Mikołaj Hernik

The self-reference memory bias is preceded by an other-reference bias in infancy - Nature Communications A classic feature of human memory is that we remember information better when it refers to ourselves. Here, the authors show that before the emergence of self-concept, infants instead remember informa...

Sharing our new paper published today in Nature Communications. In my view, this is our clearest demonstration to date that something profoundly changes in how infants encode the world around them before and after the emergence of self-representation. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Human newborns spontaneously attend to prosocial interactions Nature Communications - Abilities to distinguish between prosocial and antisocial actions are crucial for sustaining cooperative systems. Here, the authors show that human newborns with just 5 days...

New paper! Here (in Nature Communications) we (Ale Geraci, Luca Surian, Lucia Gabriella Tina, & I; work led/run by Ale) show that 5-day-old newborns selectively attend to two distinct forms of prosocial over antisocial action: approaching versus avoiding and helping versus hindering.
rdcu.be/evorW

Common cuckoo calling from a tree top

Common cuckoo. Heard them a thousand times, saw only twice. And first time I got to take a pic. Good day #birding at Håkøya, Tromsø yesterday.

Thank you for sharing this personal account, Thom.
-With best wishes.

Happy In Theory This is the short story of my long, 20 year search for a stable academic home. There is a lot of success and a lot of pain here, and no happy ending.

New Substack post

It's very personal: my story of a 20-year academic career, and the many challenges of theoretical and cross-disciplinary work

As I put it in the subtitle: There is a lot of success and a lot of pain here, and no happy ending

thomscottphillips.substack.com/p/happy-in-t...

Snow goose in flight.

Psyched to see today this snow goose (a north-american species) in Tromsø, Northern Norway. #birding

I've just discovered that Proceedings B stopped hosting the movie stimuli from supplementary materials of my paper published in 2014. There is no sign that they were ever there, except for references to them in text.
Did anyone else experience this?

Bar-tailed godwit resting today evening in Tromsø, Norway, on the way further north-east. #birding

Adult white-tailed eagle in flight.

Easter Sunday #birding: adult white-tailed eagle, Rakkfjord, Kvaløya. Not uncommon in Troms, but always a highlight.

Today I learned how I am going to loose my hearing. It will be by playing with feedback on E560 Deflector shield

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I'm looking for a PhD Student at the intersection of Machine Learning and Developmental Psychology.

We study everyday experiences in children from 🇰🇪🇩🇪🇹🇷 and use ML models to quantify interactions.

4 years, fully funded, great team, beautiful location. Please share and apply!

tinyurl.com/2mafdyh4

Male Steller's eider.

It's been 6 years today since I moved to the Arctic. On Sunday I finally saw Steller's eider - a rare bird in Tromsø. If I saw that, will I see the end of data collection(s), I wonder.

According to the director, it was relatively easy to get the money because the backers could assume that if things go wrong he is able to finish it all by himself. In Blender, BTW - a freeware!

Flow is a very beautiful movie.

It is snowing.

Re-upping this summer school: Cognitive & evolutionary foundations of politics, with a great faculty list!

Deadline is at the end of next week: 14th February

Any questions, feel free to get in touch!

Psychological stimulus sets and datasets

Directory of free, open psychological datasets

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Very proud of Laura and collabs for this one!

There's nothing as stimulating in dev science than being confronted with selective patterns of "failures", and this paper is no exception. The question of HOW infants set up a representation of helping as a second-order goal is far from being answered.

New paper in Open Mind! What does it mean to help? What is the goal of a helping action? We wanted to probe infants' & preschoolers' helping concept - specifically, whether they think helpers reduce others' action costs. direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP) 2025, September 2–5, 2025
Submit abstracts by March 3, 2025
Venue: Staszic Palace, Polish Academy of Sciences
Keynote Speakers:
Emma Borg
@cameronbuckner.bsky.social
@noranewcombe.bsky.social
Petra Schumacher
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Attn #CogSci #PsychSci colleagues: What textbook would you recommend for an introduction to cognitive science course for students who will not have taken any related intro courses (psychology, linguistics, compsci) beforehand?

Call for postdoc candidates interested in applying for an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship in infant social cognition UiT The Arctic University of Norway has established «The Arctic MSCA-PF program» (uit.no/project/arcticmsca) to recruit excellent young researchers planning to apply for a Marie Skƚodowsk

Interested in applying for an MSCA-PF grant to come for a postdoc with me to Tromsø, Norway? Get in touch by 16 Feb to participate in a program offered by UiT to support applications. Candidates within Europe can visit Tromsø in June (online event for the rest).
euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/309681

The archives of the International Cognition and Culture Institute (active 2008-2021) are now freely online with past blogs, webinars, and discussions from anthropologists, biologists, cognitive scientists, historians, linguists, and philosophers: cognitionandculture.net/index.html

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I lOvE No earthly man. Will be checking this one! Thanks for the tip.

Kingfisher perched on a twig. Gray waters of Vistula river in the background.

Always exciting to see a kingfisher. This one: today at the entrance to Port Praski, essentially downtown Warsaw. #birds

‘Enigmatic’ cave art was made by ice age children Charcoal doodling appears 14,000 years ago, as adults drew more proficiently nearby

Report on recent research on the Upper Palaeolithic "Panel of the Enigmatic Signs" at Las Monedas Cave, led by Izzy Wisher. Important dialogue between archaeology & developmental psych, and great to see archaeological recognition of children's independent creativity!
www.science.org/content/arti...

(+) Varslingssaken som skulle begraves: 33 ansatte beskriver mobbing, fryktkultur og seksuell trakassering Dette er historien om den største varslingssaken i UiTs historie.

🧵A prominent professor, John-Bjarne Hansen, at one of Norway's leading research institutions created a culture of harassment that devastated careers and lives. After years of silence, here’s what happened at UiT and why it was allowed to continue: www.nordlys.no/varslingssak...

#UiT #AcademicAbuse

Radio waves. Apparently Hertz thought it was a useless discovery.