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Fantastic work led by PhD student @csavasegal.bsky.social with a big assist from former lab postdoc Dr. Clare Grall

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There's a lot more in the paper, but to me, seeing just how much can change in the *exact same brain* processing the *exact same stimulus* is a striking demo of how our brains represent info not according to its surface (sensory) features, but the latent frameworks we bring to understanding it

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We did follow-up analyses to identify subsets of these regions that appear to track interpretations of characters versus more punctate episodes, finding dissociable sets of regions for representing distinct narrative elements. We also did several control analyses to rule out confounding factors.

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Participants listened through the whole story twice, yielding a straightforward hypothesis: interpretations, and therefore neural representations, of *pre-twist* events will change more than those of *post-twist* events. Indeed, this was the case throughout a whole lot of the brain!

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We used a unique auditory story with a twist in the middle. *Spoiler alert*: while you initially think you're hearing a dialogue between a friendly store clerk and disgruntled shopper, you later realize the clerk is a killer robot and the shopper is fighting for his life in an apocalypse.

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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...

Very happy that this paper from our lab is now out in @pnas.org! What happens when the *same* person experiences the *same* information with a *different* interpretation? Nearly the whole 🧠—well, at least nearly all association cortex—changes how it represents that information! tinyurl.com/p8chj2j7

tinyurl.com

PNAS

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Huge congrats to @monicarosenb.bsky.social, an amazing scientist and even better friend

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Thanks Mon 😊 very honored to follow in your footsteps on this one -- wouldn't be here without you! (like actually)

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Congrats YC!! So happy to be in this year's cohort with you!

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

This one feels good 😊 Humbled and honored to be in the company of Spence Award winners, past and present. All credit goes to mentors, colleagues, and especially members of my lab -- thank you!!!

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Congrats!! So cool to see this out - love this work!

Jonathan Phillips @jsphillips.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Reposted by Emily Finn

We're excited to announce that Cognitive Science at Dartmouth is recruiting PhD students to work collaboratively with me, Steven Frankland, and Fred Callaway. Come study the principles and mechanisms that enable us to understand, plan, and act in the world! Info: sites.dartmouth.edu/cogscigrad/

sites.dartmouth.edu

Cognitive Science Graduate Admissions – Information about graduate admissions from the cognitive science faculty

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Hard to believe it's been 10 years!

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

This is such cool work! Congrats on getting the preprint out!

Stephanie Simpson @stefsimpson.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Reposted by Emily Finn

Is it time to put rest to rest? A great article by @esfinn.bsky.social , which cleverly lays out some unfound assumptions in the field of and an integrated way forward: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... It should be required reading for anyone using #resting-state or task-based #fMRI!

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Thanks so much for the shout-out!

Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Having severe FOMO for missing #OHBM2025, but please reach out if you are interested in postdoc opportunities in our lab! Enjoy the science and sunshine!!

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

"Don't conflate network labels w/ behavior" -- can we make bumper stickers out of this?? lol

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Reposted by Emily Finn

Johanna Joyce @johannajoyce.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Not long after I started my lab, a prominent scientist told me it was “impossible” to be a successful PI and a mother Don’t ever let the naysayers tell you it can’t be done - of course it can! #HappyMothersDay this weekend to all the amazing scientist mamas raising their wonderful kids 🥰

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Despite everything going on, I may have funds to hire a postdoc this year 😬🤞🧑‍🔬 Open to a wide variety of possible projects in social and cognitive neuroscience. Get in touch if you are interested! Reposts appreciated.

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Thanks so much! We'd love to hear any thoughts/comments

Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Alternative title: "LLMs don't have ears (or eyes)" What do humans and machines miss out on when processing language as purely written text, without all the embodied audiovisual richness that scaffolds language in daily human contexts? Very proud of this elegant work from @tommybotch.bsky.social

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Reposted by Emily Finn

Cognitive Neuroscience Society @cogneuronews.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

We're excited to hear this year's Young Investigator Award recipients @esfinn.bsky.social @andrebastosof.bsky.social talk about their award-winning research! And exciting to see them with some past winners @freekvanede.bsky.social @striemamit.bsky.social Join us in the Grand Ballroom! #CNS2025

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Second, Clara Sava-Segal @csavasegal.bsky.social looks at how we remember different subjective interpretations for the same information based on whether they are self- or other-generated at poster D110

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Two posters from our lab at #CNS2025 this morning! First, Kay Liang @kay-qiliang.bsky.social shows differences in how we perceive social interactions when we’re actually involved in them (first person) versus passively watching them (third person) at poster D99

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

This afternoon (Sun 1:30-3:30p) at #CNS2025, Zach Reagh @zreagh.bsky.social, Janice Chen, James Antony @jameswardantony.bsky.social, and I will be speaking in Symposium 1: Creating the structure of ongoing experience. Come by for a dose of narratives, events, causality etc @cogneuronews.bsky.social

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Thanks so much, Antonio!! 😊

Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

*So* honored to be a co-recipient of the CNS Young Investigator Award (along with André Bastos)! This was a fun interview. Really looking forward to the conference!

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Reposted by Emily Finn

tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Suppose you generated a sequence of 100 random numbers. Then one year later, you did it again. Do you think we could predict one sequence from the other? It turns out, we can! Now in press @ JEP:G with @samiyousif.bsky.social @actlab.bsky.social @robbrutledge.bsky.social; osf.io/preprints/ps...

osf.io

OSF

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Thanks, Luiz!! I'm so honored!

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Emily Finn @esfinn.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Thank you so much!! I'm very honored

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Reposted by Emily Finn

Dartmouth Psychological and Brain Sciences @dartmouthpbs.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

For the Dartmouth PBS graduate student visiting day this year, we introduced a new format based on the "Hot Ones" talk show: faculty and current graduate students ate nuggets with a series of increasing spicy hot sauces as they answered questions from prospective grad students! 🌶️🔥🥵

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Reposted by Emily Finn

Amy Kuceyeski @amykooz.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

As co-director of AI at the Ann S. Bowers Women’s Brain Health Initiative, I want women in data science to flourish. We thus launch the #WiDSDatathon 2025 Global challenge - open to all levels - now on Kaggle! Entrants will predict ADHD via fMRI, with sex differences in mind. youtu.be/ESbiTbnlbdM

youtu.be

WiDS Datathon 2025: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Female Brain

YouTube video by Women in Data Science Worldwide

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Totally sympathize! Clare, my former postdoc with a background in media studies who led this paper, often lamented that neuroimagers didn't leverage more insights from fields with long traditions of actually quantifying formal elements of these stimuli...guilty as charged, but trying to be better

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Might be an overstep...have you tested *all possible* movies?? 😜

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Clare Grall and I argued this in our recent review/perspective piece (excerpt below) and gave some practical recommendations for how to do this. Full paper here: academic.oup.com/scan/article...

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...so just as we don't expect all possible trait- or state effects to emerge in all tasks, we don't expect to see them in all movies. That said, I do think pushing ourselves to quantify *what it is* about a "naturalistic" stimulus that pulls out effects of interest will help us make progress...

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