First up in the Glushko Dissertation Prize Symposium: Andrea de Varda @andreadevarda.bsky.social examines what multilingual neural language models can reveal about language and cognition. #CogSci2026

How many languages have existed over the Holocene—and what does that reveal about the design space of languages and cultures? Now out in @science.org www.science.org/eprint/QDZNY....

The rise and fall of language diversity through the Holocene

Characterizing the factors that have shaped linguistic diversity is fundamental for understanding human history, culture, and cognition. In this study, we combined statistical and social computational...

science.org

What makes some stimuli more memorable than others? In a new paper w/ @davogelsang.bsky.social, we show that the magnitude of a stimulus's ANN representation predicts both image and word memorability Stimuli that activate more features, more strongly, leave a stronger memory trace Out now in JML⬇️

🧠🤖 It was a pleasure to host @andreadevarda.bsky.social for his talk, "Large Language Models as Models of Human Language(s) and Higher-Level Cognition." A truly inspiring talk! #NLProc

I am so excited about this finding from @pengrui-han.bsky.social and @andreadevarda.bsky.social, also with Jacob Andreas! Perhaps modularity is inevitable in intelligent systems, biological or in silico. :)

pengrui-han.bsky.social@pengrui-han.bsky.social · last mo.

The human brain is strikingly modular: distinct networks for language, formal reasoning, social reasoning, physical reasoning. Is this fundamental to intelligent systems, or an accident of evolution? In our new preprint, we find the same modular organization emerges in LLMs.

The human brain is strikingly modular: distinct networks for language, formal reasoning, social reasoning, physical reasoning. Is this fundamental to intelligent systems, or an accident of evolution? In our new preprint, we find the same modular organization emerges in LLMs.

Like the human brain, LLMs use separate sets of units for language, formal reasoning, social reasoning, and intuitive physical reasoning. A modular organization of cognition may be a fundamental principle of intelligence!

pengrui-han.bsky.social@pengrui-han.bsky.social · last mo.

The human brain is strikingly modular: distinct networks for language, formal reasoning, social reasoning, physical reasoning. Is this fundamental to intelligent systems, or an accident of evolution? In our new preprint, we find the same modular organization emerges in LLMs.

Thanks to the Weber School for inviting me to give a #TEDx talk! I discuss how much people vary in their inner thought — from thinking mainly in words to thinking mostly abstractly — and the implications it has for understanding AI cognition. youtu.be/WAm0XQIRBMw

Do We Think In Words? Does AI? | Anna Ivanova | TEDxWeber School Youth

YouTube video by TEDx Talks

youtu.be

🤖🧠NEW PAPER🧠🤖 Children & neural networks can learn syntax from linear strings of words. How do they do it? Our hypothesis: Word co-occurrence statistics provide cues to syntax! (I.e., a new type of bootstrapping to consider!) Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2605.20529 1/n

Idan Blank (UCLA, psych) makes the complex intuitive if you want to learn how LLMs work, watch👇 newly posted to YouTube (no ads) www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMn...

How Transformers Work: A Detailed, Conceptual Explanation (No Coding / Math)

YouTube video by IbanDlank

youtu.be

Can we process meaning unconsciously? Our new study suggests: not really… unless language has a way to express it!🧵 New paper out with Andrea Nadalini, Daniel Casasanto, @davidecrepaldi.bsky.social and Roberto Bottini

@tylerachang.bsky.social and I will be presenting the Goldfish as an oral at #LREC2026 in Mallorca! 🌴

Happy to share that our paper “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners: Modular Reasoning with Brain-Like Specialization” (aka MiCRo) has been accepted to #ICLR2026!! 🎉 See you in Rio 🇧🇷 🏝️

Badr AlKhamissi@bkhmsi.bsky.social · 10mo ago

🚀 Excited to share a major update to our “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners” (MiCRo) paper! We ask: What benefits can we unlock by designing language models whose inner structure mirrors the brain’s functional specialization? More below 🧠👇 cognitive-reasoners.epfl.ch

Bridge AI and linguistics with the Computational and Theoretical Modelling of Language and Cognition (CLC) track at @cimecunitrento.bsky.social! Apply to our MSc in Cognitive Science First-call deadline for non-EU applicants: March 4, 2026. ℹ️ corsi.unitn.it/en/cognitive-science #cimec_unitrento #AI

The last chapter of my PhD (expanded) is finally out as a preprint! “Semantic reasoning takes place largely outside the language network” 🧠🧐 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... What is semantic reasoning? Read on! 🧵👇

Semantic reasoning takes place largely outside the language network

The brain's language network is often implicated in the representation and manipulation of abstract semantic knowledge. However, this view is inconsistent with a large body of evidence suggesting that...

biorxiv.org

Some words sound like what they mean. In IconicITA we show that the (psycho)linguistic factors that modulate which words are most iconic are similar between English and Italian. Lots more details in the paper!

MariannaBolog@mariannabolog.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Say hi to the IconicITA dataset! We introduce iconicity ratings for Italian produced by L1 and L2 speakers, and show how iconicity relates to key psycholinguistic variables and chronometric data. Note: Specificity emerges as a good predictor of iconicity! journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Great work led by Daria & Greta showing that diverse agreement types draw on shared units (even across languages)!

