What makes new goals difficult to reach? As I discussed with @alisonpstevens.bsky.social for @sciencenews.bsky.social, the issue might be holding precise but costly memories of the target. As we internalize rules for what success looks like, goals become more attainable. @annecollins.bsky.social

My paper is out! Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets. rdcu.be/eQjLN

Next week, I'll be presenting my work with @annecollins.bsky.social @collinsccnlab.bsky.social on reward function compression in human RL at @sfn.org. Join me at the "Adaptive Choice" nanosymposium on Nov 16th or dm me if you'd like to meet up!

Come work with us! UC Irvine Cognitive Sciences is looking for a new Assistant Professor to join our team: recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09896 I'm not on the committee, but happy to talk if you're interested.

📢 New preprint! How do humans learn from arbitrary, abstract goals? We show that, when goal spaces can be compressed, costly working-memory processes give way to internalized reward functions, enabling efficient goal-dependent reinforcement learning. @annecollins.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2509.06810

UC Davis is hiring! A tenure-track assistant professor of psychology, in human cognition or cognitive neuroscience #psychjobs recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07300

My lab at UCLA is hiring 1-2 PhD students this cycle! Join us to work at the intersection of cognitive science and AI applied to pressing societal challenges like climate change. More info about me: rachit-dubey.github.io My lab: ucla-cocopol.github.io Please help repost/spread the word!

JOB ALERT: Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Postdoc position in Osaka, Japan! Possible start in October 2025 (contact me ASAP), or from April 2026. PLEASE REPOST! #postdocjobs #neuroskyence #neuroscience #psychscisky #compneurosky #neurojobs 1/

🚨 We’re hiring! The Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Virginia Tech is looking for a postdoc to join our team studying the neural + computational mechanisms of structure learning and flexible cognition: ccnvt.github.io#positions

Generative AI is a cultural transmission technology: it plays a growing role in generation, selection and transmission of ideas/opinions in human society 🧠🔄🌐 And yet we understand very little of this dynamics at this point 🤔❓ A step forward is our #ICLR2025 paper !👇

What's wrong with evaluating #LLMs after a single interaction? Come find out @iclr-conf.bsky.social and learn how cultural attraction theory can help us do better. Poster #288, 10 am.

Have you ever gotten lost in fantasies and thought to yourself, "What a waste of time"? Well, think again! In our new piece in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Moshe Bar and I explain one reason why spontaneous thoughts, even when seemingly useless, may be key to human intelligence.

Stop by @neuripsconf.bsky.social poster #3909 11 am - 2 pm today if you want to wish me a happy birthday, hear about goal selection in RL, or both! @pyoudeyer.bsky.social @annecollins.bsky.social

I'm excited to announce that this work has been accepted at @blog.neurips.cc.web.brid.gy 🧠🤖 We hope to spark conversations on goal selection in biological and artificial agents. Check it out at openreview.net/forum?id=Gbq... With Cédric Colas, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, & Anne Collins

No time to read? A 5-minute summary of this paper is now out on YouTube! youtu.be/fkPt9a5OvTs?...

How do we decide which goals to pursue? Here, we introduce the notion of *latent learning progress* to explain human goal selection and inspire advances in the development of autotelic machines. osf.io/preprints/ps... With Cédric Colas, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, and Anne Collins

The notion that goals are central to human cognition is intuitive, yet learning and decision-making researchers have often overlooked the topic. In this Trends in Cognitive Sciences review, @annecollins.bsky.social and I propose it’s time to start studying goals in their own right 🧠 t.co/He6PIpQdt9