a penguin is sticking his head out of a hole next to a job application ALT: a penguin is sticking his head out of a hole next to a job application

🚨 JOB alert: 📢
We are looking for a PhD student to work on our international @wellcometrust.bsky.social project on information gathering in OCD and Schizophrenia!
If you have a background in computational psychiatry / neuroimnaging and speak German, apply here: devcompsy.org/wp-content/u...

psp: Parameter Space Partitioning MCMC for Global Model Evaluation Implements an n-dimensional parameter space partitioning algorithm for evaluating the global behaviour of formal computational models as described by Pitt, Kim, Navarro and Myung (2006) &lt;<a href="h...

🎉 psp just hit 14K+ downloads!
Our #rstats package for parameter space partitioning powered our work on g-distance, model comparison, irrationality, and heterogeneity: doi.org/10.1037/rev0...
CRAN: cran.r-project.org/package=psp

We are delighted to invite you to the upcoming “Psychology and the Brain” conference, which will take place in Heidelberg from June 3 to 6, 2026. Conference registration and submission of contributions are now open. Visit us at pug2026.org
#pug2026 #biopsychology #psychophysioloy #neuroscience

a little girl is dancing in front of a group of people sitting on chairs . ALT: a little girl is dancing in front of a group of people sitting on chairs .

I am super thrilled to announce that I have been awarded an @erc.europa.eu Consolidator Grant to build novel interventions for #OCD. The plan is to exploit recent insights from computational neuroscience and closely work together with people with lived experience of OCD to create novel treatments.

6/6
If you’re interested in the full story, check out the paper here: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Big thanks to @annesaulin.bsky.social, @yuqingzhou.bsky.social, and @hein-lab.bsky.social for the joint effort and to @rtg2660.bsky.social for providing an excellent research environment!

5/6
In short:
💡 Rewards can encourage approach toward out-groups
❌ But they don’t easily alter underlying impressions

This highlights both the promise and limits of non-social reinforcers in reducing social intergroup biases.

4/6
Our key findings:
- An initial in-group bias in approach behaviour and impression ratings ✅
- Rewarding out-group approach reduced this bias ✅
- People learned more from rewards than punishments ✅
- But… impressions of the out-group remained unchanged ❎

3/6
We ran three #preregistered online studies using a new #approach-avoidance learning task:
➡️ Participants moved a manikin towards or away from symbols (representing members of their in-group or out-group) and earned money depending on their choices.

Would rewards shift biases?

2/6
In a #social #intergroup context, humans often show #in-group biases:
- More likely to approach
- More positive impressions of
individuals from their own group compared to others.

But can #learning from external rewards/punishments reduce these biases?

Learning from financial rewards and punishments reduces the in-group bias in social approach without changing the in-group bias in impressions | Royal Society Open Science Humans’ approach behaviour and impressions are biased towards individuals from their own group (in-group) compared with different groups (out-group). There is evidence that learning from specific interactions with in-group and out-group members can reduce ...

🥳 Super excited that today the first paper of my PhD has been published in @royalsociety.org: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Can learning from rewards and punishments change how people approach (or avoid) in-group vs. out-group members?

Read the thread below! 🧵 1/6

We are hiring for several research positions for this grant, starting early next year. Please reach out if you're interested!
More details on the jobs here: devcompsy.org/wp-content/u...

Me presenting my poster on the resolution of approach-avoidance conflicts.

Good morning #CPConf2025,
having mixed feelings about the early morning? Maybe even facing an #approach-avoidance #conflict?
Don't worry! Just drop by pi poster 3.14, to discuss the resolution of such conflicts.

The beta release of SPM-Python is out now! Amazing work by Johan Medrano @johmedr.bsky.social , Yael Balbastre, Yulia Bezsudnova @ybezs.bsky.social and other members of their team. A new era for SPM! #OHBM2025

Today at #PuG2025!

Great collaboration with @ecemtavacioglu.bsky.social, @gamerlab.bsky.social, @mjherrmann.bsky.social, and others, supervised by @hein-lab.bsky.social, and funded by @rtg2660.bsky.social!

Me, proudly presenting my poster on human approach-avoidance conflict resolution.

Hey #PuG2025! I am excited to present my research on the role of midbrain PAG in the resolution of human approach-avoidance conflict resolution. If that sounds interesting to you, drop by my poster #79 (Room 2.007)!

Moore und Auen Moore und Auen

Fast alle #Moore in 🇩🇪 wurden ent­wässert. Heute wissen wir, 1 ha Moor speichert acht Mal mehr Kohlenstoff als 1 ha Wald. Davon, was nass war, was trocken wurde und was wieder nass werden muss, handelt ein Digitales Dossier der Leopoldina: interaktiv.leopoldina.org/mooreundauen/

Only few days left to apply for a PhD position in my group @biodgps-dgpa.bsky.social

🔎 We are looking for collaborators for our new manylabs looking at the effects of extreme heat on human cognition and well-being across the globe 🌍

See below for more information and sign up if you’re interested 👇🏼

An open letter to graduate students and other procrastinators: it’s time to write Nature Biotechnology - An open letter to graduate students and other procrastinators: it’s time to write

I wrote something... about writing. #ScientificWriting to be exact, but I think it applies to all kinds of #writing.

List of Stand Up for Science events—official events in red, solidarity events in blue.

SO MANY STAND UP FOR SCIENCE EVENTS TO CHOOSE FROM—153 and COUNTING!

To get more information on our local events and to register your own, head to www.standupforscience2025.org/local-event-information/ ☀️⬇️🌎

Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton are the recipients of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning. Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton as the recipients of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning. In a series of papers beginning...

Barto and Sutton receive the Turing award!

Amazing recognition for two kind, pioneering, and genuinely inspiring scientists. Congratulations!!

awards.acm.org/about/2024-t...

The far right rising Ahead of a historic German election, the AfD is courting the global right – and threatening to upend European politics.

Why it is time to say goodbye to Germany as an oasis of stability, and why ironically it was JD Vance in Munich who might have helped the centrist parties to get a grip now after all.
My take on the most important elections in a generation on Sunday in Berlin. 👇👇