Mark Ho
@markkho.bsky.social
computational cog sci • problem solving and social cognition • asst prof at NYU • https://codec-lab.github.io/
So thrilled to be joining the Psychology Department at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social as an assistant prof next summer! I'll be recruiting for PhD/postdoc to start in Autumn 2027, so if you're interested in using computational approaches to studying human cognition please get in touch!
Looking to work with a postdoc. Prior experience with fMRI and computational modeling required, interest in psychiatry desired. Fellowship provides three years salary plus independent travel/equipment funds. Send CV and 2-3 manuscripts (preprints OK).
Within-participants designs need 2-8x fewer participants than between-participants designs for the same level of precision. Ch 9 of Experimentology argues for making within your default. 🧵 experimentology.io
This gorgeous essay from the social-media-less Lily Hu is everything: on what it means to "do" philosophy amidst pressure to automate it (with lessons that travel much more broadly). Rhymes with brilliant insights from @biblioracle.bsky.social @janerosenzweig.bsky.social Ted Chiang & others
Lily Hu · Un-Doing Philosophy
Analytic philosophers in the United States are increasingly embracing AI, both by taking advisory positions at tech companies and by using large language models for their own research and writing. Som...
blnreview.de
We're looking for volunteers for our #CCN2026 community event's live problem-solving demos! Join a 10min think-aloud session solving an everyday planning task or playing a video game, and help kick off our panel discussions. 🎬 🙌 Please sign up here if you're interested: forms.gle/D7HNwFE1pet9...
CCN 2026 Naturalistic Problem Solving event interest form
Please fill out this form if you're interested in attending our community event at CCN 2026! No sign-up required to join, but an RSVP helps us get a headcount. Time: Wednesday, 5th August 2026, 16:0...
forms.gle
Join us at both conferences this summer! Our #CogSci2026 workshop features a series of invited talks on problem representations and abstractions. Our #CCN2026 community event opens a broader discussion on naturalistic problem solving: frameworks, tasks, methods, and where the field should go next.
Truly bizarre story of how two papers from the 1940s by physics pioneer Max Planck have been "retracted" from Naturwissenschaften, potentially by an algorithm, for anachronistic "plagiarism" issues, leaving the current editor baffled (but it is Springer Nature so.... www.science.org/content/arti...
Why have papers by one of history’s most famous physicists been retracted?
Springer Nature has removed two studies by Max Planck. A bot may be to blame
science.org
This is an interesting set of results Reminds me of anti-humor, eg A: What did one lawyer say to the other lawyer? B: I don't know, what did they say? A: "We're both lawyers!"
Bella Fascendini@bellafascendini.bsky.social · last mo.New paper! w/ @cocoscilab.bsky.social🧵Can large language models reason flexibly, or have they learned what reasoning looks like? We introduce a new paradigm to test this question—the riddle riddle—and find that humans and LLMs show opposite patterns of performance. 📜
How do human minds make sense of big, messy problems? 😵💫🌀 How do we distill complexity into something simple enough to solve? 🤔💡 We’ll be tackling these questions (and more!) at two workshops on task representations, abstractions, and construals #CogSci2026 #CCN2026 🧵 framing-the-problem.github.io
Framing the Problem — Workshop Series
A workshop series on representation construction in cognitive science and AI. CogSci 2026 (Rio) and CCN 2026 (NYU).
framing-the-problem.github.io
—— 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
New Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2606.19370 Self-play yields capabilities but requires frustrating cost-function tuning. Surprisingly, just 30 minutes of demonstration data produces much more human-like driving policies! Led by @daphne-cornelisse.bsky.social Website: spiced-self-play.com
If you're going to Cogsci, you should check out this workshop being organized by @davidnagy.bsky.social and @hanqizhou.bsky.social from hmc-lab.com, together with an all-star cast of co-organizers and speakers. I'll be heading there straight from teaching at @bamb-school.bsky.social
Mark Ho@markkho.bsky.social · 2mo agoHow do human minds make sense of big, messy problems? 😵💫🌀 How do we distill complexity into something simple enough to solve? 🤔💡 We’ll be tackling these questions (and more!) at two workshops on task representations, abstractions, and construals #CogSci2026 #CCN2026 🧵 framing-the-problem.github.io
Come join us!
Mark Ho@markkho.bsky.social · 2mo agoHow do human minds make sense of big, messy problems? 😵💫🌀 How do we distill complexity into something simple enough to solve? 🤔💡 We’ll be tackling these questions (and more!) at two workshops on task representations, abstractions, and construals #CogSci2026 #CCN2026 🧵 framing-the-problem.github.io
We're bringing the Knicks Championship Parade to the people — no matter where you are. Watch live at nyc.gov/knicks or on the NYC Mayor's Office YouTube, X, and Facebook at 10AM EST tomorrow. Stick around for the City Hall Ceremony following the parade.
