Carsten Murawski
@carstenmurawski.bsky.social
Decision scientist | Professor at University of Melbourne | Director of Centre for Brain, Mind and Markets Interested in how properties of neurocognitive computations and computational constraints affect decision-making https://unimelb.edu.au/cbmm
Complexity is ubiquitous in the world around us. But different stimuli are complex for different reasons. Does the mind nevertheless represent a ‘unified’ notion of complexity across domains? In @nathumbehav.nature.com, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show the answer is: yes! osf.io/preprints/ps...
Very grateful for all the support I've had throughout, especially from my family, friends, and my wonderful main supervisors, @carstenmurawski.bsky.social and Nitin Yadav. They backed me from day one and always gave me the confidence that we’d get here eventually.
Last weekend I received the Troland Research Award from the @nationalacademies.org. I’m so grateful to the communities who made this work possible. It's strange to receive this award at a time when much of the work being recognized is not eligible for federal funding. My remarks 👇 and a 🧵>>
NAS 163rd Annual Meeting - Awards Ceremony
YouTube video by National Academy of Sciences
youtube.com
End of an era! 🤠🌅 Last week I gave what will likely be my final PhD presentations at the regional meetings of the Society for Experimental Finance & the Economic Science Association. The notorious "economist Q&A" rumors were greatly exaggerated—everyone was lovely! 🧵👇
Excited to see our research on stress and decision-making featured in Pursuit today 😁 It's great to see these findings reaching a wider audience and I hope people find it interesting! Read the full story here: pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/str... #DecisionScience #Stress #Psychology #SciComm
Stressed and rushed? Your decisions might suffer
New University of Melbourne research reveals how the combination of stress and time pressure can wreak havoc on our ability to make good choices
pursuit.unimelb.edu.au
Indiana Jones' tour of the Healthy Cognitive Ageing speaking circuit continued in Singapore last week at the Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference 🤠🇸🇬 I spoke about decision-making with healthy ageing under varying computational demands + snagged an award for Best Student Talk 🏆🧵👇
Chronic stress is a modern health epidemic that shortens lives, lowers quality of life, and costs billions. We thought it would break our ability to make good decisions. We were wrong. 📉🧠 New preprint on stress and decision-making under varying computational demands. 🧵👇 🔗 osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
This study finds that acute stress has a limited effect on decision-making, irrespective of the decision’s complexity. However, on decisions with experienced time pressure, acute stress reduced decision quality. @karlodoroc.bsky.social @carstenmurawski.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Acute stress impairs decision-making at varying levels of decision complexity - Communications Psychology
This study finds that acute stress alone has a surprisingly limited effect on decision-making, irrespective of the decision’s complexity. However, on decisions with experienced time pressure, acute st...
nature.com
Our new paper “Whom do we prefer to learn from in observational reinforcement learning?” is now published in PLOS Computational Biology. Led by @gotamorishita.bsky.social, w/ Nitin Yadav and Shinsuke Suzuki. journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Whom do we prefer to learn from in observational reinforcement learning?
Author summary In our daily lives, we often learn by watching others. For example, when starting a new job, we might watch an experienced colleague to learn effective strategies, or an inexperienced c...
journals.plos.org
🚨 New in Communications Psychology: we investigate the causal link between acute stress and higher-order decision-making. Using a task with multiple levels of complexity, we find stress impairs decision quality—but not in the way you might think. 📜 📄 www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Acute stress impairs decision-making at varying levels of decision complexity - Communications Psychology
This study finds that acute stress alone has a surprisingly limited effect on decision-making, irrespective of the decision’s complexity. However, on decisions with experienced time pressure, acute st...
nature.com
I am pleased to announce that our new book on "Decision Making: Fundamentals and Applications" is now published by @springernature.com ! A collection of 17 chapters over 325 pages on #DecisionMaking #Psychology #Philosophy #Psychiatry @carstenmurawski.bsky.social link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Decision Making
This book offers reports on new findings relating to mechanisms of decisions, modeling of decision making and impaired decision making upon diseases.
link.springer.com
🔈 Our edited volume "Decision Making: Fundamentals and Applications", co-edited with @ulrichettinger.bsky.social and Bert Heinrichs, is out. url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/9P5mCROAEn... #DecisionScience #DecisionMaking #Psychology #Psychiatry #Neuroscience #Philosophy
🧠💬 Do large language models really represent meaning like the human brain? Our new fMRI study tested how transformers compare to brain representations of sentence meaning — and found that structure matters. 📄 Read more: elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
elifesciences.org
"Decision Making: Fundamentals and Applications". Our new edited book due to appear in @springernature.com later this year! @carstenmurawski.bsky.social #DecisionScience #DecisionMaking #Psychology #Psychiatry #Neuroscience #Philosophy link.springer.com/book/9783032...
Decision Making
This book offers reports on new findings relating to mechanisms of decisions, modeling of decision making and impaired decision making upon diseases.
link.springer.com
Experimentology is out today!!! A group of us wrote a free online textbook for experimental methods, available at experimentology.io - the idea was to integrate open science into all aspects of the experimental workflow from planning to design, analysis, and writing.
