Sign in

Brandon Woo

@brandonwoo.bsky.social
1.6K followers 498 following 64 posts

Assistant professor at UCSB, studying the development of the social mind. 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 (he/him) bmwoo.github.io

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Association for Psychological Science @psychscience.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Serve as a mentor, mentee, or both with the APS Mentorship Program. Pairs are matched individually based on goals and experience, and supported for six months (November–April) with program resources along the way. #AcademicSky 📆Apply by October 19 www.psychologicalscience.org/career-resou...
001
Reposted by Brandon Woo
simine vazire @simine.com · 07/10/2026
Another special issue at Psych Science! We invite “submissions that advance the field through critical appraisal of articles previously published by Psychological Science” Please share! www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
psychologicalscience.org
Special Issue Call for Submissions: “Appraising the Foundations of Psychological Science”
Editors: Tom Beckers and Heather UrryOne way a journal can earn its reputation for quality is to take active steps to vet the articles that appear within its pages after publication. To that end, Psyc...
610361
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Hyowon (Hyo) Gweon @hyogweon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Just out in Cognition, with Aaron Chuey & @rbzsparks.bsky.social! Here we ask: What do children infer from watching others communicate? authors.elsevier.com/a/1ntbr2Hx32...
authors.elsevier.com
Please wait whilst we redirect you
All content on this site: Copyright © 2026 Elsevier B.V., its licensors, and contributors. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply.
13510
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Leher Singh @lehersingh.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Excited about tomorrow's community conversation about power and privilege in Psychology departments with a focus on practical strategies for inclusion and equity with Walter P. Parrish III, Ph.D., Sakshi Ghai, Flavio Azevedo, and Dr. Daudi van Veen! member.psychologicalscience.org/events/event...
member.psychologicalscience.org
Event Details
Impexium Association Management Software
021
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I’m recruiting a PhD student to join my lab at UCSB! I'm looking for someone who's interested in how children make sense of others' actions, minds, and relationships, and/or how children come to feel socially connected to others. Learn more here: folk.psych.ucsb.edu/team/join-th... Please share!
A picture of my lab members and me
02813
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Dr Anna Leshinskaya @annaleshinskaya.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I am recruiting graduate students for UCI's PhD in Cognitive Sciences - www.cogsci.uci.edu/graduate/pro... The lab's focus is on how relational structure and combinatorial reasoning is implemented in human brains and large language models--and if they are similar.
cogsci.uci.edu
GRADUATE PROGRAM
13430
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Jorge Morales @jorgemorales.me · 01/10/2026
Our lab is growing! We're looking for a graduate student to start next fall (applications due on Dec 1) and a postdoctoral researcher to start soon (ad coming soon; starting date is flexible, probably some time next year). subjectivitylab.org
subjectivitylab.org
The Subjectivity Lab · Duke University · Jorge Morales, PhD
Duke interdisciplinary research group led by Dr. Jorge Morales studying vision, mental imagery, consciousness, and introspection.
14425
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Benedek Kurdi @benedek.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
📊 New resource: ISAAC, an open corpus for studying social group attitudes 💬 527M+ Reddit posts (2007–2023) 🧠 Covers race, sexuality, age, ability, and skin tone 🗺️ Validated against Gallup and Google Trends 🔍 No-code or Python/SQL: isaac.psychology.illinois.edu 📖 Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2609.27059
We introduce the Illinois Social Attitudes Aggregate Corpus (ISAAC), an open, modular, and accessible corpus of 527 million+ English-language Reddit posts selected for relevance to six key social group distinctions based on race, sexuality, age, ability, body weight, and skin tone, covering the 17-year period from 2007 to 2023. A multi-step, human-audited filtering pipeline was used to keep irrelevant content in the curated dataset below 10%, both overall and for each social group distinction. Each post was then algorithmically annotated with the user's estimated home region, along with a suite of validated off-the-shelf and custom semantic labels including moralization, sentiment, emotion, and linguistic generalization. We confirm the validity of the resulting corpus through convergent evidence linking ISAAC to macro-level societal trends, such as online search behavior, temporal spikes during major societal events (both nationally and regionally), and long-term shifts in public attitudes. By offering a unified, public infrastructure, ISAAC eliminates research fragmentation and enables seamless replication while supporting diverse empirical workflows at scale. Specifically, ISAAC allows investigators to perform cross-category comparisons, conduct high-precision tracking of long-term temporal shifts in social group discourse, and map spatial variation onto localized public opinion and policy outcomes. ISAAC's fully public, modular pipeline facilitates easy extension of the corpus to new platforms, languages, and social categories. To accommodate various research needs, ISAAC is accessible both without coding through a point-and-click website and labeler web-apps, and programmatically via an SQL playground, a Python package, and HuggingFace.
