Cognitive Modelling Research in the Era of Agentic Large Language Models
From equations to fitted models in minutes: how LLMs are changing computational cognitive science and how we should adapt
My latest post on Medium
medium.com/@stefano.pal...
From equations to fitted models in minutes: what LLMs are changing in computational cognitive science and how we should adapt.
âš½ Can humans beat AI at forecasting the World Cup?
@rezlescu.bsky.social and I are launching Forecast 2026, a live research study comparing real-life, real-time human predictions about World Cup matches with those of AI models.
Join our study at: forecast2026.com
Stefano Palminteri
✨ VERY excited to share our new paper led by Holly Bowen (SMU) & former ugrad Kyle Thurmann "Effects of reward anticipation on memory encoding and cognitive control outcomes: A meta-analysis" finally in press @ Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 💵🧠www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Thread 1/n
Semantic knowledge is key for human innovation and cultural evolution! Our paper (thread in repost), led by fantastic @anilyaman.bsky.social & rising star @ts-brain.bsky.social is out in @pnas.org!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
I will present this work at APS Barcelona (29/5), happy to chat!
Physical activity & #exercise require #time & #effort
These costs are relatively well characterized separately
But they co-occur in real life, & we lack understanding on how people jointly integrate them: Why/When do people choose elevators over stairs?
Our brilliant PhD, Sena, explores this! âš½ðŸ§
Awesome results from @fluketc.bsky.social @dudman.bsky.social and team, both for dopamine field and for all that train animals in tasks www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Extensive evidence suggests that cognitive performance is typically enhanced under increased motivation, often in the form of reward anticipation. Whi…
📢 New preprint out now!
In three samples (N=594), including a U.S.-representative cohort and a test-retest cohort, we formalize social motivation, learning, and homeostatic control within a single computational framework and identify a phenotype linked to chronic loneliness
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
We've known that socioeconomics (SES) matters for the 🧠. New & 🤯 is that SES drowns out all other brain associations, incl. IQ. If you train an algorithm to predict IQ from brain data, it's still way better at predicting SES. Science Mag: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@smarek0502.bsky.social 👀🧵👇
Konstantinos Tsetsos
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
Standard animal learning studies minimize individual reward magnitudes to maximize the repetitions of reinforced behaviors. We investigated how reward magnitude influences initial learning across five...
www.science.org
Very excited to share our first effort-learning paper in
@plosbiology.org! Huge thanks to my wonderful co-authors @Jan Grohn, @thepsychologist.bsky.social and to my co-senior authors @mkflugge.bsky.social and @lilweb.bsky.social, for all their effort on this fun project.
doi.org/10.1371/jour...
🚨🚨JOB ALERT🚨🚨
I'm hiring a cogsci/philosophy/compneuro postdoc at @ucl.ac.uk @uclbrainscience.bsky.social @uclpals.bsky.social!
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRH486/p...
Come to London & work on frameworks for "testing" for consciousness using Bayesian belief updating & latent variable modeling.
Pls share!
How do humans keep inventing tools and technologies that no single person could create alone?
Our new preprint, led by
@anilyaman.bsky.social & @ts-brain.bsky.social
shows that semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution. 🧠📘 arxiv.org/abs/2510.12837
Armin Lak
Shawn Rhoads
Nico Dosenbach
Discover Postdoctoral Research Fellow jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.
Really happy to share that my first PhD preprint is finally out!🥳
We suggest that time and effort should be studied together as a shared experiential cost w/@bcheval.bsky.social, @corimartarelli.bsky.social, Dr. Maltagliati, Dr. Chastin, and @wanjawolff.bsky.social
Curious?👇
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Björn Lindström
megan peters ðŸ§
What matters most for childhood brain organization?
We analyzed 649 variables.
The answer: Socioeconomics (SES); with brain patterns pointing at sleep & stress as drivers.
Even brain-IQ associations were better explained by SES.
In Science today: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
