases

Now out in an issue! ~~ www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

Join us for two fun days of moral psychology and philosophy! #MPRG2025

I am accepting graduate students for the UCI Cognitive Sciences PhD program for Fall 2026. Check out my lab website - www.relcoglab.org for our recent themes. Our funded work focuses on combinatorial reasoning, moral decision-making, and conceptual cognition in humans and large language models.

Come join the Moral Minds Lab as a grad student at MSU! Brand-new lab equipped for child & adult testing, with motivated undergrads in a happy department. 🤩 Learn more: www.moralmindslab.com/join-our-tea... (P.S. @tedmond.bsky.social is also taking a student!) @msupsychology.bsky.social

YES! "to explain all human cognition, we inherently must include development". Beyond the Adult Mind: A Developmental Framework for Predictive Processing in Infancy - Ward - Topics in Cognitive Science - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

I am recruiting a postdoc at UC Santa Barbara for an NIH-funded project on the organization of lateral PFC function--across emotion and cognition--using representational fMRI & TMS. I’d love to find someone w/ a background in cognitive control & computational modeling to complement our team! 🏝️ 🧠 🧲

I’m recruiting #PhD students to join my Lab for Infant Learning and Cognition (LILAC) at @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social! We study how infants learn about the natural world from others 🌱 If you’re interested in #devpsych, #EvPsych, and #infantstudies, please reach out and apply! More info below (1/2)

We're excited to announce that Cognitive Science at Dartmouth is recruiting PhD students to work collaboratively with me, Steven Frankland, and Fred Callaway. Come study the principles and mechanisms that enable us to understand, plan, and act in the world! Info: sites.dartmouth.edu/cogscigrad/

Help! Do you know some great resources for teaching (grad or UG thesis) students how to manage their projects?

1/ Alright, this one’s been sitting in my drawer for a year now, after @mcxfrank.bsky.social and I got turned down for a public commentary. But before I forget about it completely, here’s the preprint: Can we harvest insights for rice theory from two state farms in China? osf.io/preprints/ps...

Fewer grad students means less science, but many STEM PhD programs in the US are cutting back on admissions this year due to federal funding uncertainties. Words by me for @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41... @emsque.bsky.social @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social @julieposselt.bsky.social 🧪

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs - Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75% - Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60% - Social Sciences by 50–70% - History by 60% - Biology by 75% - The German department will lose all PhD seats - Sociology from six PhD students to zero

Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur... Apply by Nov 12! Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏

there's a lot of interest in making AI more "human like" -- but what about the flip side? when real humans seem like robots/puppets/NPCs? nnnnnewwww pre-print: "The Development Of Sensitivity To Automatic Behavior" (by Bass, Bonawitz, & me) doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Some personal news: I adopted a cat! This is Bruno, and he enjoys sleeping on my desk as I’m writing

Implicit bias education has gotten a bad rap recently (and for some very good reasons), but in this paper (newly out in PIBSS) I argue that it could have value if done differently: doi.org/10.1177/2372... (Still also available as a preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...)

Exciting news: My lab has published our first paper! Here, we review the literature on early social evaluation, and we make recommendations about how to best study social evaluation in infants and toddlers. direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

Parents of 0- to 12-year-olds, come do science with us! We run short, game-like studies with kids. We offer in-person and online options, flexible scheduling (weekdays & weekends), and sessions that are fun for children and easy for caregivers.

Calling all ICIS members! Make a difference this summer by becoming a mentor for the Founding Generation Summer Fellowship. Share your expertise, inspire budding researchers, and help shape the future of #InfantResearch. Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

TEN DAYS left to submit your work to the Origins of the Social Mind Preconference at #SPSP2026! 👶🐒🌍 This year, our morning timeslot is compatible with a variety of fantastic afternoon preconferences (e.g., Social Cognition, Gender, Economic Inequality). See you there! spsp.org/events/annua...

just finished steve levinson's new book! it's a beautifully articulated argument for social interaction as the evolutionary niche which made language possible, rather than the other way around. progress in linguistics depends on a stronger science of interaction. www.cambridge.org/core/books/i...

now says "No upcoming due dates Program 23-500 is currently waiting for a new publication"; in prior yrs, would've been due 11/5. Can't ask NSF POs right now... if any1 got info on this before the shutdown happy to hear it! @jaeyoungson.bsky.social i saw you had a similar q, tagging you in too. #NSF

Please also feel free to register for our virtual open house if you are looking for a #phd in #devpsych #devscience #PsychSciSky I'll be there for the faculty meet and greet part

Our paper in annual review of dev psych is out! It's a big-picture look at the development of social cognition from a computational perspective: compdevlab.yale.edu/docs/2025/an...

This is a big one! A 4-year writing project over many timezones, arguing for a reimagining of the influential "core knowledge" thesis. Led by @daweibai.bsky.social, we argue that much of our innate knowledge of the world is not "conceptual" in nature, but rather wired into perceptual processing. 👇