Ke "Kay" Fang

How do humans keep inventing tools and technologies that no single person could create alone?

Our new preprint, led by
@anilyaman.bsky.social & @ts-brain.bsky.social
shows that semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution. 🧠📘 arxiv.org/abs/2510.12837

COSMOS🧑‍🚀 + TOKYO⛩️🏯 = ✨THE BEST WORKSHOP EVER!!!✨
Thanks @thecharleywu.bsky.social and @watarutoyokawa.bsky.social for organizing everything 💙

🚨New paper out w/ @gershbrain.bsky.social & @fierycushman.bsky.social from my time @Harvard!

Humans are capable of sophisticated theory of mind, but when do we use it?

We formalize & document a new cognitive shortcut: belief neglect — inferring others' preferences, as if their beliefs are correct🧵

Flyer for the event!

*Sharing for our department’s trainees*

🧠 Looking for insight on applying to PhD programs in psychology?

✨ Apply by Sep 25th to Stanford Psychology's 9th annual Paths to a Psychology PhD info-session/workshop to have all of your questions answered!

📝 Application: tinyurl.com/pathstophd2025

So pleased and proud to share this work.

I started trying to think clearly about authority punishment in 2018. This new paper with Setayesh Radkani is the first fruit of that labour.

Why so much struggle? See thread.

1/17

looking forward to seeing everyone at #CCN2025! here's a snapshot of the work from my lab that we'll be presenting on speech neuroscience 🧠 ✨

Excited to be sharing my latest work with @tobigerstenberg.bsky.social at #CogSci2025!

Learning usually occurs when we encounter new data. But we also have the capacity to reflect on our past experiences. What can we learn from simulating past experience?

📃 cicl.stanford.edu/papers/yang2...

1/

Proud of the work from hmc-lab.com & collaborators @ #CogSci2025 this year, but sad I cant be there myself
@hanqizhou.bsky.social @davidnagy.bsky.social @alexthewitty.bsky.social @stepalminteri.bsky.social @brendenlake.bsky.social @kefang.bsky.social @rdhawkins.bsky.social @meanwhileina.bsky.social

Attractor dynamics of working memory explain a concurrent evolution of stimulus-specific and decision-consistent biases in visual estimation People exhibit biases when perceiving features of the world, shaped by both external stimuli and prior decisions. By tracking behavioral, neural, and mechanistic markers of stimulus- and decision-rela...

Excited to share that our paper is now out in Neuron @cp-neuron.bsky.social (dlvr.it/TM9zJ8).

Our perception isn't a perfect mirror of the world. It's often biased by our expectations and beliefs. How do these biases unfold over time, and what shapes their trajectory? A summary thread. (1/13)

Excited to share our new work at #CogSci2025!

We explore how people plan deceptive actions, and how detectives try to see through the ruse and infer what really happened based on the traces left behind. 🕵️‍♀️

Paper: osf.io/preprints/osf/vqgz5_v1
Code: github.com/cicl-stanford/recursive_deception

1/

Presentation list for language and cognition lab at CogSci 2025.

Looking forward to #cogsci2025 next week - here's a list of presentations from my lab!

🎤 "Your #CogSci presentation was quite good this year."

How flattered or offended will you be? The answer may depend on whether you speak British or American English 🇺🇸🇬🇧. Our new #CogSci2025 paper reveals systematic differences in how different cultures interpret the same words.

🚨New paper! We know models learn distinct in-context learning strategies, but *why*? Why generalize instead of memorize to lower loss? And why is generalization transient?

Our work explains this & *predicts Transformer behavior throughout training* without its weights! 🧵

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Intersection of spatial and numerical cognition in the developing brain Abstract. Early mathematical development is thought to depend on visuospatial processing, yet neural evidence for this relationship in young children has b

So excited to see this paper with @ckaicher.bsky.social and @cantlonlab.bsky.social finally out!

🔆 I'm hiring! 🔆

There are two open positions:

1. Summer research position (best for master's or graduate student); focus on computational social cognition.
2. Postdoc (currently interviewing!); focus on computational social cognition and AI safety.

sites.google.com/corp/site/sy...

