Very happy to have presented our work on the computational basis of doomscrolling at the CocoFlex seminar (organized by @sebraem.bsky.social) in Ghent today!!! More information about our work on the lab website sites.google.com/site/ireneco...

New paper out in Behavioral Research Methods! We introduce a simulation-based method using RNNs to infer trial-varying latent variables from computational cognitive models. Link: doi.org/10.3758/s134... #ComputationalCognitiveModeling #SBI

After scrolling Twitter, it will take you a while to get back into “work mode”. Why is this the case? Our new work (out now in Psych Review), led by Ivan Grahek and Xiamin Leng, explores the costs of adjusting cognitive control to meet different goals: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... 🧵 A thread:

The lateral prefrontal cortex 🧠— which we think of as critical for goal driven behavior + is a target for psychiatric treatments— is fundamentally different in individuals relative to the group averages we’ve often studied. 👇see preprint and thread, led by Zach Ladwig #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky

What makes a puzzle hard? I found this video delightful.

An abbreviation (ABB) in a journal article (JA) or Grant Application (GA) is rarely worth the words it saves. Every ABB requires cognitive resources (CR) and at my age by the time I'm halfway through a JA or GA I no longer have the CR to remember what your ABB stood for.

In neuroscience, we often try to understand systems by analyzing their representations — using tools like regression or RSA. But are these analyses biased towards discovering a subset of what a system represents? If you're interested in this question, check out our new commentary! Thread:

🚨📊ɴᴇᴡ ᴘᴀᴘᴇʀ!! When we learn a new skill—like tying shoelaces or making pasta—we often start with a series of deliberate steps. But eventually, those steps blend into a smooth, single unit: an action chunk. But why and when do we chunk? 👇 📰https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1lMMD2Hx2-9B8

🚨 We’re hiring a postdoc! Join the FLARE project @cimcyc.bsky.social to study sudden perceptual learning using fMRI, RSA, and DNNs. 🧠 2 years, fully funded, flexible start More info 👉 gonzalezgarcia.github.io/postdoc/ DMs or emails welcome! Please share!

🚨 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

We moved our symposium to a bigger room so we have a few more extra seats available now! Join us September 10th for our symosium on "Flexible Definitions of Cognitive Flexibility" shengjiexu.ugent.be/CoCoFlex_Sem.... Poster or talk submission deadline is in two weeks: July 31st!

🧠💻 We (a bunch of colleagues at @cimcyc.bsky.social) just released a programming guide for psych & cog neuro students. Instead of a tutorial, this is a starting point: a collection of reflections, examples, and recommendations. 👉 Still growing, but ready to explore: wobc.github.io/programming_book/

Super excited to share this one!! Meta-learning sparsity and learning rate gives rise to brain-like gradients of complementary learning systems. So complementary learning systems emerge organically through behavior optimization, and it's not just two of them!!

💥New postdoc position! 💥 Join us to explore how people learn from each other—and how that drives cultural evolution. Run experiments, build computational models & collaborate across Europe w. @lucasmolleman.bsky.social 📍 Stockholm More info: shorturl.at/CY4wk

The deadline has been extended until July 16th! 👉 PhDs: hmc-lab.com/ERC_PhDs.html 👉 Postdoc: hmc-lab.com/ERC_Postdoc....

Impressive behavioral + modelling + eeg work, led by @lucvermeylen.bsky.social , relating time-on-task changes in comp parameters to changes in metacognitive reports!

The study suggests a few metacognitive states correlate with rational behavioural adjustments; this might help steering behaviour towards optimality. @lucvermeylen.bsky.social @sebraem.bsky.social @kobedesender.bsky.social @gonzalezgarcia.bsky.social @mruz.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44...

My latest: a short review on latent variable models to help uncover trial-to-trial structure in perceptual decision-making strategies authors.elsevier.com/a/1lMiv4sIRv...

Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Abstract rule learning promotes cognitive flexibility in complex environments across species www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience

The Learning and Cognitive Control Laboratory at Ghent University (Belgium), led by Clay Holroyd, is recruiting two highly motivated postdoctoral fellows to apply a control-theoretic approach to investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms of cognitive effort ( doi.org/10.1037/rev0... )

Out now in Science Advances! We find that infants estimate environmental volatility to learn optimally, with early individual differences linked to temperament. This has be so much fun to work on and ended up being my favourite personal paper! So excited it's out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚀Join our team @tuda.bsky.social ! 🚀 I'm looking for 3 PhDs & 1 Postdoc for my @erc.europa.eu project “C4: Compositional Compression in Cognition and Culture” to study learning across individuals, teams, and cultural timescales 👉 PhD: hmc-lab.com/ERC_PhDs.html 👉 Postdoc: hmc-lab.com/ERC_Postdoc....

