Jon Freeman

First paper from my lab out @commspsychol.nature.com

www.nature.com/articles/s44271-025-00275-w

Latent factor models are popular for mental representation of people, e.g. warmth & competence

But we show in naturalistic contexts, more complex representations are needed: high-dimensional networks

Congrats!

Paper in @pnas.org in which @d-melnikoff.bsky.social and I provide evidence for model-based effects on automatic evaluation. This was a super fun “adversarial” collaboration with 0 adversariality. It may have been nice to be right, but getting it right is nearly as nice: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Curious for any reactions/feedback!

We think it's important to view impressions not so much as drawing on a fixed low-dimensional structure but as emerging in a combinatorial fashion out of the dynamics of a high-dimensional space. This approach may also be valuable for thinking about other dimensional models in social cognition (8/8)

The model can explain growing findings:
▪️cross-cultural & individual perceiver variation
▪️variation by targets' race/gender/groups

And makes novel predictions:
▪️"proximal" vs. "distal" traits in cascades (competent → intelligent → creative)
▪️earlier activation of putatively latent dimensions (7/8)

In the model, the structure of trait relationships (e.g., trustworthiness–dominance) can change due to targets or context and cultural and individual learning. Top-down factors—like goals, stereotypes, or attention—reshape the attractor landscape, influencing which traits become most stable. (6/8)

Here the trustworthiness/warmth dimension isn’t a latent mechanism or have a privileged functional/cognitive status—it’s an emergent pattern from correlated traits. That’s why it appears in PCA or factor analysis. But we argue that it’s only a mere snapshot of a fluid, high-dimensional space (5/8)

How does it work? You encounter another person. Features trigger many trait concepts (e.g., sociable, caring, competent), which activate each other or compete, influenced by top-down goals & higher-order processes. The network settles into a stable neural pattern, resulting in impressions. (4/8)

Instead, using attractor neural networks, we propose a high-dimensional model. In the brain, social impressions would operate as dynamic trajectories in a neural-state space that can be shaped by sensory cues, conceptual associations, and higher-order social cognition.
(3/8)

How do we infer countless traits? Models have treated trait perception like color vision: impressions arise from combinations of, e.g., “red” (trustworthy), “green” (dominant), & "blue" (youthful). But unlike color, there’s no evidence for this, and we question the value of latent dimensions (2/8)

A high-dimensional model of social impressions People form social impressions from visual cues such as faces, which are argued by various models to arise from some limited set of fixed dimensions (e.g., trustworthiness and dominance). We argue tha...

In a TiCS paper, @chujunlin.bsky.social & I propose a high-dimensional model of social impressions.

Existing models focus on 2–4 latent dimensions (e.g. trustworthy/warm), but they often fall apart across different contexts, cultures, & perceivers. We need a paradigm shift.

shorturl.at/7GD1n (1/8)

Want your NIH and NSF program officers and division directors to be fired and turned into political appointees?

Deadline extended: 3 days left! Already 33,000+ public comments

Comments can tank a proposed rule in court.

📣 Oppose the rule with a brief comment: shorturl.at/WKuBj

So thrilled @youngkihong.bsky.social will be starting up at UC Boulder!

Postdoctoral Researcher in social/cognitive neuroscience with focus on social learning Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research? The Mechanisms of Social Behavior lab at Karolinska Institutet (PI: Björn Lindström) is seeking a highly qualified postdoctoral researcher.

Join our @erc.europa.eu funded lab @ki.se! We're hiring a postdoc to explore how humans learn from each other — with fMRI, modeling, & behavioral experiments. 🧠👫
A chance to lead cutting-edge work in social neuro & computational psychology.
Apply: shorturl.at/GJQuW

#ScienceNotPolitics #ProtectScience #StandUpForScience #NSF #NIH

It's currently at 19,430+ public comments, but the deadline is now extended to June 7.

The agency may be worried the large, well-reasoned opposition could tank the final rule in court—and is buying time to flood the docket with support.

Keep it coming!

FYI deadline extended until June 7 public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-09356.pdf

Public comments with just a few sentences can make a difference!

Then you could mention:

- Any experience with NSF, NIH, or other agencies
- The risk of replacing career experts with political loyalists
- Why unbiased standards and the integrity & credibility of federally-funded science matters
- How this could impact science, tech, public health, or innovation

You can begin your comment with something like:

- "I strongly oppose the proposed Schedule F rule"
- "The proposed rule will damage U.S. science and innovation"

Thrilled that @chujunlin.bsky.social is joining us this July!

Institutionalizing politicized science The opening months of the Trump administration represent a historic disruption to America’s scientific agencies. Staff have been fired or reassigned in the name of efficiency, resulting in chaos. Gran...

More info on proposed Schedule F: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨 A new rule would let career scientists like NSF/NIH program officers be replaced by political appointees

Already 14,000+ public comments, deadline is Friday

📣 Comments can be short. Courts consider them—and scientists with NSF/NIH experience are especially impactful

Speak up! shorturl.at/WKuBj

New NSF FAQ is posted. The 5 new priorities presumably don’t demolish science-wide funding. Good news-ish.

www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

SCIMaP - Impacts of Federal Cuts to Science and Medical Research Developed by an interdisciplinary research team, this website shows how funding cuts reduce economic activity and employment nationwide

Thanks to scienceimpacts.org for mapping the impacts of cutting NIH indirect costs & making it easy for local news to focus on the impacts to their community

Thanks to @sciencehomecoming.bsky.social for helping researchers write op-eds for their hometown newspapers about the impacts on science 4/

Welcome to Save The U.S. National Science Foundation A Girl Looking at a Physics Model TAKE ACTION Save NSF is a coalition of concerned scientists and allies who are working to save funding for scientific grants through the U.S. National Science Foundation. Our mission is to support and advocate for the continuation of vital research and innovation in various scientific fields. NSF funding is critical to this work. Join us in our endeavor to ensure a sustainable future for scientific exploration and discovery.

I am so heartened to this seriously AWESOME #SaveNSF website go up today!!!!

Has a take action toolkit with:

1. Press outreach templates
2. Social media toolkit
3. Elected official outreach
4. Talking points

Check it out and share widely!!!! Likely more to come.

www.savensf.com

“It cedes American leadership in science & technology to China & to other countries. I think it is going to take at least 10 yrs for American scientific & biomedical research to recover from this” — @freemanjb.bsky.social
🧪🛟

@carlzimmer.com
@katrinamillerphd.bsky.social

🙏