iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Chaz Firestone

tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

We often say that humans struggle to produce random sequences… but what if that's not the whole story? In a new paper, @dorsaamir.bsky.social, @samiyousif.bsky.social & I show that context matters (a lot!). When playing strategic games, humans can produce near-random behavior osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

for the 2nd time in 3 years, we @jhu.edu are spending the semester in a reading group on foundational issues in cognitive science, centered on the origin & format of concepts. 8 faculty from 4 depts, + many of their students & postdocs. can’t say enough about this wonderful intellectual community! 🤩

a pano and a selfie of happy cognitive scientists sitting around a seminar table in a discussion

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

AI is so amazing look at this perfectly coherent solar system rug at my 5yo’s play place

an AI slop rug with gibberish planet names, a flagpole going through an astronaut’s hand, and other nonsense

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Out today! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

here at @jhu.edu we believe so strongly in collaboration that @talboger.bsky.social gave his latest internal department talk about work he did outside of my lab, our department, and our university! (lucky you @samiyousif.bsky.social @dorsaamir.bsky.social)

tal’s title slide: “randomness revisited”

a slide with names and faces of tal’s collaborators (sami yousif and dorsa amir), with the text “(sorry chaz)” beneath it

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

just discovered a really fun way to participate in the trade war

a list of canadian goods covered by recent US tariffs: honey, whey, and whiskey

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Reposted by Chaz Firestone

William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 22/08/2026

Papers so good that it can't be touched

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Reposted by Chaz Firestone

Zoe Drayson @zoedrayson.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Happy six-year anniversary of that time MC Hammer shared @chazfirestone.bsky.social's paper

Twitter screenshot of MC Hammer sharing a link to 'Sustained representation of perspectival shape' and Chaz Firestone thanking him

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Learned a lot from the recent BBS target article by @mdubova.bsky.social and @sabinasloman.bsky.social, and also from this new commentary by @talboger.bsky.social! Take a look at Tal's explainer thread below 👇

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Reposted by Chaz Firestone

tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

BBS recently published a great piece by @mdubova.bsky.social & @sabinasloman.bsky.social on “Excess capacity learning”. I argue D&S’s framework overlooks a special kind of representation that encodes information both minimally and perfectly: lossless compression. philpapers.org/archive/BOGC...

Figure for my BBS commentary ("Compression without compromise") on Dubova & Sloman's target article ("Excess capacity learning")

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

WOW, just one week from new paper to new feature! Thanks @jspsych.org team 🙏🤩

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

out today! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

met up with this guy (we’re neighbors) for champagne! congrats @noamchompers.bsky.social

Chaz and Noam holding champagne glasses toasting Noam’s many successes

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Reposted by Chaz Firestone

noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

well, i suppose i can now share a spot of good news. i've accepted a permanent position at australian catholic university. i'll be moving to sydney in january. i'm just delighted

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

people making some wild claims on the bird website

a tweet from vlad chituc: “cognition doesn’t affect perception, I’m sorry to break it to y’all”

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Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

When we consider children in cultural evolution, we tend to cast them as recipients of adult culture. In our BBS target article, @sheinalew.bsky.social & I argued there's more: through 'peer cultures', children actively drive cultural adaptation. Our final paper + a rich set of responses is out now!

cambridge.org

Children as agents of cultural adaptation | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core

Children as agents of cultural adaptation - Volume 49

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Noam and Noam-in-training watching the tall Lord of the Rings guy score goals

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

just when you think you’ve made it, you book a train ticket that allows for academic titles and realize you can always have more doctorates

a drop down menu of titles:

Dr
Prof
Dr Dr
Prof Dr
Prof Dr Dr

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

You press ‘send’ on a high-stakes email but hesitate when lifting your finger. You make a chess move but linger on the piece before letting go. Familiar? In @pnas.org, Hanbei Zhou @ruizhegoh.bsky.social @ianbphillips.bsky.social & I show that response *duration* tracks confidence! shorturl.at/A9NVe

Two images, one of a finger pressed a key, another of a hand on a chess piece

Screenshot of first page of paper, "Response duration tracks confidence"

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emerson @saldemar.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

repost now while you still can

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

here’s a list of countries that have played one or more knockout games but have never conceded a goal in any of them: canada

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

only nation in world cup history that has won 100% of its knockout games

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

if the tournament stops now do we win

a world cup bracket showing that canada (and only canada so far) has advanced to the round of 16

