John Morrison

I have news! After 4 fabulous years at Northeastern, this July I will be moving to Duke—with tenure! It’s hard to convey how grateful I am to everyone who has made this possible: from old professors in Mexico and mentors in the US to students, colleagues, and, of course, my amazing wife and family.

👀

Wow!!

Love it. Adding it to my lecture on evolutionary psychology.

Over 100 Columbia and Barnard professors file amicus brief opposing deportation order for Mahmoud Khalil, SIPA ’24 A group of 108 current and former Columbia and Barnard faculty members filed a Sept. 17 amicus brief in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, SIPA ’24, who is appealing a deportation order.

Proud to be one of the signatories. www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/09...

Barnard and Columbia claim bottom two spots in annual FIRE college free speech rankings The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ranked Barnard and Columbia last and second to last, respectively, in its 2026 College Free Speech Rankings.

We're number one! (in suppressing free speech) www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/09...

Changes in cell type composition, including cell expansions, cell losses, and novel cell gains, are associated with the evolution of specific behaviors. Figure credit: Matteo Farinella.

New review on how changes in cell type composition in and outside the brain contribute to the evolution of behavior. 🧪

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lihM,LqAZ...

What Columbia Sacrificed In Its Deal With The Trump Administration Ken Miller

I wrote a substack article:
open.substack.com/pub/youngert...

How can algorithms from cognitive science inform our understanding of neural networks? In this 9-min overview from #CCN, I present recent work with @pebenjamters.bsky.social and Niko Kriegeskorte. My talk begins at 38:00: hva-uva.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Page...

Sensitivity to visual features in inattentional blindness As a group, inattentionally blind participants can successfully report the location, color, and shape of stimuli they deny noticing, and exhibit a systematic bias to report not noticing.

5 years since our first pilot, and 25,000 participants later, I'm super happy this work with Makaela Nartker, @chazfirestone.bsky.social and Howard Egeth on inattentional blindness is now out in eLife! A little 🧵 of what we found... 1/12 elifesciences.org/articles/100...

The best paper/chapter that I've read on embodied cognition is Ch 8 of Andy Clark's Being There. He advocates for a sensible middle view.

For example, that all cognition should be modeled as dynamic coupling with the environment, without any need for internal representations.

I think of it as a spectrum of views that range from the obvious to the absurd. Its proponents typically describe a handful of examples that support views on the obvious end and then claim to have established one of the views on the absurd end.

Very happy to announce that our paper “Sensory Horizons and the Functions of Conscious Vision” is now out as a target article in BBS!! @smfleming.bsky.social and I present a new theory of the evolution and functions of visual consciousness. Article here: doi.org/10.1017/S014.... A (long) thread 🧵

Chris Baldassano is not only an incredibly talented scientist, he's also an incredibly nice person. Teaching Intro to Cog Sci with him has been pure joy. Check out this accessible overview of his research 👇

I stuck around until 12:20. Will there be a recording?

😎 SPAN2025 Keynotes, invited symposia speakers, and sponsored symposia just dropped! Take a look at who will be at SPAN2025 and then submit your abstract so you can be there too!

More invited speakers will be announced soon. Visit our website for all the details: philandneuro.com

For #CCN2025 in Amsterdam, we will, for the first time, have conference proceedings that include both full length peer-reviewed papers and the traditional 2-page track!

Deadlines for submissions: 17th February for full papers ( abstract only; full paper on 20th FEB) & 10th April for 2 pagers.

SPP 2025 will be at Cornell, June 18-21!

I think the latest cuts will save ~$2m. It's hard to know how helpful this will be -- they haven't given us any financial details. They have minimized the faculty's role in all aspects of the college, including oversight of the budget.

On a more optimistic note, I just want to say that I'm incredibly proud of the reporting by our students at the Spectator. They are a consistent source of balanced and informed reporting about all issues, large and small.

The crisis at Barnard is at least partly because Columbia is trying to solve its own budgetary problems by forcing Barnard to contribute more. This year, it has to contribute ~$12m in addition to its usual contribution of ~$10m.

And here's some important background about the budgetary crisis in Arts & Sciences at Columbia (the article is from 2016 -- it has gotten much worse since). www.columbiaspectator.com/archives/lea...

With $252 million in projected debt, Barnard makes cuts to faculty and staff benefits <html><head><meta charset="utf-8"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"><title>With $252 million in projected debt, Barnard makes cuts to faculty and staff benefits</titl...

Barnard and Columbia are going through a difficult period. Here's more information about the latest crisis at Barnard:
www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/12...

Delighted to share a new preprint with @matthiasmichel.bsky.social! We combine human psychophysics and evolutionary constraints to propose a new hypothesis about the functions of conscious vision. This has been in the pipeline a long time- exciting to get it out in the world!

osf.io/preprints/ps...

a 3x3 grid of illustrations with a picture of the artists at the center

Nature, Neurons, Mushrooms, Biochemistry, and Consciousness (or the lack thereof). My top illustrations of 2023 summarize my current interests pretty well. Let's hope that in 2024 I can finally find the time to thread some of these into a coherent story. 🧠 #artvsartist #sciart #sciviz

I'm giving the university seminar in cognitive neuroscience on Monday the 27th at Columbia. I will suggest a definition of "representation" that could be useful to neuroscientists. There's a dinner afterward and they're asking for RSVPs. More details here: psychology.columbia.edu/events/cogni...