Fiery Cushman
@fierycushman.bsky.social
📤 2535
📥 143
📝 11
Psychologist, but not the kind that can help you
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Fiery Cushman
Jane Acierno
5 days ago
🧠 New paper alert! Can people infer others’ values not from what they choose, but simply from what comes to mind? Across four studies, we show they can—drawing on an intuitive theory of how options are generated.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106238
👇
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106238
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Andrew Shtulman
17 days ago
New article w/ M Pabla &
@orifriedman.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
When children claim an unexpected event is impossible they also claim it's never happened, even for immoral events, suggesting their judgments reflect beliefs about what could happen & not merely what should.
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Jonathan Phillips
18 days ago
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/
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Cognitive Science Graduate Admissions – Information about graduate admissions from the cognitive science faculty
https://sites.dartmouth.edu/cogscigrad/
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Jordan Wylie
19 days ago
Only one day left to apply for the Moral Psychology Preconference at SPSP! We have an outstanding line-up of invited speakers, will have blitz contributed talks, a best poster award, and more. Don’t miss it!
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Joshua Conrad Jackson
21 days ago
Only two days left to apply!
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William J. Brady
21 days ago
Last call for data-blitz and poster submission for the Computational Psychology preconference
@spspnews.bsky.social
! See thread below for details and hope to see you in Chicago!
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Marc Lanctot
about 1 month ago
Hello all! 👋 🚨 New Preprint Alert! 🚨 Code World Models for General Game-Playing. ♟️🎲 ♣️♥️♠️♦️ I am pleased to announce our new paper, which provides an extremely sample-efficient way to create an agent that can perform well in multi-agent, partially-observed, symbolic environments! 🧵 1/N
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Matan Mazor
about 1 month ago
Consciousness science as a marketplace of rationalizations my commentary on
@smfleming.bsky.social
and
@matthiasmichel.bsky.social
's thought-provoking BBS paper, and more generally about the field.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
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OSF
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/hvsmj_v1
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Fiery Cushman
Society for Philosophy and Psychology
about 1 month ago
‼️ Recent work by Setayesh Radkani, Joshua Tenenbaum & Rebecca Saxe: What people learn from punishment: A cognitive model
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What people learn from punishment: A cognitive model | PNAS
Authorities, from parents of toddlers to leaders of formal institutions, use punishment to communicate disapproval and enforce social norms. Ideall...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2500730122
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Fiery Cushman
Mark Ho
about 1 month ago
I'm recruiting grad students!! 🎓 The CoDec Lab @ NYU (
codec-lab.github.io
) is looking for PhD students (Fall 2026) interested in computational approaches to social cognition & problem solving 🧠 Applications through Psych (
tinyurl.com/nyucp
) are due Dec 1. Reach out with Qs & please repost! 🙏
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codec lab
https://codec-lab.github.io/
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Fiery Cushman
Society for Philosophy and Psychology
about 1 month ago
📣Recent work by Emily G. Liquin, Marjorie Rhodes & Todd M. Gureckis: Seeking new information with old questions: Children and adults reuse and recombine concepts from prior questions
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Seeking New Information With Old Questions: Children and Adults Reuse and Recombine Concepts From Prior Questions
Abstract. Question asking is a key tool for learning about the world, especially in childhood. However, formulating good questions is challenging. In any given situation, many questions are possible b...
https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi.a.12
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William J. Brady
about 1 month ago
The computational psych preconference is back
@spspnews.bsky.social
for a full day! This year's lineup: 👉theory-driven modeling: Hyowon Gweon 👉data-driven discovery:
@clemensstachl.bsky.social
👉application: me 👉 panel:
@steveread.bsky.social
Sandra Matz,
@markthornton.bsky.social
Wil Cunningham
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Experimental Philosophy
about 1 month ago
Mikayla Kelley has an important new paper on why human beings even have a concept of intentional action The key question: What does this concept do in our lives? Her answer: Since we can't possibly evaluate all actions, it helps us choose which ones to evaluate
philpapers.org/rec/KELTNF-3
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Mikayla Kelley, The Normative Function of Intentional Action - PhilPapers
This essay identifies a normative function of the concept of intentional action. Specifically, I argue that the concept of intentional action functions to focus our evaluative concern on some doings r...
https://philpapers.org/rec/KELTNF-3
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Mark Shuquan Chen
2 months ago
My website is official 🙌 Excited to share that I am interested in reviewing applications for Harvard’s Clinical Science PhD program this fall as I look for the first student to join my lab! I appreciate it if you can share with your network :)
psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/mark-...
