Excited to announce the third annual Comm Horizons @ucdavis.bsky.social Conference: Communication in the Age of AI and Algorithms Featuring cutting-edge research and keynotes from Jeff Hancock and @angelhwang.bsky.social Hope you'll submit and share! communication.ucdavis.edu/horizonconf2...

From my brilliant collaborator and a wonderful friend! I would listen to Sara all day, what a treat!

We say we want uplifting media, but our revealed preferences tell another story. We often pick darker, more intense content. This @npr.org piece covers our lab’s research on why, and includes great advice from @aeden.bsky.social on building intentional media habits.

My lab at USC is recruiting! 1) research coordinator: perfect for a recent graduate looking for research experience before applying to PhD programs: usccareers.usc.edu REQ20167829 2) PhD students: see FAQs on lab website dornsife.usc.edu/hklab/faq/

I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.

SoCoLab celebrates fall 🎃👻🍂 How did I get so lucky to end up with a group of such fabulous, kind, and funny human beings?

We're excited to announce that the #SANS2026 Presidential Keynote Speaker will be Dr. Steve Chang of Yale! (medicine.yale.edu/profile/stev...). He will deliver an address titled "Diverse Social Strategies and Neural Mechanisms underlying Mutual Cooperation"

Symposium submissions are now open for #SANS2026 in San Diego! The deadline for these submissions is November 17th at 23:59 Pacific. Check out the submission guidelines here: socialaffectiveneuro.org/symposia-gui...

📢 My lab at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine is considering graduate student applications this fall We welcome applicants interested in using computational modeling & fMRI to study social connection 🗓️ Deadline: December 1, 2025 🔗 Learn more: sinclaboratory.com/apply #comppsychiatry #socialneuro

Having colleagues like @richardhuskey.bsky.social @soojongkim.bsky.social would be a dream!

Excited to present our new work reading minds! Ok, not *that* kind of mind reading, but we have created a deep learning method capable of using single neuron recordings from people watching episodes of TV that can predict when they recall specific memories from the episode. 1/6

Amazing opportunity for grad students looking for a postdoc! Excited to see all that @youngkihong.bsky.social’s new lab will venture into in the coming years 🎉

Excited to share this work led by @avamadesousa.bsky.social! This paper is so significant to me, not only because it reveals important insights into the disruptions in emotion representations that characterize loneliness, but also because it is a clear example of the power of team science 🌟

SoCoLab, Year 3! It has been a rough start to the new year, but first lab meeting of the semester with the best team reminds me of what this is all about. It feels like just yesterday that the lab was just me and @begumbabur.bsky.social 🥲 …now we fill the conference room!

what happens during "resting state"? @jinke.bsky.social asked this question by (literally) asking what participants what they were thinking during rest, finding that ongoing thoughts are reflected in FC patterns and predict behavior/traits! excited to be part of this project!

🧠Out now in @ohbmofficial.bsky.social ! 🧠 We scanned 32 first-time dads (~8 mos postpartum) while they watched videos of their baby, an unfamiliar baby, their romantic partner, and an unfamiliar woman…1/8 doi.org/10.1002/hbm....

New paper with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social in Nature Communications: an RL model that builds a successor map compositionally. The new model plans as well as the best models, and it links components of the map used for planning to neural codes in the medial entorhinal cortex. rdcu.be/eAofi

I'm reviewing PhD applications this cycle to join my lab at @uwpsych.bsky.social in Fall ‘26. Ideal for those interested in dev, decision-making, emotion regulation, fMRI, and quant/comp methods. We have cool stuff in the works and want more brilliant ppl in the fold! psych.wisc.edu/joao-guassi-...

🥳Excited to share that our new paper is live at Psychological Science @psychscience.bsky.social! We show that Pavlovian learning can grow empathy for another person. 🧵👇

🚨We are recruiting a lab manager who will spend 80% of their effort in my lab and 20% of their effort in @leorhackel.bsky.social's lab. Please share widely! Apply at usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange... with: completed questionnaire (socolab.org/lab-manager-application), CV & Cover Letter!

🚨New paper in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social 🚨 Why do some ideas spread widely, while others fail to catch on? We review the “psychology of virality,” or the psychological & structural factors that shape information spread online and offline: authors.elsevier.com/c/1lRke4sIRv...

Excited to share that I’ll be joining the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at @colorado.edu as an Assistant Professor this fall! My lab will study social cognition, focusing on the cognitive and neural bases of stereotyping and bias interventions.

Excited to ✨share✨ that our paper on ✨sharing✨ is published! Across 3 studies that build on one another, we show that perceived alignment with one's peers increases the likelihood of information sharing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Anyway, here's the link, if you can suppress your revulsion to my vocal intonation long enough to listen: www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025...

My new op-ed in the @nytimes. I argue that Iranians are caught in a state of “moral paralysis,” a psychological trap set by the Islamic Republic itself. It pits two of our most sacred values against each other: liberation vs. self-determination. (1/2) www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/o...

