Wouter Kool

Postdoc Fellows The CTCN funds a cohort of outstanding Postdoctoral Fellows to work at the interface between theoretical and experimental labs and help forge new collaborations. Application deadline August 1st, 20…

The Center for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience at WashU is recruiting postdoctoral fellows. The Center offers a unique opportunity to craft a transdisciplinary research program with an unusual degree of independence.

ctcn.wustl.edu/postdoc-fell...

Dear #VSS2025 attendees! Our lab will be presenting 5 posters over the next two days. We’re excited to share our work: Come visit us!

Come see our VSS presentations!

Despite the world being on fire, I can't help but be thrilled to announce that I'll be starting as an Assistant Professor in the Cognitive Science Program at Dartmouth in Fall '26. I'll be recruiting grad students this upcoming cycle—get in touch if you're interested!

Check out our new study by @atabk.bsky.social! He tweaked a word list memory task to have hidden rules at encoding, which shifted and created “event boundaries.” People recalled pre-boundary words more, and post-boundary words less. Other fun bits in the paper include a reinforcement learning model!

Model-based planning in structured foraging environments: https://osf.io/8z3qv

Free recall is shaped by inference and scaffolded by event structure - Communications Psychology This study examines how event boundaries affect recall of items in a decision-making task. Events structured recall, which was impaired for items after boundaries. A reinforcement learning model showe...

This study examines how events structured recall, which was impaired for items after event boundaries. A reinforcement learning model showed that decision certainty predicts recall success.
@atabk.bsky.social @wouterkool.bsky.social @zreagh.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

I dunno! In the paper, the link to the OSF is described as "containing more detailed information", but only has a vague description of the research question and it lists several questionnaires, roughly half of which do not get reported in the paper.

Yes, they did. I am considering emailing the editor to restate that I think this misrepresentation should be a serious enough violation to qualify for rejection.

This is in an Elsevier journal, by the way.

Just reviewed a paper with an OSF preregistration that was mostly empty and uninformative (e.g., analysis plan just said “anova”, see image). I recommended rejection, but the editor asked for revision without addressing this issue in the decision letter. What would you do in this case?

Excited that we are recruiting for a new postdoctoral program in Cognitive, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience at #WashU! Get in touch if you have questions!
sites.wustl.edu/systemsneuro...

About the Course Aims of the course

Apply for a FREE virtual workshop on "R Programming for Psychology and Neuroscience." Sponsored by NSF and will take place this summer. Enrollment is open to all students. Direct training on using R to analyze data from psychological tasks. Applications due 4/30. 🤓🧑‍💻

sites.google.com/view/r-progr...

This way, she gets a time series of model-predicted attentional states for each participant. These states predict a variety of independent behavioral patterns, including speeding up of RTs under mind wandering, self-reported task-unrelated thoughts, and a shift towards these thoughts across time.

Second, Cathy @cathyzhang.bsky.social has developed a new framework to infer mind wandering (lapses of attention) from behavior. She combines the GLM-HMMs from @jpillowtime.bsky.social's group with a parametric version of the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART).

osf.io/preprints/ps...

People trade off this cost with interference demands! They become more likely to choose lists of more incongruent Stroop trials if this minimizes switches between attentional states. This work nicely complements the work on "reconfiguration costs" by Ivan Grahek from the @shenhavlab.bsky.social.

Two new preprints from my group at WashU!

First, Merve @mileritayar.bsky.social tests whether people place an effort cost on switching between cognitive control settings. We find that people avoid switching between focused and relaxed attentional states.

osf.io/preprints/os...

Bluesky’s science takeover: 70% of Nature poll respondents use platform Roughly 6,000 readers answered our poll, with many declaring that Bluesky was nicer, kinder and less antagonistic to science than X.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Yet, the effect (I think) captures the system setting itself up for subsequent conflict (not current conflict). Thinking of this as a model-free (implicit?) form of adjustment for the future makes sense to me, because control demands are typically more predictable than in cog psych experiments.

I agree with Harrison: a bit of both. The adjustment is reactive: it occurs in response to demand. Moreover, it is observed in blocks with 50% congruent trials. In those, the congruency of the next trial can't be predicted: thinking of these adjustments as (intentionally) proactive feels silly.

Distractor-specific control adaptation in multidimensional environments - Nature Human Behaviour Gheza and Kool show that, in multidimensional environments, people allocate attention to individual distractors on the basis of their interference with the current task. They develop a neural model that supports these findings and suggest that cognitive control theories need to be revised.

Gheza & Kool show that, in multidimensional environments, people allocate attention to individual distractors based on their interference with the current task. A neural model supports these findings and suggests revising cognitive control theories.
https://go.nature.co...

Davide's paper has been in the works for a while and involved a lengthy review process. There's a ton to unpack here: just take a look at his 50-page supplementary material with almost as many figures!

Impaired arbitration between reward-related decision-making strategies in Alcohol Users compared to Alcohol Non-Users: a computational modeling study - NPP—Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience This study explored decision-making in frequent alcohol users versus alcohol non-users. Normally, people use more thoughtful strategies when rewards are high. The study shows alcohol users are not doi...

Finally, a fun collaboration with Muhammad Parvaz' group at Mount Sinai: Srinivasan Ramakrishnan shows that frequent alcohol users do not adopt more model-based RL strategies when financial incentives are high, which leads to riskier choices to varying monetary rewards especially.

Choosing the right frame: how context preferences facilitate subsequent decisions - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Choosing the right frame: how context preferences facilitate subsequent decisions

Next: Lauren Treiman developed a Frame Selection Task, where people choose how risky choices are framed. She shows that people have frame preferences and that they align with their risk preferences: risk-seeking participants prefer the loss frame more, thus facilitating their risky inclination.

Distractor-specific control adaptation in multidimensional environments - Nature Human Behaviour Gheza and Kool show that, in multidimensional environments, people allocate attention to individual distractors on the basis of their interference with the current task. They develop a neural model th...

Three new CDML publications to start off 2025!

First up: research on multidimensional control from @davideghez.bsky.social in @naturehumbehav.bsky.social! Across three behavioral experiments and with computational modeling, Davide shows that people adapt control in a distractor-specific fashion.

Impaired arbitration between reward-related decision-making strategies in Alcohol Users compared to Alcohol Non-Users: a computational modeling study NPP—Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience - Impaired arbitration between reward-related decision-making strategies in Alcohol Users compared to Alcohol Non-Users: a computational modeling study

New year, new DPN paper!

"Impaired arbitration between reward-related decision-making strategies in Alcohol Users compared to Alcohol Non-Users: a computational modeling study" from Ramakrishnan, @wouterkool.bsky.social, et al

www.nature.com/artic...
1/2

It's out!
Our work on multi-dimensional control adaptation landed on @naturehumbehav.bsky.social
Free access to the full text here: rdcu.be/d5pt1

Big shout-out to @wouterkool.bsky.social for sharing the venture and for setting the bar that high in mentorship!

For a quick recap, linked thread

Happy undergrads-ask-for-a-small-increase-in-their-grade season to everyone who celebrates!