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Mark Chen | Department of Psychology
https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/mark-chen
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This was such a fun project! Dozens of philosophers wrote philosophical arguments trying to get people to donate more to charity, and we ask: Do any of these work? Which ones work best? Why?
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about 2 months ago
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Linas Nasvytis
about 2 months ago
🚨New paper out w/
@gershbrain.bsky.social
&
@fierycushman.bsky.social
from my time @Harvard! Humans are capable of sophisticated theory of mind, but when do we use it? We formalize & document a new cognitive shortcut: belief neglect — inferring others' preferences, as if their beliefs are correct🧵
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This project took a very unexpected path that was super helpful in updating the way my lab thinks about experimental design -- so we're sharing it with the world!
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about 2 months ago
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Haneul Jang
about 2 months ago
💙New paper!💙 How is knowledge transmitted across generations in a foraging society? With
@danielredhead.bsky.social
we found: In BaYaka foragers, long-term skills pass in smaller, sparser networks, while short-term food info circulates broadly & reciprocally
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
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Transmission networks of long-term and short-term knowledge in a foraging society
Abstract. Cultural transmission across generations is key to cumulative cultural evolution. While several mechanisms—such as vertical, horizontal, and obli
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/9/pgaf258/8249057
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Society for Philosophy and Psychology
2 months ago
🌟From Nicolò Cesana-Arlotti, Sofia Jáuregui, Peter Mazalik, Shaun Nichols & Justin Halberda: Logical concepts of (im)possibility guide young children's decision-making
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Logical Concepts of (Im)possibility Guide Young Children's Decision‐Making
The human capacity for rational decisions hinges on modal judgment: the discernment of what could, has to, or cannot happen. This ability was proposed to be a late outcome of human cognitive develop.....
https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70044
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Sam McDougle
2 months ago
📣 🚨 Yale Psychology has 3 searches this year! Links below: Quantitative link:
apply.interfolio.com/171903
Social link:
apply.interfolio.com/171989
Clinical link:
apply.interfolio.com/171970
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Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
https://apply.interfolio.com/171903
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Gregg D Caruso
3 months ago
Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads
theconversation.com/studying-phi...
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Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads
Philosophers are fond of saying that their field boosts critical thinking. Two of them decided to put that claim to the test.
https://theconversation.com/studying-philosophy-does-make-people-better-thinkers-according-to-new-research-on-more-than-600-000-college-grads-262681
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Fiery Cushman
3 months ago
I’ll have more to say about this paper in a bit, but very excited about it. Helps to explain why punishment doesn’t work to improve cooperation, why people still punish anyway, and what it implies about the evolution of cooperation and criminal justice policy
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Profitable third-party punishment destabilizes cooperation | PNAS
Third-party punishment is theorized by some scholars to be essential to the evolution of large-scale cooperation, but empirically, it often fails t...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2508479122
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Erik Nook 🏳️🌈
3 months ago
We're hiring!!! Princeton Psych has an Assistant Prof search in cog neuro (joint with
@princetonneuro.bsky.social
). Apply apply apply!
puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
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https://puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/apply/application.xhtml?listingId=39681
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Mathieu Charbonneau
5 months ago
New paper out in Topics in Cognitive Science! "Open-Ended Technological Evolution: The Co-Evolution of Invention and Cognitive Technologies" 🧵
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
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Open‐Ended Technological Evolution: The Co‐Evolution of Invention and Cognitive Technologies
Open-ended technological evolution is the result of the co-evolution of invention and cognitive technologies that enhances our cognitive capabilities and generates a feedback loop of ever-expanding t....
