Do LLMs *understand* language? Do educational AI agents *understand* the material they teach (or their students)? Claims about what AI systems do or don't understand are pervasive, but assessing them requires an account of MACHINE UNDERSTANDING

Tomorrow, 10:45, talk room 2! Revisiting Iconic Memory with a New Experimental Paradigm @vssmtg.bsky.social #VSS2026

This talk will be 🔥. It should be of special interest to philosophers because of its implications for the overflow debate about consciousness. Gal won't have time to talk about those implications on Monday, but she'll be happy to talk about them after. Hope to see you there!

Arrived @ #VSS2026 @vssmtg.bsky.social 😎🌴 If you're here - come check out my talk on Monday! Revisiting Iconic Memory with a New Experimental Paradigm Room 2 May 18th, 10:45 (1st talk) Super fun collaboration with @johnmorrison.bsky.social & my 1st study from @michaelshadlen.bsky.social lab 🤩

I have news! After 4 fabulous years at Northeastern, this July I will be moving to Duke—with tenure! It’s hard to convey how grateful I am to everyone who has made this possible: from old professors in Mexico and mentors in the US to students, colleagues, and, of course, my amazing wife and family.

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Proud to be one of the signatories. www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/09...

We're number one! (in suppressing free speech) www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/09...

New review on how changes in cell type composition in and outside the brain contribute to the evolution of behavior. 🧪 authors.elsevier.com/a/1lihM,LqAZ...

I wrote a substack article: open.substack.com/pub/youngert...

How can algorithms from cognitive science inform our understanding of neural networks? In this 9-min overview from #CCN, I present recent work with @pebenjamters.bsky.social and Niko Kriegeskorte. My talk begins at 38:00: hva-uva.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Page...

5 years since our first pilot, and 25,000 participants later, I'm super happy this work with Makaela Nartker, @chazfirestone.bsky.social and Howard Egeth on inattentional blindness is now out in eLife! A little 🧵 of what we found... 1/12 elifesciences.org/articles/100...

Very happy to announce that our paper “Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision” is now out as a target article in BBS!! @smfleming.bsky.social and I present a new theory of the evolution and functions of visual consciousness. Article here: doi.org/10.1017/S014.... A (long) thread 🧵

Chris Baldassano is not only an incredibly talented scientist, he's also an incredibly nice person. Teaching Intro to Cog Sci with him has been pure joy. Check out this accessible overview of his research 👇

😎 SPAN2025 Keynotes, invited symposia speakers, and sponsored symposia just dropped! Take a look at who will be at SPAN2025 and then submit your abstract so you can be there too! More invited speakers will be announced soon. Visit our website for all the details: philandneuro.com

For #CCN2025 in Amsterdam, we will, for the first time, have conference proceedings that include both full length peer-reviewed papers and the traditional 2-page track! Deadlines for submissions: 17th February for full papers ( abstract only; full paper on 20th FEB) & 10th April for 2 pagers.

SPP 2025 will be at Cornell, June 18-21!

Barnard and Columbia are going through a difficult period. Here's more information about the latest crisis at Barnard: www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/12...

Delighted to share a new preprint with @matthiasmichel.bsky.social! We combine human psychophysics and evolutionary constraints to propose a new hypothesis about the functions of conscious vision. This has been in the pipeline a long time- exciting to get it out in the world! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Nature, Neurons, Mushrooms, Biochemistry, and Consciousness (or the lack thereof). My top illustrations of 2023 summarize my current interests pretty well. Let's hope that in 2024 I can finally find the time to thread some of these into a coherent story. 🧠 #artvsartist #sciart #sciviz

I'm giving the university seminar in cognitive neuroscience on Monday the 27th at Columbia. I will suggest a definition of "representation" that could be useful to neuroscientists. There's a dinner afterward and they're asking for RSVPs. More details here: psychology.columbia.edu/events/cogni...