Just wrote a new blogpost trying to summarize my thoughts on the question of how and whether to use AI for research in psychology and cognitive science: babieslearninglanguage.blogspot.com/2026/04/usin...

The Cognitive Tools Lab at Stanford (cogtoolslab.github.io) is recruiting two new research staff members to join in AY 26-27.
Full-Time Lab Manager: forms.gle/UVwfx5wbY9Km....
IRiSS Predoc Researcher: iriss.stanford.edu/predoc/2026-....
Please share widely in your networks, thank you!!

Why I made a river my co-author Anne Poelina gives first authorship to a source with deep knowledge about water — the river itself.

In a Working Scientist profile, conservation researcher Anne Poelina speaks with Nature Careers about giving first authorship to a source with deep knowledge about water, the river itself. 🌍 🧪

Allah/God: Why is he a “he”? “All praise to him,” I was talking to a friend who was confused about what to feel about non-muslims using the word “Allah” to refer to…

I just published Allah/God: Why is he a ‘he’? medium.com/p/allah-god-...

Many of us are worried about AI. Many are also interested in what it can tell us about the human mind. Can we separate out our concerns and our scientific curiosity?

A topic discussed in our latest episode, w/ @glupyan.bsky.social & @mcxfrank.bsky.social!

Listen: disi.org/what-can-ai-...

"The greater risk is not that AI will eliminate jobs, but that its benefits will … accrue unevenly." Marie Lynn Miranda, University of Illinois Chicago

"… higher education must develop students into fluent, intelligent, and ethical users of #AI and work to ensure that the benefits of AI reach broadly across communities," writes Marie Lynn Miranda in a new #ScienceEditorial. https://scim.ag/4dvOxot

Five Trends that will Shape Urban Africa in 2026 Uncovering the politics of African urbanization

open.substack.com/pub/thisweek...

Can i add, having a very informal 1-1 chat with Barbara Tversky that lasted for 2 hours, to my CV?

Full thread above, but in summary:

When we imagine we re-activate brain regions used during perception, an idea called "sensory reinstatement". However, our results suggest this overlap is actually in transmodal association networks, not sensory areas.

Perception culminates in transmodal networks

Brainwave study sheds light on cause of ‘hearing voices’ A study of the way people process inner and outer speech is the first tangible evidence of a key theory about schizophrenia’s drivers.

Media release at www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/new...

I agree.

For me, at first, Academia was very much an identity and a calling.

Years later, after some experience of terrible university management, it is "a job".

Some other reflections (which turned out to be about workload management, and ways of working)

As Andy thoughtfully explains, certain technologies may be new, but our psychology isn't, and decades of psychology research can be used to explain questions like what goes viral online and why people enjoy sycophantic chatbots.

Honored to give the opening plenary @affectscience.bsky.social this year on AI & mental health! I shared what we’re learning at Flourish Science about bridging the gap between science and the real world.
SAS has been my favorite conference since grad school, so this was especially meaningful ❤️

Language, Intelligence & Thought lab is looking for a lab manager! This is a 2-year postbac position that will allow you to gain experience in human neuroscience, cognitive science, and AI research prior to applying to PhD programs.

Express interest here: forms.gle/npXEGUjGUbp5...

Music is not a universal language — but it can bring us together when words fail Societies, animals and even machines have music in common. Our varied experiences of it might tell us about the origins of language.

"Western listeners usually find music in major keys happy and in minor keys sad. By contrast, Papua New Guinean listeners felt no difference in happiness between major and minor keys, and Pakistani listeners found minor keys happier than major ones" www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Music is not a universal language — but it can bring us together when words fail Societies, animals and even machines have music in common. Our varied experiences of it might tell us about the origins of language.