Attending to Remember: Recent Advances in Methods and Theory - Shawn T. Schwartz, Haopei Yang, Alice M. Xue, Anthony D. Wagner, 2025 The ability to learn from and remember experiences (episodic memory) depends on multiple neurocognitive systems. In this article, we highlight recent advances i...

I’m pleased to share our new review article, “Attending to Remember: Recent Advances in Methods and Theory”, written with Haopei Yang (HY), Alice Xue, and Anthony Wagner, now out in Current Directions in Psychological Science. 🚀🧠 A brief thread 🧵
doi.org/10.1177/09637214251339452

New paper out in @plosbiology.org w/ Charlie, @phil-johnson.bsky.social, Ella, and Hinze 🎉

We track moving stimuli via EEG, find evidence that motion is extrapolated across distinct stages of processing + show how this effect may emerge from a simple synaptic learning rule!

tinyurl.com/2szh6w5c

Essential tools for writing better code: Version control Better Code, Better Science: Chapter 2, Part 1

Essential tools for writing better code: Version control - Chapter 2, Part 1 of Better Code, Better Science

Introducing the Neural Strategies Substack Allow me to (re)introduce myself

I've decided to start my own Substack, called Neural Strategies: russpoldrack.substack.com/p/introducin... - I will soon start releasing content from a new open-source book I'm developing, tentatively titled "Better Code, Better Science". Subscribe to receive each new section as soon as I post it!

Reserve your free tickets to SFI's upcoming Community Lecture! lensic.org/events/blais...

Blaise Agüera y Arcas’ presents 'Computing, Life, and Intelligence' at the Lensic on 🗓️ May 20, 7:30pm MT in-person or online.

🚨 New @psychinquiry Issue 36:1 just dropped!
Target article: Understanding Belief-Behavior Correspondence by @jgranadossamayoa.bsky.social & @dalbarra.bsky.social.
Why don’t beliefs always drive actions? 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/toc/hpli20/3...

I am hiring a new Lab Manager to help run the NYU Center for Conflict & Cooperation.

We start reviewing apps on MAY 1st and it pays over $58,000. Please share with anyone who might be interested!

Please apply here: apply.interfolio.com/166620

See more details below:

Now out in JPSP ‼️

"Inference from social evaluation" with Zach Davis, Kelsey Allen, @maxkw.bsky.social, and @julianje.bsky.social

📃 (paper): psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
📜 (preprint): osf.io/preprints/ps...

Now officially out in Psychological Review 🥳

"Causation, Meaning, and Communication" by Ari Beller and me.

📃 (paper): psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
📜 (preprint): osf.io/preprints/ps...

🚨 I’m hiring a full-time lab manager to help me build my lab start in July or August 2025! 🚨

If you know any stellar candidates who might be interested, please send this their way.

🗓 Application review begins April 15
⏰ Final deadline is April 25
📎 Apply here ➡️ lnkd.in/evhfqzTP

We often assume that specialized roles improve performance in multi-agent systems, but when does specialization emerge based on a given task and environment? 🧵👇

⭐️ New preprint w/ Ruaridh Mon-Williams, @neilbramley.bsky.social, Chris Lucas, @natvelali.bsky.social & @cocoscilab.bsky.social

Integrating multimodal data to understand cortical circuit architecture and function - Nature Neuroscience This paper discusses how experimental and computational studies integrating multimodal data, such as RNA expression, connectivity and neural activity, are advancing our understanding of the architectu...

Advances in neuroscience have yielded massive, rich datasets from various analysis techniques and modalities. 🧠📈

In a @natureneuro.bsky.social perspective, researchers underscore the importance of an integrative approach to render a more complete picture of the brain.

Cuts to federal research funding will hurt future Texas science students Cutting funding from anything perceived as “DEI-adjacent” harms us all. It freezes life-changing research, and shuts the door on talented, hardworking students.

As part of @sciencehomecoming.bsky.social, I wrote an opinion piece for San Antonio Express News on the dangers of cuts to federal science funding for today and tomorrow's scientists: www.expressnews.com/opinion/comm...

@cantlonlab.bsky.social
@spiantado.bsky.social