I will be looking to hire 2-3 post-docs over the course of the next few months to work on questions related to cognitive control in humans, using EEG, TMS, DBS, sEEG, fMRI, or related methods. If you know anybody, please tell them to email me. Formal ad to follow. Lab website: wessellab.org

Join our @erc.europa.eu funded lab @ki.se! We're hiring a postdoc to explore how humans learn from each other — with fMRI, modeling, & behavioral experiments. 🧠👫 A chance to lead cutting-edge work in social neuro & computational psychology. Apply: shorturl.at/GJQuW

#JNeurosci: Using EEG, @paulapena.bsky.social @palencianoap.bsky.social @gonzalezgarcia.bsky.social and @mruz.bsky.social examined how the brain encodes and organizes task-relevant information during novel recombination settings. @cimcyc.bsky.social vist.ly/3n68yqw

One way to tackle a new task is to reuse solutions from the past. Check out Sam Hall-McMaster's latest finding that strategy reuse is accompanied by neural reactivation of prior solutions @plosbiology.org Collab w/ M Tomov & @gershbrain.bsky.social #neuroskyence journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Two time scales of adaptation in human learning rates https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.05.658048v1

NEUROCOG 2025 is taking place in Brussels Nov 17–18! The theme: AI and the Human Brain 🤖 🧠 We’re thrilled to welcome 6 amazing invited speakers: @evfedorenko.bsky.social, @nicoschuck.bsky.social, @summerfieldlab.bsky.social, @jeffreybowers.bsky.social, @irisgroen.bsky.social & @mtoneva.bsky.social

New modeling paper, spearheaded by Raphael Geddert and Seth Madlon-Kay, now out in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review: "Modeling of control over task switching and cross-task interference supports a two-dimensional model of cognitive stability and flexibility". Free read link: rdcu.be/epatc

Job altert: Postdoc position (100%, 2 yrs) in our lab (@cmdn-lab.bsky.social) in context with the DFG Research Unit on Belief Updating (www.uni-hamburg.de/ru5389/resea...). We are looking for people with strong quantitative skills. Info and application via: www.uni-hamburg.de/stellenangeb...

An autism case series, vaccine hesitancy, and death by measles acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

🤯 We use the term 'intelligence' a lot, but wth do we mean? We got 303 survey responses from researchers. The most agreed-on criteria are generalization, adaptability & reasoning. ACL Findings preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2505.20959 with @brtrm.bsky.social @terne.bsky.social @heinrichst.bsky.social /1

Out now in TiCS, something i've been thinking about a lot: "Physics vs. graphics as an organizing dichotomy in cognition" (by Balaban & me) relevant for many people, related to imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, aphantasia, and more authors.elsevier.com/a/1lBaC4sIRv...

Planning to apply for #research #funding from the ERC? From the next application rounds, expect changes to the: • proposal structure • evaluation process • extra funding you can request • eligibility for Starting & Consolidator #Grants (from 2027) More 👇 europa.eu/!RPHWvv

What happens when we stretch RL over 24 days, with 1 or 2 iterations only per day? Check our preprint! A great collaboration with @benrottman.bsky.social‬ and Yiwen Zhang. @collinsccnlab.bsky.social osf.io/preprints/ps...

How does the brain stop thoughts? Find out in my article in @natrevneuro.nature.com with Subbu Subbulakshmi & Maite Crespo-Garcia www.nature.com/articles/s41... that integrates 25 yrs of psychology and neuroscience on this vital [email protected] sky.social #neuroskyence #neuroscience

We're organizing a symposium in Ghent on "Flexible Definitions of Cognitive Flexibility" on Wednesday, September 10th, with six exciting speakers: shengjiexu.ugent.be/CoCoFlex_Sem.... Registration is free, but seats are limited. You can also submit poster or talk abstracts by July 31st!

Check out our new special issue on cognitive flexibility @coolscontrol.bsky.social: authors.elsevier.com/a/1l4vl8MqMi...

The ERC welcomes the offer of substantial additional budget from @ec.europa.eu for the development of a new ERC funding instrument offering larger, longer-term grants, as announced by President Ursula Von der Leyen at the Sorbonne this morning. 👉 europa.eu/!NTYTTV

🙌 Hot off the presses @natcomms.nature.com! We created a custom #Minecraft environment to study a long-standing puzzle in cognitive science: How do humans flexibly adapt their individual and social learning strategies in dynamic, realistic situations? Check it out 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇

Serving on an NIH study section is always inspiring – but this time even more so …

There are salient updates to attend to BUT if you’re wondering how they organize your memory, here’s a review/simulation offering diff. roles of prediction errors in building & breaking our models of the world w/ @davidclewett.bsky.social @jameswardantony.bsky.social inspired by Sarah DuBrow (1/7)

Science is under threat in the US. @elife.bsky.social have commissioned a series of articles discussing the implications and what we can do. The first three articles are now live. More to follow: elifesciences.org/articles/106... elifesciences.org/articles/106... elifesciences.org/articles/106...

Huge thanks to @sebraem.bsky.social for inviting me in Gent to talk about curiosity and the dynamics of human exploration. It was very exciting to meet many researchers working on this and related topics using strong computational approaches!

PhD position in cognitive computational neuroscience! Join us, & investigate how we can endow domain-specific models of vision (eg DNNs) with domain-general processes such as metacognition or working memory. All details => www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... #PsychSciSky #Neuroscience #Neuroskyence

New preprint 📝 - another fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social, @licezhang.bsky.social, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social, @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎 osf.io/preprints/ps...

Apply by 18th April for the @unibirmingham.bsky.social & @unileiden.bsky.social Computational Social Cognition summer school. Amazing keynotes Matthew Rushworth, @dianatamir.bsky.social & @davidamodio.bsky.social plus instructors from @thechbh.bsky.social & @imh-uob.bsky.social www.compsoccog.com

🚀 New paper out in Psychological Review! How does learning change across the lifespan? We propose that resource rationality—adapting belief updating to cognitive limitations—can explain age-related differences in learning. 📖 doi.org/10.1037/rev0... 👇 A short thread:

So excited to announce Curiosity, Information Seeking & Exploration conference: 30th Sept-1st Oct @Brown University. Amazing speakers sites.google.com/view/informa... and free! Abstract submissions open until 7th July w/ Romy Frömer, Ohad Dan, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Matt Nassar. Please share!