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tops.70012
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Society for Philosophy and Psychology
3 months ago
When development constricts our moral circle ‼️From Julia Marshall, Matti Wilks, Lucius Caviola & Karri Neldner
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When development constricts our moral circle - Nature Human Behaviour
Although many believe our moral circles expand with age, this Perspective discusses an early-emerging tendency to care for others.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02212-7
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Fiery Cushman
Setayesh Radkani
3 months ago
🚨Out in PNAS🚨 with
@joshtenenbaum.bsky.social
&
@rebeccasaxe.bsky.social
Punishment, even when intended to teach norms and change minds for the good, may backfire. Our computational cognitive model explains why! Paper:
tinyurl.com/yc7fs4x7
News:
tinyurl.com/3h3446wu
🧵
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PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
https://tinyurl.com/yc7fs4x7
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Christian Mott
3 months ago
After many years of anticipation (mainly by me),
@drlarisa.bsky.social
and I have a paper on the way people understand two mental state terms used in the criminal law -- "knowingly" and "recklessly" -- forthcoming in JEP:Applied. 1/
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https://christianmott.com/papers/MensRea_MS_Accepted.pdf
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Amitai Shenhav
4 months ago
📣 Heads-up that our amazing dept (Berkeley Psych) is anticipating hiring *two* TT Asst Profs this Fall, under the themes of (1) Social & Personality Psychology, and (2) Biological Basis of Behavior. Official job ads coming soon... Send qs for (1) to Iris Mauss/Serena Chen, (2) to Linda Wilbrecht
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Björn Lindström
4 months ago
Thrilled that our paper on the mechanisms underlying social learning strategies is out! First big paper from my
@erc.europa.eu
&
@kawresearch.bsky.social
funded group. More to come! I'm currently looking to recruit two post docs, get in touch if you find this line of research interesting.
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Fiery Cushman
4 months ago
Counterfactual models predict that normality should influence causal judgments in a different way depending on causal structure. A fascinating paper by Ozdemir and Walker finds some hints of this pattern in 5- to 7-year old children.
static1.squarespace.com/static/5615d...
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Max Kleiman-Weiner
4 months ago
Our new paper is out in PNAS: "Evolving general cooperation with a Bayesian theory of mind"! Humans are the ultimate cooperators. We coordinate on a scale and scope no other species (nor AI) can match. What makes this possible? 🧵
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Evolving general cooperation with a Bayesian theory of mind | PNAS
Theories of the evolution of cooperation through reciprocity explain how unrelated self-interested individuals can accomplish more together than th...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2400993122
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Michael Prinzing
4 months ago
A popular and very old argument for the value of philosophy claims that studying philosophy cultivates important intellectual abilities and dispositions. But empirical evidence for that claim has been hard to come by. Until now! 1/4
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Studying Philosophy Does Make People Better Thinkers | Journal of the American Philosophical Association | Cambridge Core
Studying Philosophy Does Make People Better Thinkers
https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2025.10007
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Arthur has written a wonderful, clear, super helpful introduction to contractualism as a foundation for moral psychology. Perfect for getting up to speed, teaching, a desk reference, or a sunny day at the beach.
wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
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Contractualist Moral Cognition: From the Normative to the Descriptive at Three Levels of Analysis
Visual summary of the paper. Taking inspiration from the contractualist tradition in moral philosophy is helpful to better understand morality at three interrelated levels of analysis: Its evolutiona...
https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcs.70011
4 months ago
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Hugo Spiers
4 months ago
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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The cultural construction of “executive function” | PNAS
In cognitive science, the term “executive function” (EF) refers to universal features of the mind. Yet, almost all results described as measuring E...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2407955122
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The Mind & Morality Lab @ Brown University
4 months ago
🚨We're hiring! The Mind & Morality Lab is seeking a Lab Manager to start this September. Excited about research on social cognitive development? Apply here:
forms.gle/4rKXD2x1vmkD...
. Learn more about us:
sites.brown.edu/mindmorality...
. ⏳ We’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis—apply early!
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https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebZz4zlP1p1cw3RLDkioGL8Zl9fRWUFSXi-ijEaJ8sr1eT9A/viewform
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Benedek Kurdi
5 months ago
Paper in
@pnas.org
in which
@d-melnikoff.bsky.social
and I provide evidence for model-based effects on automatic evaluation. This was a super fun “adversarial” collaboration with 0 adversariality. It may have been nice to be right, but getting it right is nearly as nice:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Jonathan F. Kominsky
5 months ago
Pleased to announce my new open access paper out in Developmental Psychology: The Development of the “First Thing That Comes to Mind” with
@xphilosopher.bsky.social
and
@ebonawitz.bsky.social
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-25569-001.html
#CogSci
#PsychSciSki
#DevSci
(1/10)
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APA PsycNet
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-25569-001.html
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Alex Mesoudi
5 months ago
Quite pleased with this paper. Usually in
#culturalevolution
experiments, people choose who to copy. We flipped it so that people chose with whom to share their information. Sharers got reputation increases for sharing, which we expected would allow partner choice, i.e. people share with sharers.
