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Laurel Brehm

@drlearnasaurus.bsky.social
860 followers 979 following 693 posts

Psycholinguist @ UCSB. Professionally: Language errors and stats. Also: cats, my kids, social justice, shit-posting

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Reposted by Laurel Brehm
Harriet Sheppard @harrietsheppard.bsky.social · 23h
The final USP Linguistics webinar is on today 30 September, 4pm Fiji/Kiribati time (UTC +12). The session is on community led initiatives for language(s), literacy and learning. All welcome! Zoom link in alt text. #PacificLanguages #Linguistics #PNG #SolomonIslands #Vanuatu #Fiji
Date: Wednesday 30 September. 4pm-6pm Fiji time (+12GMT)
Zoom: https://usp-fj.zoom.us/j/81725129538?pwd=cSPuuVPTF6XDh6PI2Ts5D89KB8BZv9.1
Passcode: Q2@bkZh4#
Title: Community led initiatives for language(s), literacy and learning
Abstract: This webinar focuses on community led initiatives that support language(s), literacy and learning. While several previous webinars of this series have paid attention to government initiatives and ministerial commitments to languages and cultures in education, this session spotlights some of the more community-led and/or grassroots approaches operating in this space. Each panellist brings unique experiences to the discussion as they highlight what works and doesn’t work in their own community, and how to sustain successes. The session is deliberately skewed towards the highly multilingual and multicultural countries of the Southwest Pacific, where the immense diversity is sometimes considered a complexity in formal planning processes. While this complexity should not be underestimated, the session shows how community led initiatives work precisely because they are grounded in local knowledge and ways of being and doing.
Panellists
Dr. Kilala Devette-Chee (Papua New Guinea National Research Institute)
Mr. Armstrong Malau (Totono Vurës, Vanua Lava, Vanuatu)
Ms. Nola Turner-Jensen (West Galari Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Corporation, Australia)
Ms. Mariana Waqa (Vunilagi Book Club, Fiji)
Dr. Alpheaus Graham Zobule (Kulu Language Institute, Solomon Islands)
Moderator: Associate Professor Jeremy Dorovolomo (USP, Discipline of Education)
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Ángel Saavedra @polpsychangel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
To people on the academic job market right now: so much of this is luck. Don't forget that, and never stop doing what you think is best.
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Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
To make sense of speech, listeners must segment sound streams into pieces. Across languages, people do so based more on consonants than vowels. A new @science.org study investigates the phenomenon via EEG recording in humans & dogs, finding that dogs also show consonant bias in word segmentation.🗣️🐶🧪
science.org
Neural evidence that dogs segment the speech they hear with a humanlike consonant bias
Across many human languages, consonants carry more lexical information than vowels. During speech segmentation, humans, unlike nonhuman primates, rely more on consonant than vowel patterns, despite vo...
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Kanishka Misra @kanishka.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Come be my colleague and teach meaning at UT Austin Linguistics!
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Celeste Pewter @celestepewter.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Okay, but in all seriousness though: This administration is hell-bent on trying to impact our elections. If you haven't already, go to vote.org and check your registration. Make sure you're getting your information from your location election offices. And ask your friends to do the same.
vote.org
Everything You Need to Vote - Vote.org
Register to vote. Check your registration status. Get your absentee ballot. Fast, free, easy, secure, nonpartisan.
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Laurel Brehm @drlearnasaurus.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
First teaching day today this term means I’ve got 100% this quarter at forgetting my phone (eliminating 2fa access) and a child getting sent home sick! Auspicious.
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Laurel Brehm @drlearnasaurus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Columbia psych is hiring
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Laurel Brehm @drlearnasaurus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
If I got one of these made of our elderly cat, do you think they could accurately portray the eye boogers, drool when being petted, and signature pose of ‘hissing at the children?’
An ad for ‘cuddle clones: unmatched accuracy down to the last detail’. There’s a phot of a dog and a stuffed animal that looks a lot like the dog.
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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!
