Fun new collab coming out in TICS (w/ Haley Weaver & Sudha Arunachalam) digging into the assumptions underlying the use of eye-gaze methods to study vocabulary development. Working on this paper really got us thinking - we hope it does the same for our readers! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The fee to publish an open access paper at Trends in Cognitive Science is now over $7,000. Seriously, @elsevierconnect.bsky.social ??? For a 4,000 word piece? Talk about a broken system.

You won’t find a more supportive mentor/supervisor than Martin!

My lab at UW Madison is hiring a new lab manager! I’m looking for a motivated and detail-oriented person to help run the lab’s day-to-day, including our ongoing neuroimaging and behavioral studies. This is especially well suited for graduating undergrads thinking about grad school. Link below

Vile comment by Epstein about the program for an upcoming academic conference. Forget about diversity, and “the women are all weak and a distraction.” In 2018 no less. Makes you wonder what else goes on behind the scenes in academia (power, $$, etc).

www.statnews.com/2026/01/10/n... Very proud of my former student Alexa Romberg for her integrity and willingness to make personal sacrifices in the face of injustice.

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

Provocative and fascinating article! Kudos to the authors for their interdisciplinary integration.

What factors influence alignment btw infant eye-gaze & parental report measures of early vocab? The excellent Haley Weaver & I found that parental confidence & mutual exclusivity effects (distractor knowledge) impact alignment btw these "gold standard" tasks onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning Conference 2026 Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain 10-12 June 2026 Abstract submission deadline: 1 March 2026

We’re recruiting a postdoctoral fellow to join our team! 🎉 I’m happy to share that I’ve opened back up the search for this position (it was temporarily closed due to funding uncertainty). See lab page and doc below for details!

Science pushes back. Thanks to Helen Tager-Flusberg for her work on this front! Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/o...

Tenure track position in Psychology at UW-Madison — CogSci or comp neurosci with an AI emphasis, broadly construed. Apply!

Come be my colleague! UW-Madison Psychology is hiring! Computational Neuroscience and/or Cognitive Science, with an AI emphasis. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

A first blogpost from the LEVANTE team, introducing our global project perspective. A good intro if you're interested in learning more about cross-cultural developmental data collection using LEVANTE. levante-network.org/global-colla...

Really looking forward to this!

My book reveals the mostly hidden effects of talking *on talkers.* Talking boosts focus & learning, regulates emotions, changes perception, & more. The reason lies in how utterance planning for talking works. It's a book for gen'l audiences, but w scientific claims for production & its consequences

Fun new study by Ellie Breitfeld!

Super excited to submit a big sabbatical project this year: "Continuous developmental changes in word recognition support language learning across early childhood": osf.io/preprints/ps...

U of Wisconsin alumni & friends: today is "Day of the Badger"--a day to raise money to support our department & our students. If we reach 150 donors to the Dept of Psych, we unlock a big additional gift! Please support if you can! (any dollar amount, $5 is great!) dayofthebadger.org/campaign/psy...

Why isn’t the leadership of the National Academies of Science SAYING ANYTHING to protect science from being dismantled? Dick Aslin writes about the 1900+ scientists who spoke out —without their leadership. 🧪🧬🔬 dickaslin.substack.com/p/getting-in...

Grateful to the members of the National Academy of Sciences for standing up! www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/s...

In this interview Schumer says he agrees with Trump’s decision to pull $400 million from Columbia. A university in his own state. And he’s unconcerned about the unlawful arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, one of his constituents. He is a traitor who needs to resign.

Mine in today’s @newyorker.com

It seems relevant to reshare our info piece, given what just happened to IES. It’s now gonna become even easier for snake oil salesmen to peddle their junk to parents, teachers, and schools. www.the74million.org/article/with...

Last year, I was overjoyed to receive an NIH NRSA fellowship to study toddler brains and caregiving effects on memory at Columbia. Last night, my grant was terminated.

I'm just a small-town professor. I'll never be a provost or chancellor. But here's some free advice: we're about to hold the most watched college sports event in 🇺🇸. Every college president should be all over TV, at every game, explaining why the March Madness of federal budget cuts is a huge crisis.

The National Academies remained silent about the destruction of American science. They did nothing for the scientists comprising their membership They calculated that they would be spared if they didn't make themselves a target. They will not be spared. www.foxnews.com/politics/str...

Can’t wait!

As a result of Trump’s slashes to research funding, dozens of graduate programs have announced reductions and cancellations of graduate admissions slots. If you are an impacted applicant, please fill out this survey: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... 🧪🧠🧬🔬🥼👩🏼‍🔬🧑‍🔬

DOGE By The Numbers theonion.com/doge-by...

🧵 Elon Musk is shredding the United States government. But that’s not enough for him. Now, he wants to buy Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court as well. Help stop him: secure.actblue.com/donate/wisde...

Wonderful explainer on indirect costs by Dick Aslin open.substack.com/pub/dickasli...

"Methods based on infant speech segmentation, applied to 8 years of humpback recordings, uncovered in whale song the same statistical structure that is a hallmark of human language." Cool new paper by @inbalarnon.bsky.social, @simonkirby.bsky.social, @ellengarland.bsky.social out in @science.org. 🧪

Three ManyBabies projects - big collaborative replications of infancy phenomena - wrapped up this year. The first paper came out this fall. I thought I'd take this chance to comment on what I make of the non-replication result. 🧵 bsky.app/profile/laur...

Oxford scientist resigns from Royal Society over Elon Musk’s continuing fellowship

Exceptional leadership and demonstration of ethical conduct by Dorothy Bishop.

Breitfeld, Comptonn, & @jennysaffran.bsky.social (2024): toddlers learned words better from adults who previously behaved in an engaging way ➡️ engaging social experience w/ speakers supports toddlers’ subsequent learning #DevPsySky #PsychSciSky #infancypapers onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

UW-Madison Psychology is hiring a new assistant professor in the area of computational approaches to language (broadly construed). Please share with interested parties! jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

Postdoc openings starting summer/fall '25 in our training program focused on intellectual & developmental disabilities! Join us at the Waisman Center at UW-Madison. Deadline 1/3. www.waisman.wisc.edu/administrati...

Apply by Dec 1 to the UCSD Cognitive Science PhD program: cogsci.ucsd.edu/graduates/ph.... We have an incredible community working on language + cognition + development here - if that's up your alley, check us out! I'll also be considering applications to join my new lab opening in Fall 2024 (!!)

Job alert! I am seeking a 50%-time project manager for a new NSF-funded project on how simple card games can promote learning about biological variability--with a focus on relational language & gesture in caregiver-child interaction during play. More info: jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/researc...