A new venue for work at the intersection of human and machine cognition. Excited to be involved as an Associate Editor!

Minds, Machines, and Brains (MMB)@mmb-journal.bsky.social · 4d ago

Hello world! 👋 We’re Minds, Machines, and Brains (MMB) 👤🤖🧠 a new open access journal from @mitpress.bsky.social exploring the principles of intelligence and cognition across natural and artificial minds. Submissions open this Fall! 🔗 direct.mit.edu/mmb

Now out in an issue! Children find it easier to represent uncertainty about *what* an object is than *where* an object is, with interesting implications for both early possibility reasoning and object representations ~~ Check it out 👉 direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”

Abstract. Young children struggle in situations involving mere possibility, such as when a target object could be in one of two possible locations. This difficulty is often interpreted as a general li...

direct.mit.edu

Esra Nur Turan-Küçük@esranur.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New paper in Open Mind! 2-to-4-year-olds find it easier to reason about an object's possible identity than its possible location, and we argue this asymmetry traces back to the architecture of early object representations. 🧵

We already do this and companies who want them are happy to pay for PhD student interns. Why do precious and limited NSF funds need to be deployed for this? Most PhD student pursue industry jobs anyways - that has always been true. Use NSF funds to support basic science that industry wont support!

Jonathan Wosen@jonathanwosen.bsky.social · last wk.

With academic jobs few and far between, the NSF is testing a new approach to graduate education: Giving Ph.D. students industry experience — and dollars — as part of their training. For more, see my latest for @statnews.com. www.statnews.com/2026/07/29/h...

In his role as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought is the central architect driving the destruction of your government. He created lawlessness in every part of the Trump administration. Russell Vought isn’t just engaging in politics; he is dismantling our government.

Impeach Vought

We are current and former federal workers from across the government. We have witnessed first-hand the harm Russell Vought has inflicted on American communities. We are urging Congress to act now to p...

impeachvought.com

NIH Vigils@nihvigils.bsky.social · last wk.

He needs to be impeached. impeachvought.com

Mark Histed@markhisted.org · 2w ago

I co-sign this great summary from @dereklowe.bsky.social . The goal is to destroy academic science, and these are the reasons. And all the “gold standard” and “needs reform” and “not high risk” stuff is transparent bullshit to hide the ball on what they are doing.

Once you understand that this is a model of science written by non-scientists who hate universities but love venture capital and redirecting money to political allies, everything makes a lot more sense. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/u...

Trump’s Plan for Science: More Money for A.I., Less for Universities

Michael Kratsios, President Trump’s science adviser, proposed overhauling how the government funds research. Democrats said Mr. Trump’s actions had weakened science.

nytimes.com

EXCELLENT: The Netherlands new OA policy seems to be well thought through obc.copim.pub/when-scaling... Policy explicitly recommends redirection & reallocation of funds from existing ‘big deal’ budgets towards community-driven alternatives, incl university-led diamond OA & Netherlands Uni Presses

When 'scaling small' becomes national policy

The Netherlands' new open access strategy echoes the principles the Open Book Collective was built on - 'scaling small' and community-led publishing

obc.copim.pub

Time to bring this one back around.

Now published in open access! Your one-stop shop for the philosophy of language models. It's the spiritual descendant of our two-part preprint from 2024, fully updated. This should be particularly useful for anyone looking for an entry point into this rapidly growing field.

The Philosophy of Language Models

The success of large language models (LLMs) across many domains of AI research has generated intense debate. Some attribute their impressive performance on complex tasks to human-like linguistic and ...

compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Can infants or other animals represent "mutually exclusive possibilities"? In a new paper in JEP:G, we argue for specifying: in thinking or seeing? We show that in object perception (shared with infants and many animals), the answer is yes. (w Peter Mazalik & Roman Feiman) osf.io/preprints/ps... /1

H1B visas were historically key for postdocs and research scientists (and future PIs and professors) - and the fee threatened to totally derail that pipeline. This is good news.

Politico@politico.com · 2mo ago

A federal judge has blocked Trump’s bid to slap a $100,000 fee on employers who seek to hire foreign workers for specialized roles. It's a significant victory for states who sued Trump over the proclamation, saying the fee had damaged their ability to hire workers.

Metaphor alert.

