Open Mind, the free OA competitor to Cognition (El$evier) founded by Richard Aslin, has nearly caught up to it impact-factor-wise Submit your best work! It's a great journal with fast and constructive review, a great ed board, and lots of cool work Open Mind is the future of cogsci journals!

—— Open Mind is MIT Press’s Diamond Open Access Cognitive Science journal. We now have our first Impact Factor: 2.9 as of June 2026 Submit your papers to Open Mind direct.mit.edu/opmi

We make flexible choices in new situations by knitting together information from separate relevant memories. But what governs which memories are retrieved and when? In a new preprint, we captured how people build decision variables from different memories by tracking their gaze on a blank screen.

Flexible decisions arise from resource-rational memory sampling

Flexible decision making depends on retrieving and recombining memories. Yet because this process unfolds covertly, its governing principles remain unknown. Here we use gaze reinstatement to uncover t...

biorxiv.org

We've known that socioeconomics (SES) matters for the 🧠. New & 🤯 is that SES drowns out all other brain associations, incl. IQ. If you train an algorithm to predict IQ from brain data, it's still way better at predicting SES. Science Mag: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @smarek0502.bsky.social 👀🧵👇

Scott Marek@smarek0502.bsky.social · 2mo ago

What matters most for childhood brain organization? We analyzed 649 variables. The answer: Socioeconomics (SES); with brain patterns pointing at sleep & stress as drivers. Even brain-IQ associations were better explained by SES. In Science today: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Was chatting with a colleague recently about how academics navigate different stages of careers, and it reminded me of this great post from Elliot Berkman that I found helpful when I was getting started (and that I revisit periodically): www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

Advice for Grad Students (and Senior Faculty)

Starting a graduate program? Here is some advice about succeeding that you might not have heard.

psychologytoday.com

Cancel culture has taken over social media... or has it? In a new paper, Randy T. Lee, Jabin Binnendyk, @gordpennycook.bsky.social, Ovul Sezer, and I found that people overestimate support for "cancellation": doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Sharing a recent blog post on how PhD students can make a difference in the fight to defend American science. Hosted on PsychPress, a blog from Northeastern Psych PhD students created by me and @zoekross.bsky.social. psychpress.sites.northeastern.edu/2026/06/12/s...

⭐️From Elizabeth Lapidow, Amberley Stein, Giovanni Thomas & Caren Walker: Young Children Use Causal Knowledge to Guide Question Asking

Young children use causal knowledge to guide question asking

Abstract. Question asking is essential for learning in childhood. But options for possible questions are nearly infinite. We investigate whether causal kno

doi.org

Human cooperation is strong among individuals but fragile between groups Perspective by Paul A. M. Van Lange & Paul K. Bergmann bit.ly/4eFHMjK #psychscisky #socialpsych

Human cooperation is strong among individuals but fragile between groups - Nature Reviews Psychology

There is ample empirical evidence that humans are cooperative, but there is also evidence that humans can be distrustful, hostile and aggressive. In this Review, Van Lange and Bergmann reconcile this ...

bit.ly

Postdoc position available at postlab.psych.wisc.edu. Pls send cv to postle@wisc.edu

We made an open repository of close relationships measures. Our goal is to catalogue all of the published self-report measures in relationship science. You can help us expand the database by suggesting measures you tend to use in your research, or by uploading your own measures! relascale.com

RelaScale - Psychological Measures and Constructs

RelaScale is a searchable database of psychological measures and constructs for relationship researchers.

relascale.com

We're recruiting postdocs to study how people build structured knowledge from experience & use it to act flexibly. Behavioral work, fMRI, computational & AI models, with a lifespan focus. You don't need experience with every method; fit & curiosity matter most. Please repost & share! 🧠

New paper with @mohitmukherji.bsky.social, Mona Lebrun, and @marjorierhodes.bsky.social @JEP:G! Did you ever wonder whether saying things like “boys can wear dresses too” is effective at reducing stereotypical inferences? We find that they’re probably not—check out more here: doi.org/10.1037/xge0...

Out in PNAS pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Inequality is not only hard to solve. Sometimes, it is hard to *see*. We ask a simple question: Do people notice when members of minority groups are absent? Across field studies and experiments, the answer was often no.