Does linguistic diversity when talking about emotions track wellbeing? In a new pre-print with @eriknook.bsky.social, we link emotion vocabularies to mental health in a large real-world psychotherapy dataset. Highlight: therapist emo vocab may help clients get better over time! shorturl.at/TKPN1

Meet 2025 APS Janet Taylor Spence recipient @minuekim.bsky.social‬, associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Sungkyunkwan University, whose interdisciplinary work examines the neurocognitive mechanisms of affective information processing and how they impact #mentalhealth.

Friends writing a paper you're going to cite for years is a cause for celebration! @elisabaek.bsky.social @rzhprfshr.bsky.social & @joebayer.bsky.social map how social connection is defined & measured, point to their false equivalencies + consider how media/constant connectivity changes things ♥️

Scan Camp is in session at the Northwestern CATS Lab! 🧠 We're looking for teens for a 5 week study. Participants complete 8-10 MRI scans and can earn up to $1,210! Parents and teens can learn more: northwestern.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... Please spread the word!

In this Review, Elisa C. Baek, Razieh Pourafshari & Joseph B. Bayer describe how four distinct uses of the term 'social connection' -- as subjective perceptions, social networks, synchrony & interpersonal behaviors -- have contributed to understanding this concept PDF: rdcu.be/erbWH

BREAKING: A federal judge in Massachusetts (the Reagan-appointed William Young) has declared the Trump administration's cuts to NIH grants — ostensibly over Trump's EOs on gender ideology and DEI — are "illegal" and "void." He's ordering many grants restored.

Wrapping up #ica25 with @rzhprfshr.bsky.social presenting our work with @joebayer.bsky.social reviewing the research under the broad umbrella of “social connection”. And perfect timing because the paper was published TODAY at @natrevpsychol.nature.com 🥳 rdcu.be/erayE

Had a great blue sky workshop earlier today with a fantastic panel of researchers who were incredibly generous in sharing their experiences about #AltAc. We had a packed house - these photos don't do it justice! Don't forget to attend our reception tonight in the Hyatt Regency in Capitol 4 at 20:00!

2 media coping/well-being projects: Rockstar PhD student @juleswilson21.bsky.social will present her work on media use during grief (Mass Comm, Mon 9) & bestie @elisabaek.bsky.social will share preliminary findings on story processing differences in lonely people’s brains (CSaB, Sat 9) #ica25

Moments like this make me feel so thankful and lucky to be part of so many academic communities 🔥 feeling inspired and encouraged! Thank you to the organizers of #CommHorizons for putting together such an amazing program and group of researchers!

@gongxuanjun.bsky.social giving a wonderful talk on narrative impact & success (w @richardhuskey.bsky.social & @aeden.bsky.social) by using narrative structural models of networked characters & events to model popularity of a novel at #CommHorizons2025

🥳 Exciting news! My first paper is out now in @pnas.org This work was a great collaboration between @ycleong.bsky.social , Chelsey Pan, & @leorhackel.bsky.social We examined how the brain learns from experiences of social acceptance and rejection🧵👇 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

That’s a wrap on #SANS2025! Had a great time presenting my work on how our brains learn from rejection & how loneliness relates to patterns in our daily language

Still recovering and reflecting from #sans2025 and how our lab went from one poster last year to six (!!) this year. So proud and thankful for the brilliant people I get to do science with. Excited to see what we'll find in the next year to share in San Diego!

CASNL member Jadyn Park @jadynpark.bsky.social presenting her work on arousal, functional network and memory during narrative perception at #SANS2025 Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Come to sunny San Diego, April 14-20, 2026, for #SANS2026!

And we are done! 🎉 feeling relived, inspired, and exhausted…and so thankful for this community! See you next year, SANS 🧠

It was such a privilege to have the legendary @gangchen6.bsky.social join us this year for SANS! Looking forward to continuing to use your methods and tools. Thank you for joining us!

Symposium 2: Advances in Best Practices & Methods starting now! #SANS2025

AI in social & affective neuroscience: Caution or acceleration? 🤖 Mohammad Atari @mohammadatari.bsky.social 🆚 Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social Can AI be our Co-Pilot - or should we slow down? LaSalle Ballroom, don’t miss it! #SANS2025

Here's what to look forward to on Day 2 of #SANS2025: 🌍 EDIJ panel on global science 🧠 Symposium on best practices 🤖 Debate #2 on the role of AI 🌟 Keynote Address from Dr. Beatriz Luna 🏆 Mid-Career Award: Dr. Catherine Hartley 🎉 Data Blitz/PM posters + evening socials See you there!

Now for the first #SANS2025 debate! @drdamienfair.bsky.social and @thaliawheatley.bsky.social will discuss "Scaling up vs. zooming in: The case for large consortia vs. small investigator led studies" moderated by Josiah Leong.

Loving the co-op game play paradigm @shawnrhoadsphd.bsky.social is using to examine inter-brain coherence and theory of mind accuracy between dyads #sans2025. (And he’s hiring!)

So happy for comm representation at SANS 🧠🥳

Same!!😂