Huge American Flag Flies Into Power Lines, Knocking Out Power for Thousands

nytimes.com

New paper in Open Mind! 2-to-4-year-olds find it easier to reason about an object's possible identity than its possible location, and we argue this asymmetry traces back to the architecture of early object representations. 🧵

An unapologetically angry post about what’s being done to US science:

The Current Crisis: What's Happening to Science in America

science.org

There's a persistent fantasy that maybe some other nice countries will start mass-hiring US scientists. That's not going to happen. A few high-profile, big name researchers will get poached, sure. But most countries, including some very nice ones, are underemploying their own scientists already.

Dear colleagues, PLEASE submit a comment against OMB's proposed rule. Elizabeth wrote great guide on drafting a comment. To submit it, go to www.regulations.gov/search and search for OMB-2026-0034. It will take time & effort to write a good comment, but a worthwhile effort to save our profession.

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

Calling all Scientists! Research Administrators! Deans! Fans of Science! No one is coming to save us. Here is your assignment. I have written a step by step, easy to understand "how-to" document to help you comment on the proposed OMB rule. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...

New preprint w/ @drbarner.bsky.social, and probably the most fun project I've worked on!! Past studies find kids fail to compute scalar implicatures. Do those tasks test spontaneous interpretation, or do they proffer worlds kids would never consider? 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...

Worth highlighting this part. If it goes through, I’m not sure conferences survive. Currently scheduled ones may see people withdrawing at rates that require cancellation. I don’t know anyone with an active grant who budgeted for specific conferences, and many don’t have alternative funds.

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2mo ago

Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.

Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.

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...

New preprint w @carenwalker.bsky.social & @drbarner.bsky.social! We test the "minimal representations" hypothesis that explains gaps in 3yos modal reasoning. Against it, we find that even 2½yos reason about mutually exclusive possibilities... when goals are clear to them. osf.io/preprints/ps... 1/6

Excited to have been wrong about this! A few years ago, Tal told me he was working on intuitions about complexity. I knee-jerkily said, “but surely that’s not a natural kind! Why think that people have intuitions about complexity across domains?” Good thing this is the last time I’ll ever be wrong!

tal boger@talboger.bsky.social · 2mo ago

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...

Fun little review paper w/ @drbarner.bsky.social, in which we discuss the role of language in the development of exact number concepts! 1/5 osf.io/preprints/ps...

The work: experimental studies of language and conceptual development with kids 2-7. 1-yr position with possible renewal, starts Aug/Sep 2026. Please share with interested students! Lab: childlanguage.yale.edu

Hiring! Athulya Aravind and I are looking for a full-time Postgraduate Associate at Yale (Linguistics/Psychology). The position is designed as preparation for PhD applications in linguistics, cog sci, or psychology, including structured mentoring and research training. tinyurl.com/mrxjya5t

If you've ever sought NSF funding for anything behavioral sciences related, do this now: cossa.org/action-cente...

Action Center | COSSA

A consortium of Social Science Associations works to communicate the importance of social & behavioral science research to policymakers. The powerful stories come from people who express how it is lik...

cossa.org

NSF wouldn’t have to do this if only we had institutions where the best researchers from different disciplines were all in a complex of buildings so it would be easy to work together, and also they did that while training the next generation of researchers, and also they liked Trump more

Jacquelyn Gill@jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Cool, so NSF is now going to be used to essentially launder money to tech bros because universities are just too cumbersome and disciplinary oversight and regulations and accountability are all just too stifling for innovation. $1.5B for “X-Labs.”

I went to go look, and this time last year, NSF SBE had funded 216 awards. This year, they have funded 2.

American science deserves better... not just from the federal government but from the leaders of the organization that ostensibly represents the best of the best in science, engineering and medicine. But, that reputation depends not just on past achievements but what they do in the moment.

Announcement for @nationalacademies.org "State of the Science" address on 6/2 declares: "Since McNutt delivered her 2025 address, federal funding for science has held steady, but significant cuts are still being considered." Really? On what planet is funding steady & cuts being *considered*? a 🧵

The grant is "clean" means it no longer contains "terms potentially associated with misalignment with agency priorities" picked up by the "computational text analysis tool." Grants cannot be funded without checking this box. Yet NIH leaders like Bhattacharya & Letai insist NIH has no banned words.