Introducing hMFC: A Bayesian hierarchical model of trial-to-trial fluctuations in decision criterion! Now out in @plos.org Comp Bio.
led by Robin Vloeberghs with @anne-urai.bsky.social Scott Linderman

Paper: desenderlab.com/wp-content/u... Thread ↓↓↓

#PsychSciSky #Neuroscience #Neuroskyence

Common neural choice signals reflect accumulated evidence, not confidence! Now out in @cerebralcortex.bsky.social w @helenevanmarcke.bsky.social @pierreledenmat.bsky.social @yfvisser.bsky.social @denizerdil.bsky.social a.o.

Paper: desenderlab.com/wp-content/u... Thread ↓↓↓

(7/7) But definitely check out the full paper for much more on other types of generics and what makes them acceptable: doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
Many thanks to Vera Hoorens and Susanne Bruckmüller for allowing me to be a part of this and also to Gijs Dekkers for the lovely illustrations!

(6/7) Returning to The Cure: we accept “Boys don’t cry” because we read this statement normatively, yet we accept “Boys cry” because we read this statement descriptively. The Cure might have thus inadvertently enforced a social norm since ‘79, oops!

(5/7) In addition to integrating and building upon an extensive body of earlier work, ConStat generates novel and falsifiable hypotheses and provides practical suggestions for future research on generics!

(4/7) We propose ConStat, a Contextual-Statistical framework that builds upon earlier work to solve this puzzle! ConStat assumes that generics transmit information of relevance for individual and coordinated action and has five central tenets:

(3/7) And why does “Canadians are right-handed” sound wrong, even though the vast majority of Canadians are? These sentences are examples of "generics”. What precisely makes them acceptable versus unacceptable has long eluded researchers.

YouTube video by TheCureVEVO The Cure - Boys Don't Cry

(2/7) Back in 1979, The Cure famously wrote “Boys Don’t Cry” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GkV...), yet we all know that “Boys cry”. What makes us feel both sentences are acceptable? And what makes us accept “Mosquitos transmit malaria”, even though only very few mosquitos actually do?

(1/7)📢 New paper by Vera Hoorens, felixhermans.bsky.social, and Susanne Bruckmüller in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social : “Why Boys Cry and Don’t Cry. The Contextual-Statistical (ConStat) Approach to the Perceived Validity of Generics”. A small 🧵and link to the paper below!

Summary of design and results from our three studies. (A: Design) Each study used a similar experimental design, measuring both positive and negative demand in an online experiment, with three commonly-used task types (dictator game, vignette, intervention). Our experiments had ns ≈ 250 per cell. (B: Results) Observed demand effects were statistically indistinguishable from zero. The plot shows means and 95% confidence intervals for standardized mean differences derived from frequentist analyses of each experiment and an inverse variance-weighted fixed-effect estimator pooling all experiments (solid bars). Prior measurements of experimenter demand from a previous dictator game experiment (de Quidt et al., 2018; standardized mean difference from regression coefficient) and a meta-analysis primarily including small-sample, in-person studies (Coles et al., 2025; Hedge’s g statistic) are also shown for comparison (striped bars). The main text includes Bayesian analyses that quantify our uncertainty.

We often hear from reviewers: "what about demand effects?" So we developed a method to eliminate them. Something weird happened during testing: We couldn’t detect demand effects in the first place! (1/8)

It was a pleasure introducing PsyNet and its many applications at the Laboratory for Experimental Social Psychology today! Thanks @felixhermans.bsky.social for the invitation and all PsyNet developers, incl. @pmcharrison.bsky.social and @norijacoby.bsky.social for creating such an amazing platform!

Using Gibbs Sampling with People to characterize perceptual and aesthetic evaluations in multidimensional visual stimulus space Author(s): Van Geert, Eline; Jacoby, Nori | Abstract: Aesthetic appreciation is inherently multidimensional: many different stimulus dimensions (e.g., colors, shapes, sizes) contribute to our aestheti...

For people interested in some awesome open access work using PsyNet, see:
Gibbs sampling with people (Van Geert & Jacoby, 2024) escholarship.org/uc/item/1pc8...
Visual and auditory aesthetic preferences across cultures (Lee et al., 2025) escholarship.org/uc/item/60h1...

Tremendously grateful to @elinevg.bsky.social for providing an introduction to PsyNet (www.psynet.dev) at the Laboratory for Experimental Social Psychology in KU Leuven today!

PsyNet is a new platform uniquely suited to crafting complex experimental designs in an efficient manner!