“Understanding deep evolutionary origins of music & language requires inclusive & equitable collaborations across cultures & disciplines, weaving together Indigenous knowledge & the humanities with natural & social sciences.” Informative engaging essay by @patrickesavage.bsky.social in @nature.com.🧪

Beyond Self Worth: Social Worth as a Foundation of Subjective Well-being in Sub-Saharan Africa: https://osf.io/k8hwg

👩🏾‍🔬🐝🌌 Want to write popular science articles about your research for small-town newspapers in the U.S. to boost trust in science and support science literacy? Science Homecoming @sciencehomecoming.bsky.social has the information, tools, and volunteers to help you.

www.sciencehomecoming.com

Do Great Apes Know Each Other's Names? Probing Great Ape Comprehension of Social Vocal Labels — Animal Behavior and Cognition

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...

An LLM-backed "socratic tutor" to replace reading responses Blog about fatherhood, langauge, developmental psychology, and cognitive science.

New blogpost about a teaching experiment I'm doing this quarter: a "socratic tutor" bot to help students gain understanding of specific reading assignments.

babieslearninglanguage.blogspot.com/2026/02/an-l...

Check it out🧠

Reminders that chatbots are not human can be risky Concerns about mental and physical health harms from chatbots are prompting policies mandating ongoing reminders that chatbots are not human. While well-intended, evidence suggests that reminders may be either ineffective or harmful to users. Discovering how to best remind people that chatbots are not human is a critical research priority.

Online Now: Reminders that chatbots are not human can be risky

The chemical habitability of Earth and rocky planets prescribed by core formation - Nature Astronomy A narrow ‘Goldilocks zone’ of oxidation levels during exoplanetary core formation allows both nitrogen and phosphorus to remain in the mantle. Earth lies within this zone, but more oxidized or reduced exoplanets may lock these elements in their cores, limiting habitability.

A Nature Astronomy paper shows that Earth lies within a narrow “Goldilocks zone” that allows both nitrogen and phosphorus to be present with the right abundances in the mantle. More oxidized or reduced exoplanets may lock these elements in their cores, limiting habitability. 🔭 🧪

Psycholinguistic Databases, Stimuli, Utilities — Concepts & Cognition Laboratory

2026 big update to the psycholinguistic database page! If you know of corpora, lexical databases, or other resources that I've missed, please LMK. Trying to keep this thing relatively current and could use the help www.reilly-coglab.com/data

Abstract of the paper

Figure 1 - experimental setup

Figure 2 - accuracy over time

Figure 3 - semantic similarity within/across games

I always thought preschoolers were too egocentric to do well on communication tasks where they had to talk about novel referents. Old papers reported they'd say stuff like "this one looks like my uncle's hat."

@vboyce.bsky.social shows that this is wrong!

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Teaching Metacognition in Humans Versus Artificial Intelligence Teaching: Use this lesson plan to demonstrate to students that confidence is not equivalent to accuracy.

Learn how to teach students that confidence is not equivalent to accuracy with a new Teaching Current Directions #Teaching #AI #cogpsyc

We’ve proven machines can learn to use language, but it took brute force to get there.

Meanwhile, animal communication evolved over millions of years under real-world constraints, shaping systems that are adaptable and efficient.

What can #AI learn from nature? 🧠

Read more: bit.ly/ai-biomimicry

Evidence for representation of pretend objects by Kanzi, a language-trained bonobo Secondary representations enable our minds to depart from the here-and-now and generate imaginary, hypothetical, or alternate possibilities that are decoupled from reality, supporting many of our rich...

“Our findings suggest the capacity to form secondary representations of pretend objects is within the cognitive potential of, at least, an enculturated ape & likely dates back 6-9 million years, to our common evolutionary ancestors.” Amalia Bastos & @chriskrupenye.bsky.social today in @science.org.🧪

Does playful teasing help great apes learn about social relationships? Abstract. Understanding social relationships is critical to succeeding in primate societies. In species with complex social networks (including humans), co

Great apes may use playful teasing to learn about their social relationships. In a new paper, Erica Cartmill & I propose a bond-testing hypothesis for ape teasing. Out today in Phil Trans Biology: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...

Could sometimes be a lack of understanding of what science is or how it works rather than a conscious anti science stance. Although it does lead to the same outcome at the end.