thinker tank

Existential Realism: A Distinct Ontological Framework Beyond Presentism This paper introduces Existential Realism as a novel ontological framework in metaphysics that offers a rigorously technical alternative to presentism. In contrast to standard presentism's claim t...

Tenzin Trepp just released a new paper on a radical theory of time: "Existential Realism: A Distinct Ontological Framework Beyond Presentism". This framework goes beyond presentism and offers a fresh ontological lens.
📄 t.ly/YMPnT

#Philosophy
#Metaphysics
#Time
#Ontology

Author Spotlight: Tenzin Trepp
Philosopher, visual cognitiologist & Stoic thinker. Exploring perception, meaning & the mind in bold new ways.
🧠📘 Discover more:
thinker-tank.net/en/news/auth...

FABRICA MUNDI: Der Aufbau des Subjekts im kognitiven Konstruktivismus Tenzin C. Trepp · Audiobook

📣 Jetzt auch als Hörbuch!
Mein Buch über kognitiven Konstruktivismus ist ab sofort ungekürzt auf Spotify (t.ly/xx0J8), Google Play (t.ly/-EOgl), Apple Books & vielen weiteren Plattformen verfügbar. Reinhören lohnt sich – verständlich, fundiert und jetzt auch zum Hören. 🎧📚

Excited to share our new work by @annaborghi.bsky.social @claudiamazzuca.bsky.social and @ideeverdi.bsky.social! We dive into abstract concepts in social interaction—exploring vagueness, knowledge outsourcing, cross-cultural variation, and the role of LLMs.
rdcu.be/elbbT

Investigating Human-Like Processing in Large Language Models: A Glimpse into Findings from Early-Career Researchers Scientists address fundamental questions on how LLMs relate to human language and thought.

At #APS25DC, @randicmartin.bsky.social and other scientists will address fundamental questions on how LLMs relate to human language and thought.

🧠 We just launched Thinker Tank — a new platform for exploring cognition, mental states, and psychology. Dive into interdisciplinary reflections and join the dialogue. 🚀 thinker-tank.net #ThinkerTank #Cognition #Interdisciplinary

Biggest brain map ever details huge number of neurons and their activity 3D reconstruction is the first to overlay neuronal activity on a large-scale map of brain cells.

A detailed map of mouse brain cell structure and connections, offering insights into how they relate to activity in the mouse brain, is revealed in a package of papers published Nature and @naturemethods.bsky.social.

#Neuroscience #Neuroskyence

General anaesthesia decreases the uniqueness of brain functional connectivity across individuals and species - Nature Human Behaviour Each individual is unique and so is their brain activity. Using brain fingerprinting from functional MRI during anaesthesia, Luppi et al. find that human brains become temporarily more difficult to identify and tell apart when unconscious.

Each individual is unique, and so is their brain activity. Using fMRI and brain fingerprinting during anaesthesia, Luppi et al. find that human brains become temporarily more difficult to identify and tell apart from each other when unconscious.

#MorningReads
A national probability sample from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study. Children w/ intersecting marginalized identities face higher depression, self-injury, and suicidal ideation. #LGBTHealth

Discover Montessori puzzles for toddlers to boost cognitive development & fine motor skills with interactive, educational wooden shape-sorting fun.
The post “Engage & Learn: Montessori Wooden Shape Sorting Puzzle – The ... https://s.mtrbio.com/sxsnrlxaif

The problem is that cognitive science wants it both ways when it comes to the "hard core" of computation over representation.

Strong empirical programs have been scoffed at and quickly dismissed because they didn't explain in these terms (see below)

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

7th annual meeting of the Society for the Cognitive Science of Culture (SCSC). Registration and abstract submission now opened!

📢 Join the 7th annual meeting of the Society for the Cognitive Science of Culture ( #SCSC ) on the 28-29th of April at the University of #Zurich! Registration and abstract submission are now open until the 28th of February.

More information:
culturalcogsci.org/AnnualMeetin...

Really enjoying this book. So many great examples for teaching Sensation and Perception!

Multidimensional scaling was performed on the correlation matrix for performance (targets per second) on individual trials. This was done separately for (a) trials with novel objects and object-matched faces and (b) trials with familiar objects and object-matched faces. Each dot depicts a single trial, and the distance between two points is approximately equal to their dissimilarity. Trials are clustered based on our preregistered analysis pipeline: The faces cluster corresponds to trials contributing to the face discrimination dependent variable in Table 2, the stubby-animate objects cluster corresponds to trials contributing to factors added at Step 4 in Table 2, and the other objects cluster corresponds to trials contributing to factors added at Step 3 in Table 2. Dots are connected to their cluster’s barycenter via lines. Confidence ellipses for barycenters of the three clusters are shown, both for the 95% confidence level (light ellipses) and the 50% confidence level (dark ellipses).

Specific abilities for faces were additionally partially accounted for by their visual qualities as measured by location in object space. Face abilities were better predicted by people's abilities for discriminating stubby animate-looking objects than their abilities for other objects. 12/13

Example stimuli of 15 object types are shown. Quadrants of object space are represented by different colors (orange: stubby animate-looking; purple: spiky animate-looking; pink: stubby inanimate-looking; green: spiky inanimate-looking; gray: all objects). Exerc. eq. = exercise equipment.