42111
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Experimental Philosophy @xphilosopher.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
There hasn’t been enough discussion in philosophy of this wonderful research by April Bailey (@ahbailey.bsky.social) She provides a mountain of evidence for the claim that people see MEN as the prototype of the category of human beings www.researchgate.net/profile/Apri...
0238
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Benedek Kurdi @benedek.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
🚨 Nominations Open: ISCON 2026 Early Career Award! 🚨 Celebrating junior scientists making theoretical & empirical impact in social cognition. • Eligibility: PhD earned 2020 or later • Winner: Address at SPSP Preconf (Feb 2027) 🗓️ Deadline: Nov 1, 2026 🔗 socialcognition.net/early-career-award
084
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Martin Zettersten @mzettersten.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Our department at UC San Diego is hiring a new tenure-track Assistant Professor. Open area, research addressing foundational issues in cogsci using modern computational methods. I love my department, and you will too. Apply!! apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF04633 #cogscisci #cogsci #DevPsyc #PsychSciSky
apol-recruit.ucsd.edu
Assistant Professor in Cognitive Science
University of California, San Diego is hiring. Apply now!
15533
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
new preprint: "Directing large language models to follow the letter or spirit of the law" arxiv.org/pdf/2609.23083 (by Qian , Li, Chen, Murthy @soniakmurthy.bsky.social , Belinkov, and me) this is particularly cool/important, and I'm allowed to say it because it was headed by @pqian.bsky.social
17423
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Rebecca Saxe @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I have a question about the future of metrics for hiring and promoting faculty in science. Academic journal articles have been our currency for a long time, but are under extreme & mounting pressure. Is any dept or field already using a better metric *for hiring and promoting faculty*?
114917
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Hey folks, I'll be considering PhD applications for the 2026-27 cycle over here at Duke Psych. To learn more about the lab, check us out at www.mindandculturelab.com and/or read through this short FAQ for prospective students: www.mindandculturelab.com/faq
05027
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Marlene Berke @marleneberke.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Do non-human primates have theory of mind? My new paper takes a new computational approach to this classic question. We implemented verbal theories of primates' mental representations as computational models. These models completed classic visual perspective-taking tasks.
29134
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
MIT has put out an "AI and Education" report summarizing what they've found at their own institution. Seems thoughtful. aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/
421968
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Chris Krupenye @chriskrupenye.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
🚨 PhD position in human, nonhuman primate, and/or dog cognition! I am thrilled to be reviewing applicants this year for a new PhD student to join the Social & Cognitive Origins Group in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins @jhu.edu @jhuartssciences.bsky.social 1/
28372
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Dr. Sarah Gaither @sarahegaither.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
📣 I’m considering PhD students for Fall 2027! We study how our identities shape the way we see ourselves, how others see us, and how we interact across group boundaries. Our work spans race, gender, multiracial experiences, and intergroup contact with kids and adults. sites.duke.edu/dukeidlab/
01815
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Rhodri Cusack @rhodricusack.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
We're hiring! 2 postdocs + 3 PhD students to join InfantNeuroAI at Trinity College Dublin: awake infant fMRI & OPM-MEG, plus computational models of how infants learn. Aims: understand infant visual cognition, infant neuroimaging methods, more energy-efficient learning 🧵 www.cusacklab.org/vacancies
16652
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Dr Anna Leshinskaya @annaleshinskaya.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Thrilled to announce that my department, UCI cognitive sciences, is hiring a tenure-track assistant professor in the area of computational social cognition. Further information including the application can be found at: recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF10411
recruit.ap.uci.edu
Assistant Professor - Cognitive Sciences
University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!
