Brown haired man in a mauve button up shirt in front of a bookcase, facing the camera.
#FeatureSession Alert! #EarlyCareerAwardWinner Stephen Ferrigno Stephen Ferrigno presents his work showing that monkeys and humans use similar, queue-like memory systems for hierarchical sequences, challenging traditional models of how structured information is represented #CO32026 🧪
A big #Congratulations to our Early Career Award Winner, Stephen Ferrigno! His work with #memory systems suggests that #monkeys not only have the ability to represent recursive sequences but do so like #humans. #CO32026
in case anyone is interested, link to my poster here! zellergracie.github.io/CDS_2026_pos...
Excited for #CDS2026! The Cognitive Origins Lab will be there in force, showing our work on number cognition and sequencing development with presentations by @alessandra-silva.bsky.social @zellergracie.bsky.social and @elijahtramm.bsky.social (presented by an outstanding undergrad Maimoona Abdaal)
"the two sides reached a collective bargaining agreement that gave Women’s National Basketball Association players a nearly 400% raise...It isn’t just the biggest pay increase in U.S. league history. It is, as far as Goldin is aware, the biggest increase any union anywhere has ever negotiated."
Opportunities to work with some great coworkers, like @elijahtramm.bsky.social @alessandra-silva.bsky.social & Datu from the @henryvilaszoo.bsky.social
The applicant deadline is Monday, April 6th. This would be a great opportunity to get some additional research experience before grad school. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!
The Cognitive Origins Lab @uwpsych.bsky.social is hiring! We are looking for a full-time Research Specialist (postbac) to work on non-invasive primate + child cognition research. Full-time, 2 years, starts June 2026. Apply here: wisconsin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UW_Madison/j...
What does it mean for culture to “shape” cognition?
In our new TiCS paper, @benjaminpitt.bsky.social & I offer a typology of four possible effects: culture
can Privilege one cognitive process over others, Prune out disfavored ones, Produce new ones, or have no effect.
www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
New article out exploring great ape name recognition! We find partial evidence that zoo-living chimps & bonobos know each other's names 👀 Huge thanks to Animal Behavior and Cognition (a great open-access journal) & co-authors for your collaboration!🎉🐵
unsvr1.com/web/abc/work...
Imagination in bonobos!
I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org
We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative
youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko
First they came for DEI and I said nothing for I hoped my success rates would improve.
Then they came for gender identity research and I said nothing for I hoped my success rates would improve.
Then they came for the NPRCs, and I said nothing for I hoped my success rates would improve.
1/2 Ai, the chimpanzee who revolutionized science from Kyoto, has died at the age of 49.
She was the first chimpanzee to learn Arabic numerals.
Here you can see her in action in Tetsuro Matsuzawa's laboratory.
Skyline of Madison, WI
🚨I am looking for a POSTDOC, LAB MANAGER/TECH and GRAD STUDENTS to join my new lab in beautiful Madison, WI.
We study how our brains perceive and represent the physical world around us using behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging methods.
paulunlab.psych.wisc.edu
#VisionScience #NeuroSkyence
Very excited to share a new preprint that’s been brewing for a long time! This work was led by the exceptional @traceym.bsky.social, and made possible by a developmental + comparative + computational dream team.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Over the weekend ICE abducted an NIH contractor when he showed up to a courthouse for his green card hearing. He is documented. His wife is a citizen.
He is also member of the skeleton crew of animal care staff that works through a shutdown, to ensure the health and wellbeing of research animals.
New work with @samcheyette.bsky.social & Susan Carey testing the memory architecture used when learning/producing center-embedded sequences. Adults don't use Push-Down Stacks as is often assumed, instead they rely on a Queue-like memory architecture onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Another fun #cogsci2025 in the books! Thanks to everyone who stopped by the CO-Lab grad student posters! Alessanda Silva on Number-Space mappings & @elijahtramm.bsky.social on Hierarchical grammar learning in monkeys (and humans). Posters still available through Cog. Sci. or reach out for a copy.
#cogsci2025 was a blast! Many excellent conversations about inner speech and categorical representation!
🚨 Neuro postdocs & grad students: Have a story to tell? Want to practice a talk before a conference or interview? Join our new seminar series on the Isthmus! All are welcome (from around the 🌎). Submit by Aug 20. Share your story (and this ad)!
(Ping me for Qs)
forms.gle/zpSTGWczxjqJ...
Researchers came from around the United States to showcase projects, ranging from modeling coastal hazards to teaching quantum information science, that were killed prematurely this spring by one of a half-dozen federal agencies. scim.ag/3Tv5iVC
1: Ed Yong's An Immense World (such a good read)
2: Frans de Waal's: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (lots of interesting points, but also some stretches)
Screen shot of a Fox News article with the headline "White men are 'walking around on eggshells at work, afraid to speak freely: Survey Poll reveals 43% of White men self-censor at work, while 25 million report losing job opportunities due to their race and gender" By Rachel del Guidice • Fox News
100% of Black people self censor at work. Its a job site not your personal safe space, snowflake.
Birds don't have capsaicin receptors... works like a charm!
CCCR logo, 100 Days Under Trump: Public Reactions to Attacks on American Governance & Institutions
🚨 CCCR has a new survey report out today! 🚨
"100 Days Under Trump: Public Reactions to Attacks on American Governance & Institutions"
The report draws on our Apr/May YouGov panel survey of US adults, following our Oct 2024 survey w/ recontacts + a sample refresh. 1/
cccr.wisc.edu/wp-content/u...
After already killing more than 1700 active grants related to politically charged topics, the National Institutes of Health has flagged another roughly 3200 grants for review and possible termination.
📣📣 A recent paper by Nicholas A. Vest and colleagues:
Does Focusing on the Unit of Change Help Children Learn Growing Pattern Skills? www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
@nicholasvest.bsky.social
@marthaalibali.bsky.social
The original was fantastic! Can't wait for my niece & nephew to get a couple years older. Nerdy bedtime stories for days!
Well the NIH has cancelled the Women's Health Initiative, the largest study of women in history
It has been running continuously since 1991 and has provided massive key knowledge about diseases in women
Unreal
www.science.org/content/arti...
📣Now hiring! I'm looking to recruit a full-time Research Specialist (Lab Manager) to join the Social and Moral Learning Lab at UW Madison starting this summer! Apply here: jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/researc... (application deadline March 21, 2025)