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Anne Fausto-Sterling @birdlady.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Study finds sharp decline in Black, Hispanic researchers receiving NIH funding Drop in those receiving grants and fellowships in 2025 shows impact of Trump administration rollbacks to diversity initiatives www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Study finds sharp decline in Black, Hispanic researchers receiving NIH funding
Drop in those receiving grants and fellowships in 2025 shows impact of Trump administration rollbacks to diversity initiatives
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the corgi from cowboy bebop @realqrampage.fightins.online · 20/09/2026
Philly friends - sign this petition to save the Academy of Natural Sciences!
actionnetwork.org
Petition to Keep the Academy of Natural Sciences Open to the Public
The scientific community in Philadelphia and concerned neighbors are calling on Drexel University to keep the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia’s public-facing museum open beyond their impos...
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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 18/09/2026
the longer I'm a prof the more certain I become that each university operates in a wildly different way to the rest. most sensible, then, is to adopt a strategy of radical advice-seeking ask for help! early and often! academics love nothing more than to put off work to help out junior colleagues!!!
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Dr. Naomi Nota @naominota.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
🔎 Research questionnaires needed for new psycholinguistic experiment: • Comprehensive Autistic Trait Inventory • Digit Symbol Substitution Test Ideally, we’re looking for Qualtrics and/or PsychoPy scripts (in English, German, or Hungarian). 1/3 🧵
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Laurel Brehm @drlearnasaurus.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
the 3yo learned today that toucans eat fruit and cereal pellets and made a pitch that we should get one to clean up after him at the dinner table.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
My grandfather, who is 102 and a medical doctor, has told me about the times before polio was cured. Most years, upon returning to school after summer’s break, there would be some children would didn’t make it back to school because of polio.
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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 18/09/2026
Every so often I think about the fact that before the advent of recorded music it was impossible to listen to music alone.
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Screamer Jim @screamerjim.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
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Zoe Drayson @zoedrayson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Attention philosophers of language who also work in theoretical linguistics: the Philosophy department and the Linguistics department at UC Davis are jointly hiring a TT Assistant Professor. Apply! recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07874
recruit.ucdavis.edu
Department of Philosophy/Linguistics - Philosophy of Language/Computational Linguistics
University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!
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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Roses are redde Noble are the manatees For a bettir future Teach artes and humanityes
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Laurel Brehm @drlearnasaurus.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
rereading Paape's (2024) great paper on nonliteral processing for the modeling framework and there is an EXQUISITE typo in the introduction that I hope was left in to prove a point. 10 internet points to @dariopaape.eurosky.social and 5 to anyone who can find it www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
How do linguistic illusions arise? Rational inference and good-enough processing as competing latent processes within individuals
Non-literal interpretations of implausible sentences such as The mother gave the candle the daughter have been taken as evidence for a rational error-correction mechanism that reconstructs the inte...
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Dr Madeleine Pownall @maddipow.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
To make it easier to tell other academics that you appreciate their work, I've created the "Academic Appreciation Project" which is way to send someone an automated note about the impact their teaching, research, resources has had 💘. Pls use & share! leedspsychology.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
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Matt Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Deadline 16th September: Expressions of interest to MPI for Psycholinguistics + Radboud U., research group lead + permanent assistant prof. www.mpi.nl/career-educa...
mpi.nl
Expressions of interest sought re. Open topic Call for Max Planck Research Group Leaders and permanent Assistant Professor positions | Max Planck Institute
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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!
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Mathilde Bauer @mbbauer23.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Do some noises feel too loud or uncomfortable for you? Do certain sounds give you 'the ick'? If so, please consider taking part in this research! (find link below!). By participating, you can take part in a prize draw for one of 4 £25 Amazon vouchers! #misophonia #hyperacusis #auraldiversity
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Attention Philadelphia! We're hosting a rally to demand that Drexel University maintain The Academy of Natural Sciences Museum open to the public. Join us on Tuesday morning at 10am in front of the academy. Please spread the word, we need all hands on deck! RSVP here: luma.com/1qwnrqz2
A dinosaur on a white background with the text SAve the academy of Natural sciences museum rally Tuesday Sept 8 10am in front of the academy 1900 ben Franklin Parkway. "Tell Drexel University "Keep the museum open!" with the logos for Philly Science Action, Skype a Scientist, and Green Philly
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Jared Pechaček @vandroidhelsing.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Hi Homer, I recently came across The Iliad and was blown away by its expansiveness, its humanity, and its complex use of . Have you considered new ways to promote your book and expand its reach across various platforms? I would love to connect and hear your ideas. Kind regards, Apollonius
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The Lincoln Project @lincolnproject.us · 04/09/2026
Had enough yet?
