Tessera
Folgen

Paul Stillman

@stillman.bsky.social

Behavioral Scientist studying self-control and motivation. Assistant Professor at Boston University

150 Posts427 Follower243 Folgt
Jennifer Bussell PhD@jenbussell.bsky.social · 7d ago

How does the brain represent the value of knowledge? In our paper--out now at Nature Neuroscience--we identify a representation of intrinsic information value within neural population structures in the orbitofrontal cortex in mice. www.nature.com/articles/s41593-026-02377-y #neuroskyence 🧠🧪 (1/8)

Representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex - Nature Neuroscience

Mice are motivated to seek information of no extrinsic value. Recording neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex reveals a representation of the value of information that is distinct from the value of ...

nature.com

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

1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.

The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science

As a labor-augmenting technology, large language models (LLMs) have the potential to accelerate scientific activity across the research pipeline. But even if LLMs perform on par with human experts at ...

arxiv.org

AAUP@aaup.org · 3w ago

Stand up for SCIENCE! The deadline for comment on this disastrous proposal for America’s scientific research infrastructure is TODAY! @standupforscience.net

AAUP Alabama@alabamaaaup.bsky.social · 4w ago

The proposed OMB rules changes will radically alter the future of research and federal funding. Make your voice heard through a public comment before Monday, July 13! Submit comments at: regulations.gov/commenton/OMB-2026-0034-0001 or join the UA AAUP Comment-a-Thon via Zoom Thursday 2:30-5.

Paul Stillman@stillman.bsky.social · 3w ago

Just left a comment here (today is the last day), encourage any other American researchers to do the same. And after this administration is gone we're going to need some pretty massive efforts to undo all the damage that has been done to science over the past two years.

Phil Plait@philplait.bsky.social · 4w ago

Whoa, over a quarter million people (so far!) have left a comment on the egrgious openly fascist takeover attempt of the OMB. You can too! @standupforscience.net has instructions and everything you need. It's not hard, and it's critically important to science. fight2win.standupforscience.net

Dan Samorodnitsky@dsamorod.bsky.social · last mo.

Earlier this year researchers at Stanford University published a paper on a protein that seemingly broke the Central Dogma, the cardinal rule of biology. For @sequencermag.bsky.social, I wrote about whether the scientific dogmas are important at all. www.sequencermag.com/when-the-cen...

When the Central Dogma bends, will it break?

The discovery of a protein that seemingly contradicts a fundamental law of biology raises a question: how important are those laws anyway?

sequencermag.com

Kevin Bird@stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · last mo.

And also a million think-tanks and non-profits like the Manhattan Institute, AEI, Heritage, Brownstone, FAIR/CIS, Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, Genspect, etc and they all have PR connections to land op-eds in every major news paper every month for all eternity

Post nicht verfügbar.
Benedek Kurdi@benedek.bsky.social · 2mo ago

How does amount of counterattitudinal information influence whether and how much attitudes change? Rydell et al. (2007) found that implicit evaluations changed slowly and incrementally, whereas explicit evaluations changed abruptly in response to counterattitudinal info.

A plot showing incremental implicit evaluation change in response to 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 counterattitudinal statements.A plot showing abrupt explicit evaluation change in response to 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 counterattitudinal statements.
Paul Stillman@stillman.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Hell yeah now I can support Opinion Science on patreon. Andy's podcast rocks and if you're interested in behavioral science you should listen and subscribe.

Andy Luttrell@andyluttrell.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Opinion Science is on Patreon! I would love it if you joined the community as a free member to get updates and connect. You can also kick in a few bucks a month to support even further. As a thank-you, I'll share extra content like videos, bonus episodes, and behind-the-scenes looks at the show.

Kevin Bird@stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · 3mo ago

First real post on the new blog! If you follow human genetics, you've likely of "missing heritability". If you look at twins to estimate heritability, you get values much larger than what molecular genomic methods produce. IQ, for example, goes from 50-80% heritability to 10-15%. Which is right?

Bild
Paul Stillman@stillman.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Has anyone else experienced Claude going in circles while trying to generate code? I feel like I've gotten variants on the following response quite a few times when trying to use it for relatively niche behavior in R (also the answer it gives here and lower in the post is wrong)

Chat with claude, where the prompt is "I am using unnest_wider on a column-list that contains an unnamed numeric vector, and I want to specify column names. How do I do that within the unnest_wider call?" and the response from claude is: You can use the names_sep parameter combined with the names_repair approach, but the most direct way is the names_transform — actually, the right parameter is names_repair... let me be precise: The correct parameter is names_repair — no, actually the one you want is: Use the names_repair argument — no. The answer is ptype — no. Let me be direct: use the names_to argument — actually the correct answer is: ✅ Use unnest_wider() with a named list, or use the names_sep + names_repair combo For an unnamed numeric vector, the cleanest solution is the names_repair argument — but specifically, the dedicated way to supply names is: rdf |> unnest_wider(col, names_sep = "_")
Mike Frank@mcxfrank.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Introducing Datapages, a new project from Mika Braginsky and me. Datapages are open-source templates for creating interactive websites that make research datasets easy to find, explore, and reuse. No coding required for the basic setup. babieslearninglanguage.blogspot.com/2026/04/data...

Datapages for reusable (and pretty!) data sharing

Blog about fatherhood, langauge, developmental psychology, and cognitive science.

babieslearninglanguage.blogspot.com

Jamie Cummins@jamiecummins.bsky.social · 4mo ago

1/ "Silicon samples" are becoming more and more common in research and polling. One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want. The updated version of this preprint is now online! THREAD🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2509.13397

The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data

Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples": synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents. However, producing these samples requires many analyti...

arxiv.org

Jamie Cummins@jamiecummins.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Can large language models stand in for human participants? Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research. One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want. THREAD 🧵