Jordan Theriault

𝗔𝗻 𝗘𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆
This short book by Moreno and Pereto' looks very interesting. One more on the understanding of biological agency.
And it's open access!
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Beyond Mechanism—Extending Our Concepts of Causation in Neuroscience The search for neural mechanisms of behaviour often relies on a synchronic, driving view of causation, where neural activity drives more neural activity, which eventually drives behaviour. The real c....

And we can see, in creatures that developed nervous systems especially, that they can act *for reasons*, based on the meaning of neural patterns. Living systems literally incorporate knowledge about the world to guide their behavior adaptively. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

"i just use it to generate ideas"

Grim Fandango for sure. Also Hypnospace Outlaw!
Also, embarrassing to admit, but Nier Automata was genuinely excellent, and gets bonus points for working within the genre of escapist slop, but then ultimately putting that frame into question and rising above it. Was brought to tears by the ending.

If neuroscience needs behavior, then it also needs control theory ... but that's not the only reason: check out the workshop at #Bernsteinconference
bernstein-network.de/bernstein-co...

Brown’s Department of Cognitive & Psychological Sciences is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor, working in the area of AI and the Mind (start July 1, 2026). Apply by Nov 8, 2025 👉 apply.interfolio.com/173939

#AI #CognitiveScience #AcademicJobs #BrownUniversity

Very cool!

University of Colorado Boulder Psychology & Neuroscience is searching for TWO tenure track assistant professors!!

jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

#socialpsychology #cogpsyc #PsychSciSky #PsychJob
#psycjobs #psychology

1/n

I'm bumping this job announcement up again, for folks who might have missed it last time!

@nancykanwisher.bsky.social, @bwz-brain.bsky.social, genuinely curious for your take here, as it would help clarify a lot.

When you say "FFA does face processing", do you mean that face processing implies FFA activity? Or do you mean that FFA activity implies face processing?

The reverse claim, FFA->FP means
~FP
∴ ~FFA.
i.e., if the task doesn't involve face processing, you should not see FFA activity.

The question was which claim is meant when saying "The FFA does face processing".

FP->FFA seems totally reasonable, but means FFA is not be unique to face processing.

Just to press on this a bit more, because I'm bummed this never got a response: It's useful because it shows what negative evidence implies for different claims.

FP->heart
no (~) heart
therefore (∴) ~FP. (obviously)

For FFA, it would mean:
FP->FFA
~FFA
∴ ~FP, which I think most would accept.

1/2

Great to see that people are reading Danziger!
I increasingly started to get interested in questions about cultural specificty of psychological kinds toward the end of my book as well.
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Screenshot of linked book chapter

Wherever a researcher comes down on natural kinds, constructs & Operationalization, I agree it would be great for more to realize it’s a thing to think through it all wrt “What are we doing here?” This book (especially the Intro start) is good to get the gist.

api.pageplace.de/preview/DT04...

Schematic summary of key findings and proposed mechanisms from Rossetti et al. (2025) regarding the interaction between circulating platelets and cerebral neurovascular function in healthy ageing.

A Journal Club by Rodrigues and Sobrinho on our recent paper "Evidence for control of cerebral neurovascular function by circulating platelets in healthy older adults" in @jphysiol.bsky.social
physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

It was amazing to me that the report I heard on this *only* mentioned effects on tech. Especially given the war(s) on universities, and on immigrants, being so visible on other fronts.

For two hundred years many psychologists took for granted that the study of mind could be divided into three parts: cognition, affection, and conation. They disagreed on whether these should be considered faculties of the mind or merely a classification of aspects of mental activity, but the threefold division was repeatedly revived. In the last twenty-five years, if we judge from the titles of books and journal articles, scientific psychology-whether its focus is on perception, learning and memory, development, or personality and social psychology-has become engaged withone of these aspects, now called cognitive psychology. An examination of the tripartite classification in historical perspective may show the extent to which affection and conation are now suffering neglect by contrast with cognition as their coequal. This historical review may give a better understanding of what is happening in the present.

This paper presents an interesting account of the 1700s parsing of the mind by Kant and others into knowing(=cognition)/feeling(=affection)/willing(=contation).

It also laments that "knowing" somehow took over everything else, which I'm sympathetic to 😉.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11608381/

Cool! Was "will" the closest English translation for the German concept at the time?
Also, to clarify, not saying no one in English ever thought about "why people do what they do" before 1900! The point was that psychologists coined a term to flag a new explanatory target for scientific pursuit.

Danziger's definitely worth a read. Constructing the Subject is also useful for seeing how stats and group-based experiments became the gold standard in psych. This worked well for interventions and population studies, but not so good for understanding individual experience (e.g., emotion).

Google n gram showing usage of the word "motivation". Usage increased after 1900, flattened from 1938-1945, then rose again to hold steady since ~1975.

Super interesting! Reminds me of a point from Danziger's "Naming the Mind": That "motivation", as a term, was coined in the 20th century, largely to cover the ambition of early psychologists to explain ALL human behavior, which was thought impossible earlier.
www.amazon.com/Naming-Mind-...

YouTube video by Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon "Cognition is emergent" by Earl Miller

Talk: Cognition is Emergent - Earl K. Miller
Neuroscience and Philosophy Salon, 9-12-25
youtu.be/Sk4ehOcsDmM?...

Or alternately, every Bryan Fuller show.

Carnivale.

Assistant Professor of Psychology - Human Cognition or Cognitive Neuroscience University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!

UCDavis Psych is hiring an Assistant Professor in Human Cognition or Cognitive Neuroscience 🧠✨

Come join a vibrant, collaborative dept and live in a fun college town near Sacramento, San Francisco, Napa, and Lake Tahoe. Applications due Oct.21.

Please share widely!

recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07300

My quote of the day

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Albert Einstein

Really proud of what I've got so far for my Grad Stats course. I wanted to create something that could be easily looked back on or referred to. A lot of students are uncomfortable with R (and most of the stats), so I'm trying to create an open and supportive environment. dharaden.github.io/psyc640/

Totally agree. And yeah, cards on the table, I don't endorse "active" language either.
But it would be really clarifying if @nancykanwisher.bsky.social could settle if she means (Y->X) or (X->Y) when saying FFA (X) does face processing (Y).

Is the logic for "X does Y" X -> Y?
So, e.g., FFA active -> face processing?

I'm trying to understand the logical form of the argument.
I agree it can't be X <-> Y.

"X is an important part of Y process" seems to me to translate to Y -> X
i.e., face processing -> FFA active.

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.

OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.