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Robert Hawkins @rdhawkins.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Stanford Linguistics is hiring an open-rank sociolinguist (Assistant, Associate, or Full). Materials due October 16 for full consideration; start date September 2027. Please share widely!
facultypositions.stanford.edu
Sociolinguistics, Open Rank - Stanford University, California, United States
The Department of Linguistics at Stanford University seeks applicants for a junior or senior appointment at the rank of tenure-track Assistant Professor, tenured Associate Professor, or Full Professor...
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
The rich are bad people, scientifically speaking
theguardian.com
Rich people more likely to steal children’s sweets, finds Ig Nobel prize-winning study
We round up the winners at awards for achievements that ‘first make people laugh and then make them think’
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Michael Israel @subcontrarian.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
🐦🐦
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dave wagner @davewagner.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
rough day? you look like you could use a helping hand from a 20 lbs orange himbo cat who is high on life and possibly other things maybe (look i don't watch him 24 hours a day, who even knows what he's up to).
an orange and white cat with saucer eyes extends his paw toward the camera
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Matt Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Deadline Sept 21: Asst. prof., cognitive psych (areas of interest include "attention, perception, working memory, cognitive control, psycholinguistics, and quantitative modeling"), Psychology, Iowa State Univ. isu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/IowaStateJob...
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Tom McCoy @rtommccoy.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
🤖🧠NEW PAPER🧠🤖 (The result of an 8-year project!) LLMs seem very different from symbolic systems. Yet LLMs excel in symbolic domains (e.g., language/code/math). How do they do it? Our finding: LLM representations have implicit symbolic structure! Link in thread ⬇️ 1/n
Overview of the paper. 
Title: The Emergent Symbolic Structure of Artificial Neural Networks
Authors: Tom McCoy, Paul Soulos, Tal Linzen, Paul Smolensky
Left: Neural networks encode information in vectors (there is then an image of a vector), yet they excel at tasks long thought to require symbolic structure (there is then an image of a symbolic representation, specifically a syntax tree). How do LLMs do it?
Right: We find that LLM representations can be closely approximated with symbolic structures. This approximation lets us edit the structure of an LLM’s output by editing the structure of its internal representations, as shown. There is then an image of two edits to LLMs. In the first one, the original input is 3 + 6 * 8, with an answer of 51. But if we swap the positions of the 3 and the 6, the output becomes 30. In the second one, the original input is a Python command repeating the list [Z, U] three times, producing [Z, U, Z, U, Z, U]. But if we edit the input in a way that adds a Q at the end of the input, the output becomes [Z, U, Q, Z, U, Q, Z, U, Q].
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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.
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Association for Laboratory Phonology @labphon.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
People tend to sound a little like someone they just heard talking. How good are they at controlling this phonetic imitation? Is it easier for some features than others? @kathrynck.bsky.social, @ohiostateling.bsky.social compare #convergence across tasks: doi.org/10.16995/lab... #LabPhon #openaccess
journal-labphon.org
Cognitive control in cross-dialect phonetic imitation
This paper explores deliberative and automatic processes in phonetic imitation across geographic dialects. 136 American English speakers shadowed an Australian model talker and were instructed to imit...
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Reminder: Dolly Parton helped fund the Moderna vaccine for COVID.
nytimes.com
Dolly Parton, who helped fund the Moderna vaccine, gets a ‘dose of her own medicine.’ (Published 2021)
The country music star broke into song before she was inoculated, and urged her fans to “get out there and get your shot.”
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
like the reason Dolly feels like an exceptional human being is because all the things we're talking about today in her lifetime of philanthropy trace back to just .... having empathy and we live in the era of "I Don't Know How to Explain to You That You Should Care About Other People"
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Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
2025-26: the first year Canadian universities employed more tenured/TT professors over the age of 70 than under the age of 35.
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Laurel Brehm @drlearnasaurus.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
What a cool idea! I’d love to try a similar event.