02515
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Lindsey Powell @lindseypowell.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
UCSD Psychology is hiring!! We’re seeking a new assistant professor colleague who studies high-level human cognition, broadly construed. Please share and/or apply! apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF04646
apol-recruit.ucsd.edu
Assistant Professor in High-level Human Cognition
University of California, San Diego is hiring. Apply now!
09680
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Amanda Kay Montoya @akmontoya.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Curious about Zenodo as an OSF Project alternative? Here's a short video to get you started: File Uploads, Communities, and generating links for Anonymous Peer Review. youtu.be/jW84PxuJTMw
youtu.be
Getting Started with Zenodo (transitioning from OSF Projects)
YouTube video by AMANDA MONTOYA
67440
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Now out online! Why do kids sometimes bomb possibility reasoning tasks and other times totally nail it? We review the lit and show how differences in a set of common ancillary cognitive demands in these tasks "push around" the age at which children succeed - psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...
psycnet.apa.org
APA PsycNet
22812
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
This paper is part of a special issue on cognitive development in Evolution and Human Behavior. Thank you to @denistatone.bsky.social and @anniewertz.bsky.social for organizing the special issue!
050
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Even with limited experience participating in and observing others' saliva-sharing interactions, 4- to 6-month-old infants infer social intimacy from saliva-sharing interactions. Our findings constrain theories for how infants come to understand close relationships.
130
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
We pooled data from studies that have used this paradigm (our work; Ciftci, @jfkominsky.bsky.social, & Csibra, 2025). When an individual was in distress, infants and toddlers from across the wide age range (4 to 19 months of age) looked more to someone who had shared saliva with that individual.
Infants' proportion of looking at the close or thick relationship partner by age and by paradigm. Across the age range, infants and toddlers generally looked more to the thick relationship partner.
150
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Across two studies, the 4- to 6-month-old infants responded as older infants and toddlers do: They expected individuals who have shared saliva to respond to each other’s distress.
Study 1's (A) familiarization events, (B) anticipatory looking trial, and (C) results: the percentage of infants who looked first toward the food sharer (the thick relationship partner) or the ball passer (the thin relationship partner) and the proportion of time infants looked toward the food sharer. A: Infants observe a puppet share food with one actor and pass a ball around with another actor. B: The puppet later expresses distress in the test conditions; a different puppet expresses distress in one control condition, and the original puppet instead asks for a ball in another control condition. C: Infants looked first and longer to the food-sharer in the test conditions, but not the control conditions.
Study 2's (A) familiarization events, (B) anticipatory looking trial, and (C) results: the percentage of infants who looked first toward the mouth puppet or the forehead puppet, and the proportion of time infants looked toward the mouth puppet. A: Infants observe a person put her finger in her own mouth and a puppet's mouth, or on her own forehead and a puppet's forehead. B: The person later expresses distress in the test conditions; a different person expresses distress in one control condition, and the original person instead says "Whoop" in another control condition. C: Infants looked longer to the mouth puppet in the test conditions, but not the control conditions.
120
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
To tease apart these possibilities, we tested 4- to 6-month-old infants. These infants have very limited experience participating in and observing others' saliva-sharing interactions. Do they nevertheless make inferences about closeness from saliva sharing?