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

nobody will remember: - papers you published - grant dollars you raised - citations you received people will remember - conference parties you hosted @socphilpsych.bsky.social #SPP2026

linkedin post from Kyle Law:

On my way to my flight back to Arizona, I want to briefly contibute to the popular imagination by documenting that I had a wonderful time at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2026 annual meeting at The Johns Hopkins University.
Josh Rottman and Laura Soter curated a really stellar conference lineup and I had so many productive (and fun) conversations about morality, ethics, ontology, and metaphysics with new and old friends alike! Here's a photo to prove I was there — shoutout to Christina Jinhee Capozzoli for giving a sensational talk about our work on morality and social norms.
Also want to thank Chaz Firestone for hosting (and DJing) an absolute festival of a party and Paige Amormino for being such a good friend/collaborator!

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

@talboger.bsky.social’s poster-coaster experience lands in Baltimore this afternoon! Come see him present his work at the @socphilpsych.bsky.social at this evening’s poster session, then grab a coaster as a souvenir. Available while supplies last!

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…another creative & impactful project from the rocket-fueled @talboger.bsky.social, applying the wickedly cool “visual anagrams” method to animacy! Read the paper in @elife.bsky.social today, then attend his presentation at @socphilpsych.bsky.social later this week. 🦆✈️

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Reposted by Chaz Firestone

tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Do we perceive animacy itself, beyond its lower-level visual correlates? In @elife.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social and I leverage “visual anagrams” — images whose interpretations change with orientation — to suggest the answer is: yes! elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

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Christopher Honey @chrishoney.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Some findings from our national survey of U.S. population attitudes toward AI. First, feelings about AI are actually very similar across political parties (and many other demographics). They vary most by people's experience with AI tools. Explore the data: futurerealities.org/poll/2026/ 🧵

Bar chart titled "Positive feeling toward AI varies by experience, not by party," showing the percentage who feel positive about AI overall. By experience using AI: never used AI 12%, tried it a few times 24%, use it weekly 50%, skilled daily user 80%. By political party: Republicans 39%, Democrats 36% (nearly identical).

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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

i like wemby vs chet because it looks like waluigi had his own waluigi in mario party

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Reposted by Chaz Firestone

Andrew Knauft @aknauft.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

What a cool result!

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Reposted by Chaz Firestone

Natalie Christie Peluso 🧠 @nataliepeluso.com · 27/05/2026

I always admire when folks publish their papers accompanied by a supplementary-style page on their website - such a high-value and potentially more accessible #openscience way to directly communicate research (plus I imagine it improves peer-review, is there data on that somewhere?)

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Reposted by Chaz Firestone

cyber professional @permadeath.com · 26/05/2026

"for example, participants who find simple shapes aesthetically pleasing also find simple melodies pleasing" the science is clear: you are not not qualified for a SRE team if you don't enjoy hyperpop, breakcore, djent, etc.

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Roman Feiman @romanfeiman.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Excited to have been wrong about this! A few years ago, Tal told me he was working on intuitions about complexity. I knee-jerkily said, “but surely that’s not a natural kind! Why think that people have intuitions about complexity across domains?” Good thing this is the last time I’ll ever be wrong!

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Super excited about this paper by the amazing @talboger.bsky.social, now in press @ @nathumbehav.nature.com! Before you ask: No, it has no corresponding lab merch (cf www.perceptionresearch.org/anagrams/mer...). But yes, it has deep questions, creative experiments, and foundational implications!

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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Complexity is ubiquitous in the world around us. But different stimuli are complex for different reasons. Does the mind nevertheless represent a ‘unified’ notion of complexity across domains? In @nathumbehav.nature.com, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show the answer is: yes! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Complex and simple stimuli across a variety of domains. Even though these stimuli are complex for different reasons, we suggest the mind unifies them by their complexity. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/p9xe3_v1

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Sam McDougle @actlab.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Thrilled to have this preprint out, from the amazing Zekun Sun! "Motor abstraction training generalizes to the refinement of specific movement patterns" In brief, across 8 experiments we found evidence of a causal role for abstract representations in motor learning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Vivian Paulun @vivianpaulun.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Come join us at #phiVis #VSS2026!

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

in ONE HOUR we close out #VSS2026 with the 6th iteration of #phiVis! Ft. talks and commentaries by @matthiasmichel.bsky.social Wilma Bainbridge, Will Davies, @vivianpaulun.bsky.social, Frédérique de Vignemont, and Bill Warren! 1pm-3pm in the Banyan/Citrus Room

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