Join us at both conferences this summer! Our #CogSci2026 workshop features a series of invited talks on problem representations and abstractions. Our #CCN2026 community event opens a broader discussion on naturalistic problem solving: frameworks, tasks, methods, and where the field should go next.
Mark Ho@markkho.bsky.social · 2mo agoHow do human minds make sense of big, messy problems? 😵💫🌀 How do we distill complexity into something simple enough to solve? 🤔💡 We’ll be tackling these questions (and more!) at two workshops on task representations, abstractions, and construals #CogSci2026 #CCN2026 🧵 framing-the-problem.github.io
The hardest part of solving a problem is figuring out what the problem is 🌀. Delighted to be a panelist on a #CCN2026 workshop on how minds carve complexity into something solvable -- task representations, abstractions, construals.
Mark Ho@markkho.bsky.social · 2mo agoHow do human minds make sense of big, messy problems? 😵💫🌀 How do we distill complexity into something simple enough to solve? 🤔💡 We’ll be tackling these questions (and more!) at two workshops on task representations, abstractions, and construals #CogSci2026 #CCN2026 🧵 framing-the-problem.github.io
How do human minds make sense of big, messy problems? 😵💫🌀 How do we distill complexity into something simple enough to solve? 🤔💡 We’ll be tackling these questions (and more!) at two workshops on task representations, abstractions, and construals #CogSci2026 #CCN2026 🧵 framing-the-problem.github.io
Framing the Problem — Workshop Series
A workshop series on representation construction in cognitive science and AI. CogSci 2026 (Rio) and CCN 2026 (NYU).
framing-the-problem.github.io
I'm attending a digital humanities event in Montreal. There was a keynote on AI and something about the talk made me wonder if it had been written by Claude. I said as much in the Q&A. As I posed the question, the speaker shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. What he said next shocked the room +
In 2011, my interests in cognitive neuroscience converged on one stubborn intuition: it made no sense that how the brain learns and how it pays attention should be two fundamentally different processes.
Ignacio Saez, PhD@ignaciosaezphd.bsky.social · 2mo agoHow does your brain filter out the noise and focus enough to learn efficiently? In our newest preprint, we use intracranial recordings + computational modeling to explore how selective attention shapes learning and state representations in the human brain 🧠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/🧵
Holden Thorp is an institutionalist. He's been a university chancellor, provost, now EiC of Science. When institutionalists pull the fire alarm, we listen, because the call to action he issued this week exposes the dire nature of the threat we are facing. 1/ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Another red alert for American science
Although research has bipartisan support in the US Congress, and trust in science is above 75% across the country, the Trump administration seems as determined as ever to mortally wound the nation’s s...
science.org
The White House today announced it plans to make major changes in how the U.S. government manages research funding. https://scim.ag/43HgW4s
White House seeks to tighten political oversight of grantmaking
Sweeping proposed rule, now open for comments, would also restrict foreign collaborations and remove federal funding for open-access fees
scim.ag
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...
Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule
Russell Vought is going destroy American Science
elizabethginexi.substack.com
Exploring why Claude develops something like emotion could ultimately help us better understand the function that emotions serve in humans, writes @nicolecrust.bsky.social. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/emotion/what...
What can AI teach us about ‘emotions’?
Exploring why Anthropic’s AI, Claude, displays something like emotion could ultimately help us better understand the function that emotions serve in humans.
thetransmitter.org
Princeton scraps honor code and will supervise exams for first time in 133 years because of AI
Princeton scraps honor code and will supervise exams for first time in 133 years
Princeton’s honor code was implemented in 1893 after students petitioned to get rid of exam proctors
trib.al
wow — the preprint host, arxiv, is banning authors for a year if they submit papers with hallucinated citations 🤖
Helen Branswell 🇨🇦@helenbranswell.bsky.social · 3mo agoI find this unsettling: A new study in #Lancet shows that the number of faux citations in scientific articles is on the rise, and #AI is likely to blame. @aniloza.bsky.social reports. www.statnews.com/2026/05/07/l...
We recently taught a methods course supported by Experimentology + various primary readings. Experimentology was a truly fantastic resource! psych-methods.netlify.app
Graduate Research Methods in Psychology
psych-methods.netlify.app
Mike Frank@mcxfrank.bsky.social · 3mo agoMany of us were taught experiments are for testing hypotheses. In Ch 1 of Experimentology, our free, open methods textbook, my coauthors and I argue differently: experiments are for estimating the magnitude of causal effects. This reframing has important consequences. 🧵 experimentology.io
