Very excited to share this preprint from me, @emmatempleton.bsky.social, @lindseytepfer.bsky.social & @thaliawheatley.bsky.social! "Friends and strangers engage in distinct regimes of body motion synchrony during conversation" osf.io/preprints/ps...
Yang Teoh
@yyangteoh.bsky.social
Banting Postdoctoral Research Fellow @ Brown https://yiyangteoh.com Social decision-making, learning and emotion. Latest preprint on social alignment of emotion concepts: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/23k8b_v1
New Preprint Alert! With @jasonleng.bsky.social @ashenhav.bsky.social @shenhavlab.bsky.social “Characterizing the causes, dynamics, and consequences of choice deferral” osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵🧵🧵
Sensing your body (‘Interoception’) is everywhere in theories of mental health. But when we tested how well hundreds of people sensed their heart and lungs, the link to symptoms was almost nowhere to be found. 💣 🚨New @natmentalhealth.nature.com paper 🚨🎉 asks why 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s44...
New perspective paper from our lab: “The hippocampus as a generative model” out now !! royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article... The traditional view of the hippocampus is that it creates a cognitive map. Here we extend this view to conceptualise the hippocampus as a “generative model”.
The hippocampus as a generative model
Abstract. A generative model can be defined as a model of the latent causes of sensory input that can be used to generate new data samples. By examining em
royalsocietypublishing.org
Learning from the most successful people makes sense? We show that social learning, and especially payoff bias, is bad when choice outcomes are dependent on prior success💰 As such "rich-get-richer" dynamics are everywhere, this shows fundamental boundary conditions for the benefits of SL!
Paul Bergmann@pkbergmann.bsky.social · 4w agoNew preprint with @dominikdeffner.bsky.social: While social learning is broadly adaptive when repeated decision outcomes are independent, we show that when outcomes depend on prior success, most social learning strategies deteriorate performance and increase inequality: doi.org/10.31234/osf... 1/7
I totally forgot to talk about a new paper from me, @johnclithero.bsky.social and Carolina Raffaelli in JEP:Gen✨ psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202... Suppose you're offered a lottery ticket. Which info do you want to know about first - the likelihood of winning (risk) or the amount of the pot (reward)?
The typeset version of our paper (w/ Sam, @jpheffne.bsky.social & @orielf.bsky.social ) in @commspsychol.nature.com is now up: www.nature.com/articles/s44.... We show that affective valence tracks value learning independent of canonical RPEs, in both social and non-social (risky) decision-making. 🧵
Affective valence as a computational signal for learning value - Communications Psychology
Reinforcement learning models often ignore affect’s well-established role in shaping behavior. This study shows evidence that affective valence serves as a computational signal that tracks learning in...
nature.com
Hi all! I’m looking for a full-time RA / lab manager (start date: late Aug or Sept, 1 year of funding guaranteed). Ideal candidate is a recent grad w/ relevant research experience. App review has begun, so if you’re interested, please apply here ASAP, by 7/12! Thx! phf.tbe.taleo.net/phf02/ats/ca...
Hiring Research Assistant, - Garden City, N.Y.
View job details and apply now
phf.tbe.taleo.net
Dimensionality reduction is how the brain acquires knowledge. Cool new paper from the late, great, Mark Stokes. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience
Learning shapes neural geometry in the primate prefrontal cortex - Nature Neuroscience
Learning transforms prefrontal cortex activity from flexible, high-dimensional representations into compact, task-relevant and abstract codes, enabling efficient generalization of learned rules to new...
nature.com
A new paper by @dominiquemakowski.bsky.social, @mattansb.msbstats.info, me and colleagues just out! We show how to choose informative priors in Bayesian regression models using a systematic simulation study and a practical step-by-step tutorial in #Rstats and #Stan! doi.org/10.3389/fpsy... >
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/...
🎉New paper out today in Nature Reviews Psychology🎉 with @mjdahl.bsky.social, @mariamaly.bsky.social, and @thiasmittner.bsky.social. We've been working on a unified framework for attentional states and the dynamics of transitions between them. 🧵
Now out in Nature Neuroscience: "Fixation duration on natural scenes is explained by memory encoding not processing demand". www.nature.com/articles/s41... Our eyes don't linger because recognition is hard; they linger to remember. Let me take you on a quick tour. 🧵
Fixation duration on natural scenes is explained by memory encoding not processing demand - Nature Neuroscience
By combining magnetoencephalography and eye tracking, this study sheds light on why people fixate on some parts of natural scenes longer than others. Rather than visual complexity, fixation durations ...
nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s44... New research Article by @yyangteoh.bsky.social ocial Samantha Reisman @jpheffne.bsky.social and Oriel FeldmanHall in the journal.
Affective valence as a computational signal for learning value - Communications Psychology
Reinforcement learning models often ignore affect’s well-established role in shaping behavior. This study shows evidence that affective valence serves as a computational signal that tracks learning in...
nature.com
Recent preprint with Oriel FeldmanHall and Matt Nassar, showing clear neural evidence that adolescent (13-15 yrs) social media and smartphones use are associated with blunted reward signaling in the ventral striatum, the brain's reward processing hub, and worse mental health. osf.io/preprints/ps...
