Dan Mirea

Leveling up fun: learning progress, expectations, and success influence enjoyment in video games Scientific Reports - Leveling up fun: learning progress, expectations, and success influence enjoyment in video games

What influences whether people have fun with a task?

Our paper “Leveling up fun: learning progress, expectations and success influence enjoyment in video games” with @thecharleywu.bsky.social and @ericschulz.bsky.social now in Scientific Reports!

rdcu.be/eI069

Paper summary below 1/4

Abstract and results summary

🚨 New preprint 🚨

Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions.

Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased!

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Thread 🧵

I strongly believe modeling behavior will be critical for understanding mental health well enough to develop new interventions, but the gap between task-based and naturalistic behavior is MASSIVE. Some great ideas here for bridging that gap!

Such an important topic: computational psychiatry at the nexus of lab-based understanding (eg of reinforcement learning and mood) and measures of real-world behavior and mental health conditions.

(Scroll to the bottom for a link open to all).

📢 My lab at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine is considering graduate student applications this fall

We welcome applicants interested in using computational modeling & fMRI to study social connection

🗓️ Deadline: December 1, 2025
🔗 Learn more: sinclaboratory.com/apply

#comppsychiatry #socialneuro

Thank you so much for sharing!!

Fantastic paper by @danmirea.bsky.social ! 👇

Inspiring work by @danmirea.bsky.social!

Cognitive modeling of real-world behavior for understanding mental health A core strength of computational psychiatry is its focus on theory-driven research, in which cognitive processes are precisely quantified using comput…

Read the full paper using this free access link here:

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

Some to-dos for the field:
- identify amenable types of real-world data
- integrate them into data-collection pipelines alongside lab-based tasks
- assess links to mental health
- assess lab-based versus real-world convergent validity of parameters
- expand models to accommodate real-world data

…and challenges of this approach:
⚠️ Noisy data
⚠️ Analytical complexity
⚠️ Data collection burden
⚠️ Ethical considerations

It remains to be seen whether real-world data can better computational psychiatry.

Finally, we explore opportunities:
👍 Testing the generalizability of in-lab computational psychiatry findings to every-day life
👍 Incorporating linguistic behavior into cognitive models using LLMs (see figure)

We also provide a (non-exhaustive) taxonomy of cognitive processes paired with modeling frameworks and types of real-world data that could be used to probe them:

We review recent studies that probe cognition using real-world behavior, primarily in a reinforcement learning framework.

Some of these have uncovered novel links to mental health (e.g. linking depression to blunted reactivity to positive prediction errors, or higher sensitivity to social rewards)

By real-world data we mean any data that reflect a person’s every-day behavior. We distinguish 3 types:
- experience sampling data (active, self-report)
- passive sensing data (e.g. geolocation, physiology, social proximity)
- digital-behavior data (e.g. social media, texting, phone/app navigation)

Computational psychiatry often relies on behavior in cognitive tasks, which are simpler, less engaging and often less social than real-world environments.

By contrast, real-world data have intrinsic ecological validity and allow the continuous assessment of cognition and its variation over time.

🚨Out now in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social 🚨

We explore the use of cognitive theories/models with real-world data for understanding mental health.

We review emerging studies and discuss challenges and opportunities of this approach.

With @yaelniv.bsky.social and @eriknook.bsky.social

Thread ⬇️

Thanks so much Angela!

Thanks for sharing Ondrej!! 🙂

🚨 New Preprint 🚨

Prolonged Isolation is associated with an increased behavioural sensitivity to ‘Likes’ on social media.

🧵

Social media rewards are inherently social—but does posting change during social isolation, when in-person social rewards are limited?

It turns out, yes!

Rate and noise in human amygdala drive increased exploration in aversive learning - Nature Human exploration is driven by two distinct neural mechanisms, a valence-independent rate signal and a valence-dependent global noise signal.

This is an exquisite demonstration of using intracranial recordings in humans to validate our findings that amygdala neurons encode the value of exploring in NHPs.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 New paper alert!
Do time constraints reveal habitual behaviour? 🤔 We directly compared two major paradigms in the habit research field (Outcome Devaluation vs Response Remapping) under identical training and forced-response conditions 🧠 ⏲️ ⌨️

preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

In our preprint "Limited evidence for reduced learning rate adaptation in anxious-depression, before or after treatment", led by @stephsuddell.bsky.social and Lili Zhang, we fail to find a robust association between anxious-depression and learning rate adaptation
osf.io/preprints/ps...

@rldmdublin2025.bsky.social @georgiaturner.bsky.social @anadasilvapinho.bsky.social

At #RLDM2025? Come to our workshop on real-world RL tomorrow! Including:
- amazing line-up: @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social, Aaron Heller, Sugandha Sharma, @arossotto.bsky.social + flash talks
- panel debate (chair: @yaelniv.bsky.social)
- group brainstorming session!

Mailing list: tinyurl.com/rlinwild

Thank you! :)

thanks Erik :)

Congratulations to the 2025 Psychology of Technology Dissertation Award Winners We are thrilled to now announce this year's award winners and honorable mentions, who were selected from our most competitive pool of applicants ever

Read more about everyone's research and the award here: psychoftech.substack.com/p/congratula...

Also congrats to my fellow awardees and HM recipients: @fassiluisa.bsky.social @lirabenjamin.bsky.social @crobertson500.bsky.social @michaelgeers.bsky.social