120
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
By 8 months of age, infants may have many months of experience participating in and observing others' saliva-sharing interactions. Is infants’ understanding of saliva-sharing interactions based on such experience, or do they have core knowledge about close social relationships?
130
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
In earlier work, we found that 8- to 10-month-old infants view saliva sharing as evidence of a close relationship. When two individuals shared saliva, infants expected those individuals to respond to each other’s distress. How do infants come to that understanding? www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...
science.org
Early concepts of intimacy: Young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships
Children, toddlers, and infants infer that people who share saliva, for example, by kissing or sharing food utensils, are in distinctive, close social relationships.
130
Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
New paper with Liz Spelke, @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social, and @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social! We find that when 4- to 6-month-old infants observe two individuals share saliva, they infer that those individuals have a close relationship. Free access link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1niQg_Oow0...
A conceptual schematic illustrating the logic of the studies. (A) Infants observe a central actor who shares saliva with one actor and does not share saliva with another actor. (B) From such observations, infants may infer and represent whether the actors are connected and how thick each connection is. (C) These representations support infants' expectations of who will respond to the central actor's distress.
16622
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Tobias Gerstenberg @tobigerstenberg.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The Stanford Psychology Department is having a search for a tenure-track Assistant Professor with a research focus on developmental and/or social psychology. Application deadline is 10/15. More infos here: facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...
facultypositions.stanford.edu
Assistant Professor, Psychology - Stanford University, California, United States
The Department of Psychology at Stanford University is seeking applicants for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position, with a research focus on developmental and/or social psychology. In addition ...
03132
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
If this makes you mad, submit your cognitive science research to @openmindjournal.bsky.social No APCs, no subscription fees. It's funded by university libraries, at low cost.
18934
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Deon T. Benton @deontbenton.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
🚨 Officially out at Child Development! A few years ago in Science, Ashley Thomas (ashleyjthomas.bsky.social) and colleagues argued that saliva could be a cue infants use to infer the strength of social relationships. academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...
academic.oup.com
An associative learning account of how saliva becomes a cue for comfort
Abstract. A recent study by Thomas et al. (2022) showed that 8.5- to 10-month-olds use saliva sharing as an indicator of relationship closeness: infants ex
13612
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Deon T. Benton @deontbenton.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I'm looking to write a registered report for the first time ever -- yes, really! -- and I'm wondering if anyone would be willing to share an example.
7135
Reposted by Brandon Woo
simine vazire @simine.com · 28/08/2026
Psych Science (the journal) is broader than you might think! Do you do descriptive research? Or research w/ underrepresented populations or cultural frameworks? Or research on AI/LLMs for psych? Or research testing lab findings in the real world? We have a special issue for that!
24931
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Eric Klinenberg @ericklinenberg.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Researchers in Chicago tracked neighborhood-level tree canopy over two decades and discovered something startling: “Each year-to-year percent increase in canopy was associated with around a 10 percent reduction in mortality." Keeping mature trees alive can help keep people alive -and cooler, too.
nytimes.com
Climate: Saving Old Trees Might Save Lives
We know that trees are good for cities. A new study finds that mature trees are especially good.
7331144
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · 26/08/2026
Mentalizing and heuristics as distinct cognitive strategies in human teaching
dlvr.it
Mentalizing and heuristics as distinct cognitive strategies in human teaching
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 26 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02540-2Harootonian et al. find that people switch between effortful, tailored teaching and easier, simple shortcuts, favouring shortcuts even when unhelpful. Prompting participants to reflect on learners’ limitations restores effective, personalized instruction.