Our next speaker in the Bonn-Melbourne seminar series on decision-making and computational psychiatry is Franziska Knolle. 💡Topic: From Risk to Disorder: Decision-Making Dysfunctions in Psychosis 📅 Date: Thursday, 3 July 2025 🕖 Time: 9am CEST / 5pm AEDT 🔗 www.unimelb.edu.au/cbmm/about-u...
Seminar announcement: Franziska Knolle (Munich), 3 July 2025
Seminar announcement: Franziska Knolle (Munich), 3 July 2025
unimelb.edu.au
Why do women experience such significant disadvantages within the financial system, and what can we do about it? And why isn't academic finance interested in these questions? New research with @carstenmurawski.bsky.social and Nitin Yadav. www.linkedin.com/pulse/intere...
No Interest? The marginalization of women in academic finance
Why do women experience such significant disadvantages within the financial system and across a broad suite of financial outcomes - from the leadership of major institutions to disposable income? And ...
linkedin.com
Is it true you use only 10 bits / s of your brain? @andpru.bsky.social and I provide a motor systems perspective on a proposed speed limit for human information processing. Out today in @natneuro.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
sky.social
Our next speaker in the Bonn-Melbourne seminar series on decision-making and computational psychiatry is Nura Sidarus. 💡Topic: Investigating negative self-attribution and self-evaluation biases in depression 📅 Date: Thursday, 22 May 2025 🕖 Time: 9am CEST / 5pm AEDT 🔗 go.unimelb.edu.au/mo8p
Seminar announcement: Nura Sidarus (London), 22 May 2025
Seminar announcement: Nura Sidarus (London), 22 May 2025
unimelb.edu.au
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...
Science Under Threat in the United States: How scientists and institutions should respond
Individual researchers and university leaders need to make the case for science to their elected representatives and to the public at large.
elifesciences.org
TODAY!
Carsten Murawski@carstenmurawski.bsky.social · last yr.Our next speaker in the Bonn-Melbourne seminar series on decision-making and computational psychiatry is Constantin Rothkopf. 💡Topic: Eye Movements As Sequential Decision-making Under Uncertainty 📅 Date: Thursday, 10 April 2025 🕖 Time: 9am CEST / 5pm AEDT 🔗 go.unimelb.edu.au/h2jp
Our next speaker in the Bonn-Melbourne seminar series on decision-making and computational psychiatry is Constantin Rothkopf. 💡Topic: Eye Movements As Sequential Decision-making Under Uncertainty 📅 Date: Thursday, 10 April 2025 🕖 Time: 9am CEST / 5pm AEDT 🔗 go.unimelb.edu.au/h2jp
Tonight! @ulrichettinger.bsky.social @unibonn.bsky.social @unimelb-cbmm.bsky.social #unimelb
Carsten Murawski@carstenmurawski.bsky.social · last yr.Our next speaker in the Bonn-Melbourne seminar series on decision-making and computational psychiatry is Professor Andrea Reiter. 💡Topic: Social Decision-Making from Adolescence to Adulthood 📅 Date: 27 March 2025 🕖 Time: 9am CEST / 7pm AEDT 🔗 More information: www.unimelb.edu.au/cbmm/about-u...
Our next speaker in the Bonn-Melbourne seminar series on decision-making and computational psychiatry is Professor Andrea Reiter. 💡Topic: Social Decision-Making from Adolescence to Adulthood 📅 Date: 27 March 2025 🕖 Time: 9am CEST / 7pm AEDT 🔗 More information: www.unimelb.edu.au/cbmm/about-u...
Seminar announcement: Andrea Reiter (Germany), 27 March 2025
Seminar announcement: Andrea Reiter (Germany), 27 March 2025
unimelb.edu.au
My latest book, Patriarchy Inc., is out now in the UK, published by @atlanticbooks.bsky.social and distributed by @allenandunwin.bsky.social in Australia. More information at www.cordelia-fine.com/patriarchy-i...
Out now: our new paper entitled "The Relationship Between Schizotypal Personality Traits and Temporal Discounting: The Role of the Date/Delay Effect" in a Schizophrenia Bulletin special issue on Neuroscience of Schizotypy! academic.oup.com/schizophreni...
The Relationship Between Schizotypal Personality Traits and Temporal Discounting: The Role of the Date/Delay Effect
AbstractBackground and Hypothesis. Many patients with psychiatric disorders show increased temporal discounting (TD), ie, they discount future rewards more
academic.oup.com
Quite the indictment of AI products: they are more appealing to people who don't understand how they work and see them as magical The paper concludes: "businesses may benefit from targeting those with lower AI literacy" and "maintaining an aura of magic around AI" ✨ tinyurl.com/ynefd8zk
There are some exciting talks coming up in the Bonn Melbourne Seminar in Decision Making and Computational Psychiatry! Please DM if you would like to join. #DecisionMaking #ComputationalPsychiatry @carstenmurawski.bsky.social www.psychologie.uni-bonn.de/de/institut/...
Bonn Melbourne Seminar in Decision Making and Computational Psychiatry
psychologie.uni-bonn.de
I wrote about a scientific paper called “The Unbearable Slowness of Being” which finds that the human brain’s throughput is just 10 bits per second. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/s... 🧪
Human Thought Is Far Slower Than Your Internet Connection (Gift Article)
A new study is “a bit of a counterweight to the endless hyperbole about how incredibly complex and powerful the human brain is,” one researcher said.
nytimes.com
