📢 We're recruiting! 18-month postdoc in civic science & AI-human interaction @BrownUniversity, hosted by ARIA (NSF AI Institute). Bridge computational brain science with community engagement & public impact. Apply by Aug 1: apply.interfolio.com/188112

We have a new postdoc position to work on Neuro AI and human intracranial recording with Pierre Bourdillon and I: Apply here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Lab info: bourdillon-titan-lab.fr feel free to RT ;)

@michael-lepori.bsky.social, Ellie Pavlick and @thomasserre.bsky.social have found that LLMs can develop a mathematical “understanding” that differentiates between events ranging from commonplace to impossible. www.brown.edu/news/2026-04-22/artificial-intelligence-understanding-real-world

Do AI language models ‘understand’ the real world? On a basic level, they do, a new study finds

New research shows that AI language models can develop a mathematical “understanding” that differentiates between events that are commonplace, improbable, impossible or just plain nonsense.

brown.edu

We're happy to release NeuralSet: a simple, fast, scalable package for Neuro-AI Supports: 🧠 fMRI, EEG, MEG, iEEG, spikes… preprocessing 💬 text 🔊 audio ▶️ video 🏞️ image… embeddings 📦 pip install neuralset 🔍 facebookresearch.github.io/neuroai/neur... 📄 kingjr.github.io/files/neural... 🧵 Details👇

Postdocs and advanced grad students in theoretical/computational neuroscience - come join our workshop in July!

Pierre-Etienne Fiquet@pfiquet.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Applications are open for the Junior Theoretical Neuroscientists Workshop which will take place July 21-24, 2026 at the Center for Computational Neuroscience, @flatironinstitute.org Travel, lodging, and meals will be covered for accepted participants. Application deadline: April 15, 2026

Postdoc opening in Applied Mathematics at Brown! Bridging APMA + brain science or CS. Two-year appointment starting July 2026 — review begins April 1! Great opportunity to collaborate with @carneyinstitute.bsky.social faculty at the Nancy G. Zimmerman Center for Computational Brain Science.

I'm excited to share that this paper was accepted at ICLR 2026! We show that language models encode one of the most basic ingredients of a world model: the ability to distinguish plausible from implausible states. Check out the paper for more details! See you in Rio! Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2507.12553

Online Now: Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology

Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology

Deep neural networks (DNNs) once showed increasing alignment with primate perception as they improved on vision benchmarks, raising hopes that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) would naturally yield better models of biological vision. However, we present accumulating evidence that this alignment is now plateauing – and in some cases worsening – as DNNs scale to human or even superhuman accuracy. This divergence between artificial and biological perception may reflect the acquisition of visual strategies distinct from those of primates, and these findings challenge the view that advances in AI will naturally translate to progress in neuroscience. We argue that vision science must chart its own course, developing algorithms grounded in biological visual systems rather than optimizing for internet data.

dlvr.it

Published @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social with @drewlinsley.bsky.social & @tonyfeng.bsky.social: As vision models scale to human/superhuman accuracy, they’re becoming worse models of primate vision—benchmark engineering isn’t neuroscience. @carneyinstitute.bsky.social @browncopsy.bsky.social

Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology

Deep neural networks (DNNs) once showed increasing alignment with primate perception as they improved on vision benchmarks, raising hopes that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) would naturally ...

cell.com

Hopkins Cog Sci is hiring! We have two open faculty positions: one in vision, and one language. Please repost!

JHU Cognitive Science@jhucogsci.bsky.social · 8mo ago

We are seeking candidates for two tenured/tenure-track faculty positions: One in high-level vision, written language and/or conceptual representation apply.interfolio.com/178825 One in language apply.interfolio.com/178813 Please help us spread the word!

This is such a bizarre illusion - the helmet leads to an expectation of a face inside and all I saw was a blurred out face until I realized what's really happening...

Ros@hurricaneros.bsky.social · 9mo ago

It took me a good 30 seconds of staring at this photo to realise that I wasn't absolutely hammered and/or hallucinating. #theashes

That image is from 1961 and an idealization. Here is an actual trajectory of fixational eye movements. The dots are 2 ms apart. If a midget ganglion cell, with single-cone receptive field, fires at 100 Hz, then every spike reports about a different cone. How can we ever read anything?

Matthias Nau@matthiasnau.bsky.social · 9mo ago

What a great figure! What we call “fixation” is really a complex pattern of fixational eye movements, several captured beautifully in this single shot. Love it! 👀 #EyeTracking www.nature.com/articles/nrn...