When you look at a complex scene, you perceive various ensembles — sets of items of various sizes, numbers, etc. Are some more salient than others? In a new paper (w/ samiyousif.bsky.social), we provide an answer to this question! osf.io/preprints/ps...

The drop in support for marriage equality last year was not a blip, it has declined further, dropping 6 points from its high of 71. Whether or not gay or lesbian relations were "morally acceptable" dropped 9 points. Support for LGBTQ rights broadly is diminishing. news.gallup.com/poll/710810/...

The LUMeN Lab at Emory is hiring ✨ We’re seeking a full-time RA/lab manager and a postdoc to work on new NIH-funded studies! Formal job ads/apps forthcoming. We’re eager to hit the ground running so please share these flyers and/or reach out if interested!

“The result is a horror show for US science research. Not only is peer review made a secondary consideration, but the new rules would allow any federal agency to cancel any grant at any time based on the vague assertion that it isn’t in the “national interest.” 1/2 🧪 arstechnica.com/science/2026...

Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time

Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics.

arstechnica.com

This rule also requires that grants must “...demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.” All of this effectively puts politics over expertise, giving political appointees veto power over research that challenges, conflicts with, or doesn't follow the administration’s ideologies. 5/n

tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.

Science Magazine@science.org · 2mo ago

The White House today announced it plans to make major changes in how the U.S. government manages research funding. https://scim.ag/43HgW4s

Important explanation of a myriad of different ways that the act of doing science will be prohibited by this administration. Topics of study, attending conferences, public communications, open access journals, and so much more.

elizabethginexi.bsky.social@elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Americans say they want less inequality. Why don’t they support policies to reduce it? New paper: across 31 nationally representative survey waves (N=384,248) and a preregistered experiment (N=1,009), Americans favor PREdistributive over REdistributive policies 🧵 osf.io/preprints/so...

The National Science Foundation is terminating and suspending grants again, and at Grant Witness we need you to help to track them! 🧪 We can only identify research being suppressed by under-the-radar suspensions directly from researchers. Please report! grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0... #NSF

New Grant Disruptions at NSF - We Need Your Help to Report! – Grant Witness

grant-witness.us

✨New paper out @nature.com ✨ For 8 weeks around the 2024 US election, we randomly assigned 2,000 people to use social media algos we built ourselves. Do engagement-based algorithms amplify intergroup, moral & emotional (IME) content—and does that distort how we see political norms? 🧵🔗 👇

We are looking for a research assistant to help with scanning an ongoing R01 project at MGH. The project involves working with older adults, and physio/fMRI data collection. Please send interested recent grads our way! northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

Pointing out that “everyone else is already doing it!” is a classic way to motivate prosocial behavior. But how can we encourage actions which aren't popular yet? In a new paper in @jexpsocpsych.bsky.social, Mike Norton and I had a lot of fun testing a method using "collective streaks." (1/5)

Our Bartels Science Illustration Program is calling for applicants! This is a full-time, paid, in-person appointment. Residency begins in the fall and spans 6–12 months. Please note, Visa sponsorship is not available. Deadline for applications is May 29, 2026. www.birds.cornell.edu/illustrators/

"Out of 177 faculty respondents, close to half reported significant concern about being disciplined by the university for their public engagement. One-fifth indicated that they had been asked by an administrator to change language related to their courses, research, or website."

Yale AAUP@yaleaaup.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Today, the AAUP Yale Chapter releases our report on The State of Academic Freedom at Yale. Uncertain that university leaders will protect academic freedom when tested, Yale faculty are managing risk alone and making changes that narrow what Yale teaches, researches, and communicates to the world.

Psychology & Neuroscience Professor Elizabeth Kensinger, known for her research on emotion and memory over the human lifespan, was elected to the @aaas.org, a prestigious honorary society that recognizes cross-discipline merit and stewardship that improves society.

Elizabeth Kensinger named AAAS Fellow

The professor of psychology and neuroscience is known for her research on emotion and memory over the human lifespan

on.bc.edu

“Cutting off fundamental, curiosity-driven science is like eating the seed corn. We may have a little more to eat next winter but what will we plant so we and our children will have enough to get through the winters to come?” ― Carl Sagan

“We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.” www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

Justice Department deletes press releases on charges against Jan. 6 rioters

The Justice Department confirmed that it had deleted the press releases as part of “stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.”

nbcnews.com