I had a fantastic time at the Computational Social Cognition Summer School at U of Birmingham!

What an amazing resource & opportunity for students.

Thanks to organizers @drjocutler.bsky.social Lei Zhang and @thepsychologist.bsky.social & the speakers, instructors, and students!

Warning: this is *not* fake news! New preprint out w/ S. Kunkle & @kobedesender.bsky.social on how confidence-driven information seeking is suboptimal in the context of fake news 📰🔍🧵 (1/6):
osf.io/preprints/ps...

I had a great time in Birmingham learning and connecting with people about computational social cognition #CSC2025. Thanks Dr. Ili Ma & @alosecaatv.bsky.social for being great group leaders, and thanks to @drjocutler.bsky.social & @lei-zhang.bsky.social and everyone else for a great summer school

🧪 ReproducibiliTea Leuven invites you to discuss the future of peer review at our next journal club!
📅 Oct 7, 2025 4PM-5.30PM
📍 VHI 01.64 Dekenstraat 2 Leuven

Find out more and register here: tinyurl.com/39yzyw5h

#OpenScience #Academia #PublishOrPerish #PayforPublish

Amazing kick start to the Birmingham - Leiden #CSC2025 summer school from @drjocutler.bsky.social with her introductory lecture "Introduction to Computational Modelling: Theory"

#Day1 #CSC2025
Amazing insights on neural dynamics of good conversation by Prof. Diana Tamir from Princeton Uni. Followed by lectures on effort based discounting modelling.

#Day3 #CSC2025 Last day. Fantastic tutorial on bayesian modeling by @lei-zhang.bsky.social. Lectures on basis functions for social decisions @mkwittmann.bsky.social and social learning mechanisms. We presented our group work on empathy RL, thanks to @annesaulin.bsky.social for her mentorship. 🤗

#Day2 #CSC2025 keynote on on modelling prejudices in social interactions by @davidamodio.bsky.social followed by a comprehensive tutorial on drifting diffusion modelling. 📊
Day ended with a walking tour of the city ✌️

Had a great time attending the Birmingham-Leiden Computational Social Cognition Summer School this week! Thanks to everyone who was part of #CSC2025 and especially to @drjocutler.bsky.social & @lei-zhang.bsky.social for leading the organization! 10/10 would recommend! More info on www.compsoccog.com

CSC 2025

Today's the day we welcome over 80 participants, instructors & keynote speakers from all over the world to @uob-sop.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social for the Computational Social Cognition (CSC) Summer School with @leidenpsychology.bsky.social @unileiden.bsky.social

#CSC2025
www.compsoccog.com

At the 2025 Meeting of the Belgian Association for Psychological Sciences this week, I received the Best PhD Thesis Award 2025. I am very grateful for this recognition of my research combining theory and experimentation and of my commitment to open and reproducible science!

@bapsciences.bsky.social

Become our new colleague at the #kuleuven!↓↓↓
The Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences invites applications for a full-time Research Professorship in Experimental Cognitive Psychology within the B&C research unit.
#PsychSciSky #Neuroscience #Neuroskyence

Cover of the Handbook of Social Psychology 6th edition 2025

Since 1954, "The Handbook of Social Psychology" has been the field’s most authoritative reference work, and today is the launch of the 6th edition with 50 new chapters by 100 leading scholars. Best news? The HSP is now an open-access public resource—free to read, download, and share. the-hsp.com

🎉 The 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 for the 𝗕𝗔𝗣𝗦 𝗔𝗻𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 is now out!
📅 Join us on 26–27 May 2025 at ULB’s Solbosch Campus for two days of research, keynote talks, and networking.
📄 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺: lnkd.in/drQFCaW5
🎤 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗴𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀: lnkd.in/eUt3mDVN
📍 𝗩𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼: lnkd.in/eRwyTZWj

The Heat and Cognition Project: The Collective Cost of Extreme Heat

📣In case you're still interesting in joining the Heat & Cognition Manylabs🔥🧠 , we are now running the task tournament. Collaborators can suggest tasks, scales, and items to be included in the project! Deadline to submit is May 11th! More info at: heatandmind.wordpress.com

Packed into the schedule were two great keynotes by @evievergauwe.bsky.social and Marc Sabbe, workshops by @leuventea.bsky.social and @elinevg.bsky.social + @lisa-kossmann.bsky.social, and a whole lot more. I also presented about my own experiences with writing a registered report as a PhD student!

🌐 Had a great time yesterday at the 5th Open Science Day of the @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social!

#OpenScience #Reproducibility #Transparency #Replicability