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue. The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea. From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

The Python Software Foundation won a $1.5m grant from the US government National Science Foundation. Turned it down because required to affirm that we "will not... operate any programs that advance or promote DEI" simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/27/...

Apply to become a CSHL-Simons Fellow in Neuroscience! Run your own lab, pursue bold ideas, join a highly collaborative community! All areas including experimental or computational neuro, including NeuroAI & systems PhD required; ≤~1 yr postdoc www.cshl.edu/about-us/car...

Last call for applications! Join us in advancing AI and the science of mind at Brown. Apply by Nov 8, 2025 👉 apply.interfolio.com/173939

Thomas Serre@thomasserre.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Brown’s Department of Cognitive & Psychological Sciences is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor, working in the area of AI and the Mind (start July 1, 2026). Apply by Nov 8, 2025 👉 apply.interfolio.com/173939 #AI #CognitiveScience #AcademicJobs #BrownUniversity

🧠 Thrilled to share our NeuroView with Ellie Pavlick! "From Prediction to Understanding: Will AI Foundation Models Transform Brain Science?" AI foundation models are coming to neuroscience—if scaling laws hold, predictive power will be unprecedented. But is that enough? Thread 🧵👇

Neuron@cp-neuron.bsky.social · 10mo ago

I wrote an op-ed for the Washington Square News about the government's attempt to extort universities. nyunews.com/opinion/gues...

Guest Essay: Unity is the only way out of Trump’s ‘compact’ - Washington Square News

Grace Lindsay is an Assistant Professor of Psychology & Data Science at New York University. Nine universities received an Oct. 1 letter from the Trump administration with an offer: If you agree to a ...

nyunews.com

Brown’s Department of Cognitive & Psychological Sciences is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor, working in the area of AI and the Mind (start July 1, 2026). Apply by Nov 8, 2025 👉 apply.interfolio.com/173939 #AI #CognitiveScience #AcademicJobs #BrownUniversity

With Pieter Roelfsema, our TICS response to Scholte & de Haan (2025): in deep nets, distributed codes ≠ solved binding. Flexible vision needs dynamic grouping + attention (or object-centric slots) to link features to objects/relations. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Feature binding in biological and artificial vision

sciencedirect.com

Day of Action planned for July 21 to protect science protectscienceandinnovation.org

Protect Science and Innovation

protectscienceandinnovation.org

🚨BREAKING: 300+ NIH employees call out the harm of censorship & politicized science in scathing email to Bhattacharya, demanding an end to political interference, a lift on funding freezes, & rehiring of fired staff whose work saves lives. This is historic - insiders are blowing the whistle. 🧵(1/5)

From the NIH news desk: "NIH to prioritize human-based research technologies; new initiative aims to reduce use of animals in NIH-funded research" www.nih.gov/news-events/...

NIH to prioritize human-based research technologies

New initiative aims to reduce use of animals in NIH-funded research.

nih.gov

🚨 New preprint alert! Our latest study, led by @DrewLinsley, examines how deep neural networks (DNNs) optimized for image categorization align with primate vision, using neural and behavioral benchmarks.

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

WHERE WILL YOU BE TOMORROW?

AI researchers should be worried about all their funding to make formers TRANS

Gigi Gronvall@ggronvall.bsky.social · last yr.

Cancer research is going to disappear in the US because apparently no one in US leadership ever took a biology class. “DOGE found $8 million grant to make mice transgender. This is real.” - Donald Trump, talking about transgenic mice to the world www.irishstar.com/news/us-news...

Francis Collins has had enough. Good on him.

Eric Topol@erictopol.bsky.social · last yr.

Francis Collins, the NIH Director for 12 years, led the Human Genome Project and other NIH efforts for 32 years, resigned today. Key words from his resignation letter www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/u...

Join us! Science Homecoming helps scientists reconnect with communities by writing about the importance of science funding in their hometown newspapers. We’ve mapped every small newspaper in the U.S. and provide resources to get you started. Help science get back home 🧪🔬🧬 🏠 sciencehomecoming.com

Laudable stance and brilliant letter from @scurry.bsky.social Musk has no place amongst scientists, let alone one as a member of one of its most revered institutions. Science sky, please consider signing and letting @royalsociety.org know your views. occamstypewriter.org/scurry/