Dr Judy Watts

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

An important reminder that technology doesn’t exist outside of culture. When AI misses social context, it risks misunderstanding, harm, and reinforcing bias — showing why cultural nuance must be part of responsible design.

The dependence of children’s generalization on episodic memory varies with age and level of abstraction - Nature Communications Children’s ability to generalize from episodic memories varies by both age and the level of abstraction. Here, the authors show that lower level generalization increasingly depends on episodic memory with age, whereas higher level generalization shows no such relationship.

Thrilled to see this paper out! It's the culmination of a project begun in the depths of the pandemic with Sabrina Karjack and @zoengo.bsky.social . We continue our exploration of how children generalize when their episodic memory is not yet mature.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Abstract

New paper out with @dasalgon.bsky.social: “Far-Right Agenda Setting: How the Far Right influences the Political Mainstream” doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100066 #openaccess in @ejprjournal.bsky.social🧵

Hey there!
Interested in the connection between HCI & Interactive Narrative Design?
Join our CHI PLAY 2025 hybrid workshop (Oct 13) --> Remote & in-person!
Register by Oct 3 → waterloo-touchlab.github.io/hcni/call-fo...
#CHIPLAY2025 #HCI #NarrativeDesign

Why Misinformation Must Not Be Ignored

Quite proud of this paper, which just received the journal's APA Editor's Choice award 😊

Big thanks to my coauthors Li Qian Tay, Jon Roozenbeek,
@profsanderlinden.bsky.social, John Cook, @naomioreskes.bsky.social, and @lewan.bsky.social

First up in the @icamobile.bsky.social student and early career scholar event calendar is How to Submit to the Mobile Communication Division, featuring International Liaison @luytioco.bsky.social and former chair Keri Stephens. Details here:

TEXT: My Murder, Your Entertainment True crime media has skyrocketed over the past few years. How ethical is its production and consumption?

TEXT: Intent vs. Impact The Netflix docuseries “Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” portrayed a graphic, detailed retelling of Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes, including real 911 calls and recreated sets of the crime scenes. While writer Ryan Murphy and actor Evan Peters claimed they had the victims in mind, families of the victims claimed they felt retraumatized.

TEXT: Public Reactions The series remained in Netflix’s Top 10 shows for seven weeks. People dressed up as Dahmer for Halloween and made insensitive comments and videos on social media. These reactions signal to some that the series is part of a larger cultural shift towards a society desensitized to violence.

TEXT: Entertainment or Exploitation As more true crime content is released, consumers and creators should be critical in how they engage with the genre. Can true crime media creators be responsible for audience reactions? How might artistic urges blur the lines between fact and fiction? Have families given consent for the project?

With true crime media like the Dahmer series rising in popularity, creators and consumers must ask themselves..,when does storytelling become exploitation?

PCDL @ OSU

I am recruiting graduate students for Fall 2026 through both the cognitive and developmental areas at Ohio State. If you are interested in spatial cognition, visual perception, and/or mental representation -- please reach out! I'd love to hear from you.

www.cogdevlab.org

I had a great time last week at #MePsy25 sharing research and listening to so many thoughtful and interesting media psych studies

I really enjoyed your presentation and looking forward to referencing this when I inevitably get asked about small effect sizes again in the future

Top tier job posting 12/10

After more than 50 years of rapid growth, the nation’s immigrant population is now in decline.

Brochure for Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: The Complete Course On Demand

Class begins Sept 9, 2025, online, with emphasis on the use of the PROCESS macro for SPSS, SAS, and R. Registration includes access to the content until March 9, 2026. There are no set times in which you must be online to take the course. More info at haskayne.ucalgary.ca/CCRAM/mediat...

this summer has both disappeared and also lasted one hundred thousand years

I do this too! We'll never forget those darling, unnecessary sentences.

RIP running man

Screenshot of the article "How Convincing Is a Crowd? Quantifying the Persuasiveness of a Consensus for Different Individuals and Types of Claims"

We know that a consensus of opinions is persuasive, but how reliable is this effect across people and types of consensus, and are there any kinds of claims where people care less about what other people think? This is what we tested in our new(ish) paper in @psychscience.bsky.social

Amazing thank you gift and I wish I would have made some for mine. Congrats on your diss defense!

Super helpful reading an editor's perspective on cover letters. Thank you!

What info in the cover letter is most valuable for an editor of a journal?

Are You Applying for Tech Jobs or Tech Internships? We Want to Hear About It.

Recent grads, college students and other first-time job seekers:

I'm writing a story about tech hiring in the age of A.I..

If you've recently applied for tech jobs or internships, please tell us about your experiences here:

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/b...

2025 Social Media Lab - Computational Social Science Summer School - Online [July 14-16, 2025 via Zoom] - Social Media Lab Where: online (via Zoom) When: July 14-16, 2024 Contact Info info@socialmedialab.caBsky @SMLabTO INSTRUCTORS Join us for the Social Media Lab’s 2025 Computational Social Science (CSS) Summer School. E...

Join us for the Social Media Lab’s 2025 Computational Social Science (CSS) Summer School. Explore cutting-edge digital methods in this hands-on workshop series. No coding required — we’ll be using @Communalytic.org, a platform for analyzing social media discourse. socialmedialab.ca/2025/06/28/2...

Evidence of balance theory as a predictive framework for character interdependence Abstract. Across three studies, we examined how balance theory can be used to predict interdependent character evaluations. Leveraging the propositions of

From Joe Francemone and me: Moral information about one character doesn’t just shape how we see them—it reshapes how we see others around them. In social networks, moral judgments spread through contrast or assimilation depending on how the network is structured.

academic.oup.com/joc/advance-...

I'm headed to Denver this morning. Hope to see you!

Write with Science Homecoming, and put your piece on the map:

sciencehomecoming.com

OECS thematic collections.

If you haven't been looking recently at the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (oecs.mit.edu), here's your reminder that we are a free, open access resource for learning about the science of mind.

Today we are launching our new Thematic Collections to organize our growing set of articles!

@mqrmobile.bsky.social @ryanmoore.bsky.social @elizaeriggs.bsky.social @katycoduto.bsky.social

OSU alumni, check out this reunion and newsroom dedication event

I'm bummed this conflicts with a conference I'll be attending but I will spread the word.