Recruiting PhD students for Fall 2027! This fall, I will be starting as an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M, where I will launch the Coupled Minds Lab. We will study how conversation shapes the way people connect, coordinate, and change their minds. Learn more: coupled-minds.github.io
📣 New preprint 📣 "Neural Dynamics of Belief and Value Computations Guiding Strategic Social Decisions" We use EEG and computational modeling (combining learning + DDM) to explain participants' choices, RT, and neural signals in a strategic game. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Neural Dynamics of Belief and Value Computations Guiding Strategic Social Decisions
Successful strategic behavior must be grounded in beliefs about the opponent and her intentions. While many potential models have been proposed to explain choices in such situations, the neural mechanisms that govern learning and choice in complex strategic contexts remain poorly understood. Here, we use a computational model that combines dynamic learning and choice mechanisms to explain both choices and response times of human participants engaged in a competitive strategic task. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we identify temporally structured stages of neural processing that support an evolving value-based decision process, corresponding to first- and second-order belief updates and evidence accumulation related to the comparison of action values. Gamma-band phase coupling between central and parietal EEG signals varied with individual winning rate, suggesting that strategic behavior involves coordinated information transfer across spatially remote areas. Together, our data characterize the temporally evolving neural dynamics of belief and valuation processes that underlie strategic choice and provide neural validation for assumptions embedded in computational models of this behavior. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, 725355
biorxiv.org
🚨 New paper alert! 🎉🎉🎉 The largest meta-analysis to date on physical activity & mood in daily life is out in Nature Human Behaviour. An amazing effort led by Johanna Rehder & Markus Reichert et al. (2026)!
Nature Human Behaviour@nathumbehav.nature.com · 3mo agoAn individual participant data meta-analysis of how physical activity relates to affective well-being in daily life
*good* summary of a great paper from my colleague @martaserragarcia.bsky.social on how popular media summaries of scientific results risk acting as misinformation. Also known as: just SAY "in mice!" today.ucsd.edu/story/missin...
Missing Information Can Misinform
In the online attention economy, new research from the UC San Diego Rady School finds that making science more clickable or shareable can help some readers learn more – but leaves many others with an ...
today.ucsd.edu
Very pleased to share that our study “Noradrenaline causes a spread of association in the hippocampal cognitive map” is out in @natcomms.nature.com (my final PhD paper, only 3.5 years post PhD! 🙃) Find the paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Noradrenaline causes a spread of association in the hippocampal cognitive map - Nature Communications
When forming a cognitive map, a trade-off exists between facilitating novel inferences and storing veridical copies of past experience. Here the authors show that the neuromodulator noradrenaline sets...
nature.com
I was asked to speak with a graduate class today about research data management. I was asked, "How do people become convinced that beginning data management early on in a project is worth it?" Me: "Suffering. They usual have to suffer first." 😅
🚨🚨 The Social Learning and Decisions Lab is hiring! 🚨🚨 We're looking for a postbacc project coordinator/research assistant to join our team this summer. More details about the position and how to apply here: drive.google.com/file/d/1ySeA... Please share widely and reach out with any questions!
RA_ad_2026-2027_Charpentier.pdf
drive.google.com
My article "Three-Sided Testing to Establish Practical Significance" with @jackfitzgerald.bsky.social is now published in AMPPS! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Three-sided testing is an improved version of TOST that lets you test for equivalence, superiority and inferiority simultaneously.
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
🚨🚨 Job Alert! 🚨🚨 We are seeking a full-time Study Coordinator for a NIMH-funded project that aims to uncover cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying maladaptive food-choice behavior in anorexia nervosa using behavior, eye tracking, fMRI, and computational models. Pls spread the word!
Study Coordinator
Department SSD Institute for Mind and Biology: Staff and Temporary Employees About the Department The Eating Disorders Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the Univer...
uchicago.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com
Updated preprint: @clare-shaffer.bsky.social and I synthesize brain evidence to argue that psychopathy is a disorder of allostasis and interoception (regulating and sensing the body, respectively). 1/ doi.org/10.31234/osf...
OSF
doi.org
I always assumed that brain function had to line up with cytoarchitectonics. It turns out I was wrong. Human cortex, especially PFC, is tiled by chains of functional patches that subdivide and interlink architectonic areas into parallel processing streams. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🚨🚨JOB ALERT🚨🚨 I'm hiring a cogsci/philosophy/compneuro postdoc at @ucl.ac.uk @uclbrainscience.bsky.social @uclpals.bsky.social! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRH486/p... Come to London & work on frameworks for "testing" for consciousness using Bayesian belief updating & latent variable modeling. Pls share!
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCL
Discover Postdoctoral Research Fellow jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.
jobs.ac.uk
Attention fluctuates over time and across contexts—how is this reflected in the brain?🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we show that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects changes in attention. Out in @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Geometry of neural dynamics along the cortical attractor landscape reflects changes in attention - Nature Communications
Attention fluctuates over time and across contexts—how is this reflected in the brain? Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, Song and colleagues show that the geometry of neural dynamics alo...
nature.com
The Duncan Memory Lab and the Finn LAND Lab at the University of Toronto, Department of Psychology, are hiring a Full-Time Joint Lab Manager. Commitment: 1–2 years (Ideal for pre-grad school experience). Start Date: Early June Deadline: May 20th, 11:59 PM. Please help circulate the linked ad! TY!
Lab Manager Job Posting (2026 Summer) Public
The Duncan Memory Lab and the Finn Learning and Neural Development (LAND) Lab at the University of Toronto are seeking a full-time joint Lab Manager (20 hours a week in each lab) The preferred start d...
docs.google.com
***4-year Career Development Research Fellowship in Psychology now available at Oxford!*** Open to all areas of Psychology, including Cognitive/Behavioural Neuroscience. PhD in last three years, or be about to submit (some exceptions apply). Deadline: 21st May. www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/vac...
Career Development Research Fellowship
Career Development Research Fellowship in Psychology for full-time research offered by St John’s College to early career researchers who have recently completed or are close to completion of a doctora...
sjc.ox.ac.uk