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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

If you'd like to pursue a project with me at The Uncertainty Lab - please feel free to get in touch (i.e. email)

Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Looking for a fully-funded PhD studying how our minds and brains work? Students can join @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social via the UBEL scheme (link below). But prospective students and supervisors need to 'pre-register' their interest together by 30th October. ubel-dtp.ac.uk/esrc-student...

ubel-dtp.ac.uk

ESRC Studentships Main Competition - UBEL DTP

ESRC Studentships Main Competition The UBEL DTP’s fully funded ESRC studentships cover full payment of tuition fees per year and an annual maintenance stipend. What’s on offer UBEL DTP studentships co...

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 11/09/2026

I'm excited to share this preprint by my wonderful MSc student Yihsin who's thought deeply about how psychological & neurocognitive theories relate to different types of evidence. Beyond Empirical Success: Evaluating Theoretical Virtue Across the Computational Modeling Chain doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Beyond Empirical Success: Evaluating Theoretical Virtue Across the Computational Modeling Chain
Authors/Creators

Chuang, Yihsin
ORCID icon
Guest, Olivia1
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Description

Computational models in psychology are typically judged by a single standard: empirical fit. Unfortunately, fit is insufficient, even misleading as a sole criterion, as the same result can arise from fundamentally different situations: theoretically faithful models, mathematically flexible ones, miscalibrated operationalizations, or implementations that compute something other than intended. Distinguishing between these is vital. Our evaluative metatheoretical account recognises that models stand in three distinct relations: a) toward the theory whose causal commitments it purports to capture, b) toward the specification and implementation it purports to compute, and c) toward the phenomenon it purports to explain. Each relation can succeed or fail independently, governed by criteria local to that stage. Importantly, relations are ordered such that theoretical content is transmitted or lost, and losses at earlier transitions are irrecoverable downstream. What a model's empirical success implicates about its theoretical commitments, therefore, depends on whether transitions are secured. Some success or failure profiles support explanatory claims; others only prediction; others establish theoretical coherence without empirical contact. Our account diagnoses what a given model shows, replacing the implicit assumption that empirical success transfers automatically to theoretical understanding with an explicit conditional rendition of what models can and cannot establish.

a figure that looks like a cloud that stays "cognitive capacity" with an arrow pointing to a lozenge with "theory" which points to a lozenge with "specification" which points to the same with "data" which is pointed to by a cloud that says "phenomenon"

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

One idea is that we keep track of 'prediction errors' to estimate overall environmental volatility. When this volatility seems high, we turn up the gain on incoming signals and so become more sensitive *in general* to additional/subsequent perceptual information.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Cheapskates assemble! For the month of September, A TRICK OF THE MIND is available on Kindle for a mere 99p. Read, enjoy, and discover the scientist inside your skull. amzn.eu/d/01clZD1R

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Gutted. I thought it was a harmonica stand.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Really delighted to have been made Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck, University of London.

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Ben Alderson-Day @aldersonday.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

The end to another Edinburgh Book Festival - had a wonderful time with @thereaderbank.bsky.social once more, fantastic to share a stage with Maggie O'Farrell for the Secret Life of Books Podcast, and great fun talking consciousness with @danieljamesyon.bsky.social & Michael Pollan

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

On my way to Edinburgh Book Festival - to consider consciousness this evening with @michaelpollan.bsky.social and @aldersonday.bsky.social @edbookfest.bsky.social

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Can confidence spread from one head to another? Nice to see this piece from @christianjarrett.bsky.social in BBC Science Focus, highlighting work from The Uncertainty Lab at @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social. Led by Einar Andreassen and supported by @leverhulme.ac.uk

sciencefocus.com

A seriously weird study just proved confidence is contagious | BBC Science Focus Magazine

Can you catch the bug?

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Real pleasure to be at #EPSEssex and the symposium celebrating 80 years of the @exppsychsoc.bsky.social - alongside Bob Logie, Anna Franklin, @bhisma.bsky.social, @angeladebruin.bsky.social and Sophie Scott. Thank you @asifamajid.bsky.social!

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Is your brain a scientist? Then where do its theories come from? And how do those paradigms shift? Lots of fun recording this with Dave Edmonds for Social Science Bites.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Thanks Angelica! That’s very kind.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

A real pleasure to be at #APS26BCN, and to meet and learn about the work of the other Spence Award winners. Thanks @psychscience.bsky.social !

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Thanks Mark! And Addis Ababa is definitely a flex 😎

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Great to be at Hampstead Theatre Press Night yesterday for Blanche McIntyre's production of STAGE KISS. And lots of fun writing my notes for the programme on fantasy and reality in the brain.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Today is official publication day for the paperback of A TRICK OF THE MIND. Surreal as ever to see on the shelves (this time thanks to Waterstones Gower St for indulging me). More here: www.penguin.co.uk/books/451515...

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

I find so long as you have an even number of flaws they cancel out.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Thanks Jeremy - that’s very kind!

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

That’s very kind of you to say, Tom. I’m glad it stuck with you.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Thanks Phil! And forget ‘lifetime achievement awards’. I’m gunning for ‘contributions beyond the grave’.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

If it’s a boy you can call him ‘Grant’

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

If they keep extending the eligibility window, perhaps we’ll live forever.

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Thanks Lorijn! You and me both 😅

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

You can find therein my description of lots of your lovely work on precisely this question, Peter !

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Excited to be in Vancouver and to be part of the CNS Rising Stars session this afternoon. I’ll be talking about “Stubborn and Flexible Predictions in Perception and Belief Updating” #CNS2026 🧠

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Check out Benjy’s new paper, the first from his postdoc in the lab! 👁️ 🧠 It reveals how our inferences about what’s present and absent in the external world are calibrated by perceiving w/ others. And we come to detect what our partners can. Thread below 👇 @benjyb.bsky.social @leverhulme.ac.uk

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Benjy Barnett @benjyb.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Do our social interactions influence what we become aware of? In our❗new preprint❗@danieljamesyon.bsky.social and I delve into this question: asking whether joint decision making in a detection task can bias awareness reports. osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵

osf.io

OSF

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Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

A new preprint, co-authored with @johnwkrakauer.bsky.social: The Deliberation Taboo Cognitive science is, nominally, the science of thinking. We argue that the field has no theory of what thinking is and, even worse, that the topic has largely dropped out of focus. 1/ osf.io/preprints/ps...

osf.io

OSF

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Thanks! Looking forward to it 🙂

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Really delighted to have received one of these awards from the Association for Psychological Science 🧠 Thanks to the APS, and to everyone in the Uncertainty Lab, at Birkbeck, and beyond for making our work possible! @psychscience.bsky.social @birkbeckpsychology.bsky.social

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Last call for this PhD studentship! Deadline Sun 22nd Feb

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