Greta Tuckute@gretatuckute.bsky.social · 8mo ago

How do LLMs process syntax? Do different syntactic phenomena recruit the same model units, or do they recruit distinct model components? And do different languages rely on similar units to process the same syntactic phenomenon? Check out our new preprint (to appear at ACL 2026)! shorturl.at/QWU81

What does it mean to understand language? We argue that the brain’s core language system is limited, and that *deeply* understanding language requires EXPORTING info to other brain regions. w/ @neuranna.bsky.social @evfedorenko.bsky.social @nancykanwisher.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2511.19757 1/n🧵👇

What does it mean to understand language?

Language understanding entails not just extracting the surface-level meaning of the linguistic input, but constructing rich mental models of the situation it describes. Here we propose that because pr...

arxiv.org

Computational psycho/neurolinguistics is lots of fun, but most studies only focus on English. If you think cross-linguistic evidence matters for understanding the language system, consider submitting an abstract to MMMM 2026!

Stefan Frank@stefanfrank.bsky.social · 9mo ago

The Multilingual Minds & Machines Meetings call for abstracts is now open! Everything you need to know is here -> mmmm2026.github.io

Our paper “The cost of thinking is similar between large reasoning models and humans” is now out in PNAS! 🤖🧠 w/ @fepdelia.bsky.social, @hopekean.bsky.social, @lampinen.bsky.social, and @evfedorenko.bsky.social Link: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... (1/6)

🤖🧠I'll be considering applications for PhD students & postdocs to start at Yale in Fall 2026! If you are interested in the intersection of linguistics, cognitive science, & AI, I encourage you to apply! PhD link: rtmccoy.com/prospective_... Postdoc link: rtmccoy.com/prospective_...

New preprint! w/@drhanjones.bsky.social Adding human-like memory limitations to transformers improves language learning, but impairs reading time prediction This supports ideas from cognitive science but complicates the link between architecture and behavioural prediction arxiv.org/abs/2508.05803

Human-like fleeting memory improves language learning but impairs reading time prediction in transformer language models

Human memory is fleeting. As words are processed, the exact wordforms that make up incoming sentences are rapidly lost. Cognitive scientists have long believed that this limitation of memory may, para...

arxiv.org

Can't wait for #CCN2025! Drop by to say hi to me / collaborators!

Is the Language of Thought == Language? A Thread 🧵 New Preprint (link: tinyurl.com/LangLOT) with @alexanderfung.bsky.social, Paris Jaggers, Jason Chen, Josh Rule, Yael Benn, @joshtenenbaum.bsky.social, ‪@spiantado.bsky.social‬, Rosemary Varley, @evfedorenko.bsky.social 1/8

Evidence from Formal Logical Reasoning Reveals that the Language of Thought is not Natural Language

Humans are endowed with a powerful capacity for both inductive and deductive logical thought: we easily form generalizations based on a few examples and draw conclusions from known premises. Humans al...

tinyurl.com

Next week I’ll be in Vienna for my first *ACL conference! 🇦🇹✨ I will present our new BLiMP-NL dataset for evaluating language models on Dutch syntactic minimal pairs and human acceptability judgments ⬇️ 🗓️ Tuesday, July 29th, 16:00-17:30, Hall X4 / X5 (Austria Center Vienna)

I'm sharing a Colab notebook on using large language models for cognitive science! GitHub repo: github.com/MarcoCiappar... It's geared toward psychologists & linguists and covers extracting embeddings, predictability measures, comparing models across languages & modalities (vision). see examples 🧵

📢 New paper out! We show that auditory iconicity is not marginal in English: word sounds often resemble real-world sounds. Using neural networks and sound similarity measures, we crack the myth of arbitrariness. Read more: link.springer.com/article/10.3... @andreadevarda.bsky.social

Cracking arbitrariness: A data-driven study of auditory iconicity in spoken English - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Auditory iconic words display a phonological profile that imitates their referents’ sounds. Traditionally, those words are thought to constitute a minor portion of the auditory lexicon. In this articl...

link.springer.com

Many LM applications may be formulated as text generation conditional on some (Boolean) constraint. Generate a… - Python program that passes a test suite. - PDDL plan that satisfies a goal. - CoT trajectory that yields a positive reward. The list goes on… How can we efficiently satisfy these? 🧵👇

New paper! 🧠 **The cerebellar components of the human language network** with: @hsmall.bsky.social @moshepoliak.bsky.social @gretatuckute.bsky.social @benlipkin.bsky.social @awolna.bsky.social @aniladmello.bsky.social and @evfedorenko.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/n 🧵

The cerebellar components of the human language network

The cerebellum's capacity for neural computation is arguably unmatched. Yet despite evidence of cerebellar contributions to cognition, including language, its precise role remains debated. Here, we sy...

biorxiv.org

PINEAPPLE, LIGHT, HAPPY, AVALANCHE, BURDEN Some of these words are consistently remembered better than others. Why is that? In our paper, just published in J. Exp. Psychol., we provide a simple Bayesian account and show that it explains >80% of variance in word memorability: tinyurl.com/yf3md5aj