BogaertsLab

The keynotes @jennysaffran.bsky.social @noranewcombe.bsky.social and @pyoudeyer.bsky.social will cover language learning, spatial navigation and curiosity!
Our theme speakers will be @drmarcj.bsky.social, Marco Marelli, @inbalarnon.bsky.social and @rebuschat.bsky.social.

Our #IASL26 conference on statistical learning aims to bring together scientists from different disciplines who study how humans👨‍👧🧑‍🦳, as well as other species 🐒🦜 and systems 🤖🔠, learn regularities.

↖️🔍🔎↗️ If your work touches on this theme from any angle, we would love to receive your abstract!

🗓️💬 Delighted to be invited as a keynote alongside @valentinabambini.bsky.social for the upcoming #PsycholinguisticsInFlanders (PiF) meeting — renamed #PsycholinguisticsInPavia (PiP) for a 🔆 edition!

🧑‍🎓➰A full-circle moment, as PiF was the very first academic conference I attended as a MA student.

Very much enjoying #IndiREAD workshop on #IndividualDifferences in #Reading!

While individual differences have brought my lab both excitement and headaches in recent years, I liked the optimistic take of @cuiding.bsky.social.

The cup of tea by Georges Lemmen @ RMBFA

Presented at #NeuroCog2025 this Tuesday my pilot results of linking SL to language on the construct level. The poster is in Toy Story color theme if you did not notice🛸 and will be available on my research gate 🙌
Painting of the conference: defo the season for a good cuppa tea now ☕️

What an intellectually stimulating conference #NeuroCog2025 was! We much enjoyed the deeply engaged discussion between @jeffreybowers.bsky.social & @evfedorenko.bsky.social and fascinating talks by @summerfieldlab.bsky.social, @irisgroen.bsky.social, @mtoneva.bsky.social & @nicoschuck.bsky.social!

❗🗓️ The deadline for abstract submission for #NeuroCog2025 is tomorrow, September 30th. Don't miss it!

@mireiamarimon.bsky.social, Alice Milne, @nemeth.bsky.social, @yngwienielsen.bsky.social, @catiamoliveira.bsky.social, @qzhever.bsky.social, Jinglei Ren, Jay Rueckl, @claudiaruzza.bsky.social, Christophe Vanhouwe, Arpitha Vasudevamurthy, Denise H. Wu, and Puyuan Zhang.

With Noam Siegelman, @davidecrepaldi.bsky.social, @haoyuzhou.bsky.social, @anabautista.bsky.social, Kevin Brown, Li-Yun Wendy Chang, Ruth de Diego Balaguer, Julia Hofweber, @erin-isbilen.bsky.social, @drmarcj.bsky.social, Ferenc Kemény, Panagiotis Kenanidis, Krisztina Sára Lukics [...]

Are you setting up a new research line or study, taking an individual approach?
Are you writing up a paper with a correlational analysis?
Check out the 9️⃣ actionable recommendations in Box 1.

We discuss:
1️⃣ Theoretical and operational definitions of statistical learning.
2️⃣ Trade-offs between controlled and ecologically valid paradigms.
3️⃣ Interpreting correlations with other abilities.
4️⃣ Reliability & statistical power.
5️⃣ Rationales for adopting an individual differences approach.

Curious about the human ability to extract regularities from sensory input (i.e., “statistical learning”) and individual differences therein? #CognitiveScience #Learning

Our #Consensus paper presents the collective insights of 27 researchers worldwide 🌎 💬 🌍 💬 🌏 💬:
🔗 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

We discuss:
1️⃣ Theoretical and operational definitions of statistical learning. 2️⃣ Trade-offs between controlled and ecologically valid paradigms.
3️⃣ Interpreting correlations with other abilities.
4️⃣ Reliability & statistical power.
5️⃣ Rationales for adopting an individual differences approach.

Are you setting up a new research line or study, taking an individual approach? Are you writing up a paper with a correlational analysis?
Check out the 9️⃣ actionable recommendations in Box 1.

We discuss:
1️⃣ Theoretical and operational definitions of statistical learning.
2️⃣ Trade-offs between controlled and ecologically valid paradigms.
3️⃣ Interpreting correlations with other abilities.
4️⃣ Reliability & statistical power.
5️⃣ Rationales for adopting an individual differences approach.