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Mohammad Atari
5 months ago
New preprint! 🔔 We apply computational text analysis to over 2000 years of historical corpora in Classical Chinese. Beyond descriptives, we test the hypothesis that kin-based institutions shape important aspects of socio-cooperative psychology.
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Larisa Heiphetz Solomon
5 months ago
1. New paper first-authored by former post-doc Young-eun Lee (currently at MIT with
@rebeccasaxe.bsky.social
) now in press at JECP! More info in thread below, full text here:
columbiasamclab.weebly.com/uploads/5/9/...
. 🧪
#PsychSciSky
#SocialPsyc
#DevPsyc
#CogPsyc
@socphilpsych.bsky.social
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https://columbiasamclab.weebly.com/uploads/5/9/0/6/59061709/lee_solomon_in_press_jecp.pdf
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Robert Hawkins
5 months ago
never thought i'd be that guy but coding with AI integration in Cursor is genuinely so fun... it's like having access to an additional declarative interface to imperative programming language, just being able to specify what you want the CSS to look like and let the details handle themselves.
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Sydney Levine
5 months ago
🔆 I'm hiring! 🔆 There are two open positions: 1. Summer research position (best for master's or graduate student); focus on computational social cognition. 2. Postdoc (currently interviewing!); focus on computational social cognition and AI safety.
sites.google.com/corp/site/sy...
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Sydney Levine - Open Positions
Summer Research Position I am seeking a part-time or full-time researcher for the summer (starting asap) to bring a project to completion. The project asks the question: do people around the world u...
https://sites.google.com/corp/site/sydneymlevine/open-positions
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Ian Phillips
5 months ago
Super interesting, fresh way of thinking about dorsal/ventral streams, object tracking & aphantasia. View that aphantasia involves 'unrendered' amodal geometric imagery fits v nicely w/ what I've argued in recent work too, e.g.,
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
,
philarchive.org/rec/PHISSI-5
.
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Julia Marshall
6 months ago
🥳🥳 New paper in
@nathumbehav.nature.com
: “When development constricts our moral circle." Contrary to popular belief, younger kids may start out with broader moral circles than older ones. Check it out here 👉
rdcu.be/eoaSe
w/
@mattiwilks.bsky.social
@karrineldner.bsky.social
& Lucius Caviola
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When development constricts our moral circle
Nature Human Behaviour - Although many believe our moral circles expand with age, this Perspective discusses an early-emerging tendency to care for others.
https://rdcu.be/eoaSe
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Adam Morris
6 months ago
A widespread view in psychology is that most cognitive processes are unconscious. In a new paper, I argue that many of these processes may evade consciousness for the same reason the "invisible gorilla" did: People fail to pay attention to them. 🧵
direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
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Invisible Gorillas in the Mind: Internal Inattentional Blindness and the Prospect of Introspection Training
Abstract. Much of high-level cognition appears inaccessible to consciousness. Countless studies have revealed mental processes—like those underlying our choices, beliefs, judgments, intuitions, etc.—w...
https://direct.mit.edu/opmi/article/doi/10.1162/opmi_a_00204/130651
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Kevin Riggs
6 months ago
JOB! 3yr funded post-doc in Theory of Mind inspired by the knowledge first epistemology of Williamson, and the work of
@jsphillips.bsky.social
. Looking at knowledge and ignorance processing in adults with me and Richard O'Connor at the Uni of Hull. Please re-post.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNE794/p...
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Casey Lewry
6 months ago
🎊 New preprint 🎊 w/ Tania Lombrozo Why do people engage in collective actions, even when they believe their actions won't make a difference? Based on evidence from the 2024 election and a hypothetical election, we find that *moral* responsibility, not causal, drives voting
osf.io/preprints/ps...
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Science Magazine
6 months ago
Lab-kept bumble bees roll small wooden balls around for no apparent purpose other than fun, a 2022 study reveals. Learn more on
#WorldBeeDay
:
scim.ag/4dAwCuD
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Tom McCoy
6 months ago
🤖🧠 Paper out in Nature Communications! 🧠🤖 Bayesian models can learn rapidly. Neural networks can handle messy, naturalistic data. How can we combine these strengths? Our answer: Use meta-learning to distill Bayesian priors into a neural network!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Sometimes people say its fair for those with advantage to get more (best office to the CEO...); other times, the opposite seems more fair (... charity to the needy). In this new work, Arthur and Xavier try to explain why. See the preprint link and explainer thread below:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
add a skeleton here at some point
6 months ago
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