14715
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
NSF just announced its GRFP solicitation due in October - deadline varies by field: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo... Now for the bad news... * NSF estimates they will issue 1,500 awards, down from 2,500+ last year. * NSF removed STEM Education and Learning Research as a Major Field.
nsf.gov
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
6139169
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
New from me and Jessica Applin! We find that infants' behavior in a cracker choice task is impacted by an agent’s partial knowledge of object quantity: infants choose based on the agent's (inaccurate) representation rather than their own 🤯 Now in press at JECP, preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
OSF
24114
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Experimental Philosophy @xphilosopher.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Starter pack for experimental philosophy
195
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Hanna @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Reason-giving isn't a Western invention. New in Child Development: 360 children aged 5–9 in China, Kenya & the US spontaneously gave each other reasons to settle disagreements — and did so more when they disagreed than when they agreed. academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...
academic.oup.com
Children across diverse societies exchange reasons to resolve disagreements
Abstract. The exchange of reasons in rational discourse is crucial for resolving disagreements. In a preregistered cross-cultural study, 360 5- to 9-year-o
1167
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Sander van Bree @sandervanbree.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Excited to share our preprint! w/ @martinhebart.bsky.social To understand how primates visually process objects in the world, we rely on both research in human and macaque IT. But what representations of object space are actually shared between them? biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Quick thread 🧵
biorxiv.org
Shared and Distinct High-Dimensional Object Spaces in Human and Macaque Inferotemporal Cortex
Human and macaque studies of inferotemporal cortex (IT) have shaped our understanding of object vision, yet the extent of their representational alignment and the precise nature of this correspondence...
26626
Reposted by Brandon Woo
David Levari @davidlevari.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Here is a clunky but decently functional script to make a local copy of all your private and public OSF projects. You'll have to decide where to keep them. Maybe a flash drive under your mattress? levarilab.com/osf-backup-t...
levarilab.com
OSF Backup Tool — Levari Lab
An R script to make a local copy of projects in your OSF account.
01811
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Russ Poldrack @russpoldrack.org · 11/08/2026
Many of you will have seen the recent post about changes at OSF. If you'd like to learn more about how to use other services (particularly Zenodo) to share data and code, see my book chapter on resource sharing. bettercode-book.org/book-sharing...
bettercode-book.org
12  Sharing Research Objects – Better Code, Better Science
317783
Reposted by Brandon Woo
bergelsonlab @bergelsonlab.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Pretty confused ab the coming @cos.io changes to OSF. looks like they’re phasing out “projects” (ie where u share/store code, stimuli, etc) which has been a keystone for our replicable pipelines: the info recreates our manuscript, figs, analyses, etc & lets u do ur own. Open science at its best! 1/4
1369
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Over the next several months, we will phase out some popular OSF features. These changes do not affect current public content, which remains safe and accessible. We have prepared support material to help users adapt. I am very sorry for the disruption to your work. Please read this post for details.
cos.io
OSF Changes | Center for Open Science
We are preparing substantial changes to OSF that will reduce its functionality, focus OSF on its unique strengths, and move toward an integrated model with complementary services. As part of that shif...
10120113
Reposted by Brandon Woo
manvir singh @manvir.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Why do societies reliably develop strikingly similar traditions like dance songs, hero stories, shamanism & justice institutions? In a new BBS target article, I propose a theory for such "super-attractors" + cultural evolution more broadly. Now open for commentary: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
17834
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Rebecca Saxe @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
When we started scanning human infants 13 years ago, it seemed likely that functional responses in infant cortex would be qualitatively different from adults. Instead we keep finding similarities between infants and adults. Even for scene perception, despite the slow development of navigation.
Image of brain activation when infants look at movies of visual scenes, showing activation in three cortical regions: OPA, PPA and MPA.
17313
Reposted by Brandon Woo
Minds, Machines, and Brains (MMB) @mmb-journal.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Hello world! 👋 We’re Minds, Machines, and Brains (MMB) 👤🤖🧠 a new open access journal from @mitpress.bsky.social exploring the principles of intelligence and cognition across natural and artificial minds. Submissions open this Fall! 🔗 direct.mit.edu/mmb
direct.mit.edu
Minds, Machines, and Brains | MIT Press
223793