A systematic evaluation of Dutch large language models’ surprisal estimates in sentence, paragraph and book reading Reading is shaped not only by word length and frequency but also by how predictable a word is in context. Using Dutch language models, researchers show that smaller models often predict reading times ...

📖 New on the VSC Research Showcase:
Dutch language models reveal how word predictability shapes reading.

🧪 Key findings:
➡️ Smaller models often outperform larger ones
➡️ Predictability follows a logarithmic effect
➡️ Dutch > multilingual models

👉 www.vscentrum.be/post/a-syste...

👁️ 📖 👁️
@boevesam.bsky.social
made this interactive visualisation to get a feeling for word predictability:
🔗 wordpredictabilityvisualized.vercel.app

Curious how these predictability indices were obtained? Find out in our new paper!
🔗 doi.org/10.3758/s134...

#Reading #LargeLanguageModels #MECO

3️⃣ 2️⃣ 1️⃣ Just three days left to submit your nomination for the Early Career Talk at the #IASL26 conference.

🔗 ugent.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

To nominate a person:
1️⃣ Submit a brief supporting statement.
🔗 ugent.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

2️⃣ Send a copy of the nominee's curriculum vitae to 📧statistical2026@bcbl.eu with subject ‘Nomination SL Early Career Researcher [Last name of the candidate]’.

Eligibility: We invite nominations for candidates who finished their doctoral thesis within the past 10 years and are active in the field of statistical learning (allowances will be made for nominees who have had career interruptions). Please note that self-nominations will not be considered.

🏅 💬 At the '22 edition of our conference, we launched the Early Career Talk, giving a platform to an outstanding early-career scientist. We are now seeking nominations for the Early Career Talk at the #IASL26 edition.

The deadline for nominations is August 15, 2025. Instructions in the thread.

✔️✔️Target detection during exposure revealed learning of both initial and updated speech regularities.
✔️❌ The offline test only evidenced recognition of the initial regularities.
❌❌ Visual learning was absent.

Do we adapt when the structure of our environment changes?

Check out our new preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Save the date, more info will follow soon!
Organizing with @mh-christiansen.bsky.social @Blair Armstrong, @Ram Frost and @bcbl.bsky.social.

📣🗓️ The 6th Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning Conference #IASL26 will be held June 10-12 in San Sebastián.

Our keynotes:
@jennysaffran.bsky.social with 30 years of SL work since 1996.
@noranewcombe.bsky.social on learning and spatial cognition.
@pyoudeyer.bsky.social on curiosity.

cartoon characters in a classroom with a clock that says 0:04 ALT: cartoon characters in a classroom with a clock that says 0:04

📖 👀 When people read a novel, when do they blink?

We show that blinks are more likely:
(1) around punctuation marks
(2) following fixations on lower-frequency and less predictable words.

🔗 Now out in Scientific Reports: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#CognitiveScience #Reading #EyeTracking

Registration & abstract submission are now open:
🔗 neurocog.be

#NeuroCog2025 #CognitiveNeuroscience #AI

NEUROCOG 2025 is taking place in Brussels Nov 17–18!

The theme: AI and the Human Brain 🤖 🧠

We’re thrilled to welcome 6 amazing invited speakers:
@evfedorenko.bsky.social, @nicoschuck.bsky.social, @summerfieldlab.bsky.social, @jeffreybowers.bsky.social, @irisgroen.bsky.social & @mtoneva.bsky.social

(PDF) Reading Between the Blinks: The Timing of Spontaneous Eye Blinks in Text Reading Suggests Cognitive Role PDF | A growing body of research suggests that spontaneous eye blinks have a cognitive role in addition to their biological functions. Blinking has been... | Find, read and cite all the research you n...

Fascinating results!
Regarding blinking at natural breakpoints, we just replicated and extended Hall's findings on the timing of blinks during reading, which might be of interest to you: www.newscientist.com/article/2461...
&
www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Thanks @xeniaschmalz.bsky.social , @troembke.bsky.social and @benjamingagl.bsky.social for the invitations!