Marieke van Vugt

DUCOG — Conference 2026 Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science

Join us in beautiful Dubrovnik for the XVII Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science (21–24 May 2026)! This year’s theme focuses on adaptation and its limits across multiple timescales, individual differences, and mental health. Abstracts from all areas of cogsci welcome!
Visit: ducog.cecog.eu

A PhD student would like to work on a fear/threat conditioning paradigm, using mild shocks as the US, to manipulate arousal. Are there any good open resources implementing a solid paradigm? 10 simple rules? etc?

Cardiff UCU Casework co-ordinator David Wood and I posing with a table full of Union propaganda and cheap plastic tat. Still love our Union’s hot pink colour scheme. Gotta say.

Attended a Cardiff Uni “wellbeing” event for @cardiffucu.bsky.social today.
Argued that the best way to improve staff wellbeing is to save jobs, improve pay & conditions, join a union, and become an active member.
Recruited well, had lots of great conversations, & actually listened to colleagues.
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🎓 Last Tutor Announcement!
🌟 Meet our MESEC Winter School 2026 Tutor: Charlotte Martial!

We are pleased to welcome her and engage with her work on near-death experiences and disconnected states of consciousness.

🗓️ March 22nd–28th 📍 Ephesus, Turkey 🇹🇷 @ibroorg.bsky.social

Per protocol analysis strikes again!

Folks, if you randomize but then don‘t analyze some of the people who got randomized (maybe because they didn’t adhere to instructions, maybe because they dropped out), randomization will no longer do all the heavy causal inference lifting.

"I saw what open, rigorous, and collaborative science could look like. I saw people I wanted to become, and a path I hadn't known was there." - Kirollus Abdallah, Eygpt

Applications for July #CompNeuro, #DeepLearning, #NeuroAI & #ClimateScience are open.

Learn in small collaborative pods with a dedicated TA, build real research skills, and join 13,000+ alumni worldwide.

➡️ Apply by 15 March:
neuromatch.io/courses/

New research: AI models tend to reflect the political ideologies of their creators A new study suggests true AI neutrality is impossible. By analyzing how models describe political figures, scientists discovered that these systems align with the cultural and political values of their developers, often mirroring the worldview of their origin.

New research: AI models tend to reflect the political ideologies of their creators

After several years of work, my lab is starting to put out our first papers on learning in a unicellular organism (Stentor coeruleus).

Here we show evidence for a form of associative learning in Stentor:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Good to know! I think the academic system doesn't always reward switching but in the long run, it's totally worth it, in my experience. And also for your own sanity: I think following your own curiosity is more important than strategically chasing success...

Pivot Fellowship Pivot Fellowship on Simons Foundation

For established PIs wanting to pivot research topics, this is an incredible mechanism offered by the @simonsfoundation.org (I’m grateful to be a fellow). I wish there were more mechanisms like this!
www.simonsfoundation.org/simons-pivot...

What's the best way to change research fields? These three scientists have ideas Planning to switch fields? Be bold, know your limits and choose your institution wisely, say three UK research leaders.

"my takeaway from my several substantial pivots is to just go for it. Put yourself out there, be brave, be bold. Don’t assume that because you’re currently in one position, that’s where you have to stay." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Five ways to spot when a paper is a fraud Science sleuths share their common-sense tips for sniffing out fishy articles.

Five ways to spot when a paper is a fraud - including software tools www.nature.com/articles/d41...

My Beautiful Bullshitty Baby:

Episode 2 of our blog series on methods renovations. Diving into my Science and Critical Thinking module - layout, rationale, & the first few weeks.

willgervais.com/blog/2026/2/...

Read! Share! Tell us what you think!
#psychscisky 🧪 #philsci #methodology #teaching

How sleeping minds decide: State-specific reconfigurations of lexical decision-making Author summary Sleep is traditionally viewed as a state of cognitive disconnection, where the mind cannot interact with the world. We challenged this view by investigating how the sleeping brain makes...

Kind of wild: participants still respond to a lexical decision task while napping... dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Ten simple rules for coordinating a large digital health project: Perspectives from EU and implications for global contexts Coordinating a large-scale digital health project requires a unique mix of scientific leadership, administrative skill, and human sensitivity. Drawing from our experience leading CAPABLE, a European H...

Ten simple rules for coordinating a large digital health project (most rules apply to all large projects) dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

How big is the ‘motherhood penalty’? In Denmark, it adds up to $120,000 An analysis documents the cumulative income hit mothers incur — as well as the extent to which state aid can offset the loss.

How big is the ‘motherhood penalty’? In Denmark, it adds up to $120,000 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Why every scientist needs a librarian Librarians can be key research partners who help to scour the literature, manage data and make science open.

"Librarians can be key research partners who help to scour the literature, manage data and make science open." 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.

Music is not a universal language — but it can bring us together when words fail www.nature.com/articles/d41...

agreed! That's the most scary part...

I would like to see downstream effects on errors and deskilling. Do the experienced developers lose their abstract knowledge over time having relied on AI output vs those developers who do not rely on AI support? Research in medical diagnose suggest the risk of deskilling in expertise is real.

Historically Black US universities chase top research ranking Howard University is reaping the rewards of becoming the first such institution to reach ‘R1’ status.

Some good progress: Historically Black US universities chase top research ranking. But why does the R1 designation depend so much on absolute dollar spending on research? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

this is interesting, but feels at best incomplete. i think there are at least 3 separate reasons we haven't yet seen consistently good writing from AI, at least in long form (microfiction is arguably mostly solved):

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The World of Yesterday, Today | Los Angeles Review of Books Tim Brinkhof considers the relevance of Stefan Zweig’s 1942 autobiography for our own authoritarian times.

Book recommendation via a student lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

I very much agree...

I wasn’t sure students were grasping my lessons—so I devised an experiment “Science communication, like science, thrives on evidence and awareness,” this chemistry lecturer writes

I wasn’t sure students were grasping my lessons—using color codes to gauge student understanding www.science.org/content/arti...

Full dopamine coding of basic economic subjective value: Utility and weighted probability Behavioral choices of uncertain rewards suggest that agents construct subjective reward value by combining the basic value components of utility and w…

I like to think about brain areas as well behaved (b/c they do what you tell them too, like V1) vs naughty (b/c 🤷, like PFC).

I'm delighted to learn that midbrain dopamine neurons are well behaved machines that convert objective value into subjective value.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Social Decision Neuroscience at University of Birmingham Explore an exciting academic career as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Social Decision Neuroscience. Don't miss out on other academic jobs. Click to apply and explore more opportunities.

We are recruiting! Postdoctoral research fellow at www.sdn-lab.org, studying the computational & neural basis of social decision-making. Birmingham is a fantastic & affordable place to live, with one of the youngest populations in Europe & over 600 parks. Please share!
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQO275/p...

AI raises the productivity bar Understanding how AI affects productivity has implications for labor markets

"entry-level software developers show little productivity gain when using AI compared with their experienced counterparts." www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

‘Universal vaccine’ protects mice against multiple pathogens An innovative approach supercharges the innate immune system to provide a first line of defence against respiratory infections.

‘Universal vaccine’ protects mice against multiple pathogens: "Imagine if a nasal spray could make you immune not only to the viruses that cause COVID-19 and influenza, but to all respiratory diseases." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

YouTube video by Conspicuous Cognition AI Sessions #9: The Case Against AI Consciousness (with Anil Seth)

Henry Shevlin and I chat with @anilseth.bsky.social about his scientific and philosophical case against conscious AI: youtu.be/wVYg8u5xjno?...