Paper🚨 "Objects, Faces, and Spaces: Organizational Principles of Visual Object Perception as Evidenced by Individual Differences in Behavior" by @heidasigurdar.bsky.social & @ingamariao.bsky.social JEP:G editor's choice ->free to read psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202... #visionscience #psychscisky 🧵1/13

Abstract: Vision science largely ignores the fact that rural visual environments typical of our species’ history differ radically from urban zones from which almost all samples are drawn: Only a handful of paradigms have been used to investigate rural-urban differences in visual perception, and some show limited effects or suffer from limited methodologies. Here we more than double the total number of paradigms in this literature, including visual illusions assumed to rely on universal mechanisms (e.g. Gestalt shapes, Cafe wall, curvature blindness). Results reveal profound differences in visual phenomenology, with rural Namibian participants often failing to see percepts obvious to UK/US participants and vice versa. In sum, what is universal and what is culturally-constructed in human visual perception remains a wide-open area of research.

Does cultural experience shape visual perception?

New research finds "profound differences in visual phenomenology, with rural Namibian participants often failing to see percepts obvious to UK/US participants and vice versa."

Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Designing a Course That Develops Students’ Metacognition By shifting their focus to the process of learning instead of the product, students are encouraged to develop critical cognitive competencies.

What happened when this school structured a course around cognitive competencies instead of traditional academic products like projects or essays?

Spoiler: *So much learning.* 🤯

#assessment #metacognition #EduSky

In the field of neuroethology, "insect swarm intelligence" remains a pu. While insects like bees and ants exhibit highly coordinated group behavior, the fundamental principles and neural mechanisms underlying these complex swarm dynamics are not fully understood.

Boosting attention and learning with Blake Harvard (Ep 38) Chalk & Talk · Episode

Blake Harvard on his book "Do I Have Your Attention?" and how he uses cognitive psychology in teaching. He covers memory, attention, learning pitfalls, and practical strategies like retrieval and spaced practice. Harvard argues that strong knowledge foundations boost creativity.

This took us years to do, from idea to publication, so glad to see this out 😊 Would love it if you would read and share. And huge thanks to all who helped us, including all our participants. #visionscience #neuroskyence #psychscisky #cogsci #cognitivescience #cognitivepsychology

Writing notes to remind us later is an example of cognitive offloading

Chasing #Consciousness: METACOGNITION: THE #SCIENCE OF SELF-AWARENESS - Stephen Fleming PHD #63

Episode webpage: podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cha...

Media file: anchor.fm/s/51be8448/p...

#psychology #CognitivePsychology

Cognitive psychologists - here's a Swift-oriented pop quiz re: visual search (pop-out), word frequency & word superiority effects I made last year (still relevant this year!) I'm happy with it (though it's fairly simplistic). Would you change any of the answers or tweak any of the questions? Q1 -->

YouTube video by Quanta Magazine Why Some People Don’t ‘See’ Mental Imagery: Aphantasia

Why Some People Don’t ‘See’ Mental Imagery: Aphantasia #neuroscience #cogpsyc #aphantasia #memory

Well, cog sci in systems neuroscience is becoming more and more alive, day after day

I think, regardless how you see what cognitive science is, the bibliometric and dept. evidence presented is pretty clear. anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology simple did not cohere into a unified front. its interesting to think about why...

Simulation Theory: A psychological and philosophical consideration (Explorations in Cognitive Psychology)

Unlock the mysteries of #SimulationTheory with the latest insights into cognitive psychology! Dive deep into the fascinating world of perception and reality. 🌐

A graphic from 1991 showing many of the leading thinkers in cognitive science, organized in concentric circles (cognitivism, emergence, and enactive) and across disciplines (for example, AI, philosophy, neuroscience). Many if not all them are white men?

This taxonomy of cognitive science its and leading contributors is from 1991. I recognize about half the names -- all white men. Relatedly perhaps, on this account "anthropology" is no longer seen as one of cog sci's subdisciplines. Graphic here: github.com/rdgao/WH2Cog... (republished)

Macrophages protect against sensory axon loss in peripheral neuropathy - Nature A study in a mouse model of obesity and prediabetes demonstrates that recruitment of macrophages to nerves has a protective role in diet-induced peripheral neuropathy.

Macrophages protect against sensory axon loss in peripheral neuropathy www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Causation is complex and multi-faceted, and our language provides us with a limited set of expressions to communicate what happened. By drawing on insights from philosophy, linguistics, and psychology, our work brings us one step closer to understanding how people communicate about causality.

🔚 👍

New paper in Psychological Review!

In "Causation, Meaning, and Communication" Ari Beller (cicl.stanford.edu/member/ari_b...) develops a computational model of how people use & understand expressions like "caused", "enabled", and "affected".

📃 osf.io/preprints/ps...
📎 github.com/cicl-stanfor...
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