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Scoop: For nearly a year, NSF has struggled to make new grants. Now we know that it will not catch up. In fact, NSF will award just 6,100 new grants—a 30% y/o/y decline, itself down from a previous avg. of 11,000+. In fact, the last time NSF awarded so few grants was in the early '80s.
nature.com
Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades
The US science-funding agency is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.
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Neil P Bardhan @neilpbardhan.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Log off. Find a muffin.
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Jamie Reilly 🦜 @reilly-coglab.com · 20/08/2026
Temple U assigned my trans daughter to an all male dorm. They have no remaining gender inclusive single rooms - which we thought we had. We are heartbroken. Unloading the car back at home, kid in tears. Don’t even know what to say now, but you can bet I will soon. It won’t be pretty.
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Laurel Brehm @drlearnasaurus.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I’ve been in the research blahs this week But I got a citation alert that the contrast coding manifesto was cited in an urban planning paper, which is so affirming because I tried so so hard to aim for accessibility and this is objective proof of success on that aim.
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Canaan Breiss @canaan.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Come be my colleague! I'm not in the committee, but can try to answer (or at least suggest routing for) questions! linguistlist.org/issues/37/27...
linguistlist.org
LINGUIST List 37.2706 Jobs: Syntax: Assistant Professor in Syntax, The University of Chicago
The LINGUIST List, International Linguistics Community Online.
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Liina Pylkkänen @liinapy.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
✨Excited to announce a new post-doctoral position in my lab, focussed on the neural capacity limits of language processing using magnetoencephalography! Apply here: wp.nyu.edu/neurolinglab...
wp.nyu.edu
Postdoctoral position – NYU Neurolinguistics Lab
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Ramin Nasibov @nasibov.me · 12/08/2026
If you missed the solar eclipse, this is what it looked like:
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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.
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Daniel Lakens @lakens.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The Metacheck team is busy building an improved version of the osf_download function (www.scienceverse.org/metacheck_bo... ). You will soon be able to use metacheck to download all files, wikis, and meta-data. You will also be able to upload everything to Zenodo.
scienceverse.org
36  Checking Local Files with repo_check and code_check – The Metacheck Manual
A guide to Metacheck, an R package providing a module based tool for checking scientific manuscripts and data repositories for best practices using text search, R code, and optional LLM queries.
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Harriet Sheppard @harrietsheppard.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The USP #Linguistics webinar is on in 2 hours (4pm FJT - UTC-12). This month, the fantastic lineup of panellists will be discussing archives and archiving for Pacific languages and cultures. All welcome! Zoom link in alt text @paradisec.bsky.social #PacificLanguages
Language Matters in the Pacific webinar: Archives and archiving for Pacific languages and cultures
Date: Wednesday, 12 August 2026, 4.00 – 6.00pm (Fiji Time)
Abstract
This webinar considers the importance of language and culture archives for the Pacific region. Panellists explain what we can learn from archives about our pasts and how archived materials can be used in contemporary settings to help sustain or reestablish connections to linguistic and cultural heritage. They will touch on practical issues such as accessibility and visibility of archives for the general public; safeguarding and digitisation of data in the face of technological changes; and opportunities for training and skills building for those wanting to work with archives. They will also consider critical questions such as who owns the data that is stored in archives, who gets to decide how ‘open’ data should be, and how sensitive data should be handled.
 
Panellists
Ms. Moira Zeta Enetama (MP and Former Director of Tāoga Niue)
Mr. Steven Gagau (Cultural Advisor and Metadata Enrichment Specialist, PARADISEC – the Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures)
Ms. Vaine-Tutai Parima (Senior Library Assistant and Cook Islands Māori Lecturer, Cook Islands Campus, USP)
Mr. Richard Shing (Director, Vanuatu Cultural Centre)
Dr. Tarisi Vunidilo (Assistant Professor, California State University)
Moderator
Dr. Nicholas Halter (Senior Lecturer in History, USP)
 
Zoom link: https://usp-fj.zoom.us/j/86891437088?pwd=j2b9O7kRpQ6zWbn4NRgxUYmpZ52yQZ.1
Passcode: ?ZM35d3!w
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