iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

📢 We’re hiring! We are looking for a postdoc for a funded inter-lab project on the computational mechanisms of creativity and humor, and their role in communication and neurodivergence. 🧠✨ Questions? DM me @amirtal.bsky.social or @yoedkenett.bsky.social Please RT to help us spread the word!

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Had a great time at the #OrchardOCD conference two weeks ago! It's been a while since I did OCD research, and this wonderful conference has managed to re-spark my interest in the field. Looking forward to diving back into some projects! 🧠✨ #OCDResearch #ComputationalPsychiatry

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

(7/7) We are incredibly proud of this paper—the first in our lab's new journey into semantic alignment! Massive kudos to Siham Abu-Ali and @tanya-philippova.bsky.social for their fantastic work. Check it out here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

osf.io

OSF

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

(6/7) Thus, semantic misalignment may reflect a socially motivated modulation of identity rather than a mere failure of coordination. This may shed light on mechanisms of interpersonal distancing, communication breakdowns in neurodivergence, and broader patterns of social polarization

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

(5/7) In another experiment, we made alignment even simpler: we repeated cues, and showed participants the associations their partner (who tended to repeat their own associations) previously reported for a given cue. Again, we found less motivation to align with atypical partners.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

(4/7) Our results show a fascinating dynamic! One possible strategy to maximize alignment is to produce more typical associations. Whereas people produce more typical associations in interaction, *they do so less when interacting with an atypical or difficult-to-align-with partner*.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

(3/7). But what happens when your conversation partner produces highly incoherent responses? In a new preprint, led by the brilliant Siham Abu-Ali, we tested this across four experiments using a novel word association task, where dyads generate associations to shared cues.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

(2/7). Conversations are usually about building common ground. We typically consider shared meaning to be the normative trajectory of linguistic interaction. More specifically, social interactions usually motivate us to produce conventional associations to align with others.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

🚨Preprint alert🚨 Research on discourse incoherence (e.g., in psychosis) usually focuses on patients' language, but what happens to people who interact with misaligned partners? Using a novel approach, we show evidence for reciprocity in semantic misalignment. 🧵👇 osf.io/preprints/ps...

osf.io

OSF

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

(8/8) We hope this work helps bridge NLP in psychiatry and theory-driven computational modeling by highlighting the potential use of simulations to enhance understanding. A huge thanks to @schizbulletin.bsky.social, the editor, and the insightful reviewers for their pivotal input.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

(7/8) These new 'semantic density metrics' were also better at detecting repetitiveness in a reanalysis of a previous dataset, particularly for psychopathological dimensions corresponding with depressive and internalizing symptoms more generally. An interesting finding for future work!

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

(6/8) Findings: Cosine distance metrics were suboptimal in detecting simulated perseveration. They were outperformed by new semantic density metrics using dimensionality reduction to examine (roughly speaking) if a smaller number of sentences could have conveyed the same message.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

(5/8) To tackle this, we used generative language modeling to simulate texts characterized by derailment, repetitiveness, or both, and tested whether different NLP metrics could accurately capture these manipulations.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

(4/8) This leads to the key questions: Should we predict larger or smaller cosine distances in psychosis? What happens when derailment and repetitiveness in language co-occur?

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

(3/8) But here’s a conundrum: Early findings correlated psychosis with greater cosine distances between utterances, yet recent studies found the opposite. Reduced distances may reflect repetitive language, common in psychosis, but also in other conditions, like depression🤷‍♂️

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

(2/8) With the rise of Language Models, NLP in psychiatry is rapidly growing. Cosine distance metrics, for instance, are widely used to capture derailment and other forms of incoherence in conditions like psychosis.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

(1/8) So proud to share our new paper, led by the brilliant Robin Qullivic, aiming to improve the theoretical & psychometric transparency of #NLP in #Psychiatry, focusing on metrics for language repetitiveness. Preprint: hal.science/hal-05086512/ Full paper: doi.org/10.1093/schb...

doi.org

Characterizing the Paradoxical Interplay of Semantic Perseveration and Derailment in Psychiatry Using Theory-Driven Generative Language Simulations

AbstractBackground and Hypothesis. Formal thought disorder (FTD), characterized by derailment and perseveration, is a central feature in psychosis and can

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Reposted by Isaac Fradkin

Eric Schulz @ericschulz.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

🚀 We are hiring! 🚀 🔍 Join us as a Postdoctoral Researcher (fully-funded) at the Helmholtz Institute for Human-Centered AI in Munich.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Hesitant to step outside science here, yet I must share this letter: docs.google.com/document/d/1... A group of Israeli psychology faculty speak out clearly against the government's decisions and the resulting devastation in Gaza and the risk to hostages. In hopes of peace and safety for all.

docs.google.com

A Letter by Israeli Social Psychologists

Dear friends of the Social Psychology community, After October 7, a group of Israeli social psychologists, including many of us, wrote a letter expressing our deep shock at the massacre, abuse, rape,...

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Reposted by Isaac Fradkin

Paul Sharp @paulbsharp.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

What an awesome #CPConf2025! If you're interested in funded PhD or PostDoc opportunities (remote possible) do reach out (Paul.sharp@biu.ac.il). we have exciting new paradigms modelling planning, meta- control, offline learning, and their relation to psychopathology. See: Sharplabbiu.github.io

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

If you are coming to #CPConf2025, come say hello! Also, please check out the cool🆕work from our Thought Dynamics Lab! 💭 Semantic cognition, Ostracism, Theory-driven Generative Language Modeling, Perseverative speech.

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Reposted by Isaac Fradkin

Pete Hitchcock @pf-hitchcock.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

🚨 We are looking for a research specialist (lab manager) for my lab at Emory (translational-lab.com). tinyurl.com/muer3ybb * Great match to prepare for clinical psych or computational cog sci grad school * Time reserved each week for independent work/professional development Please RT 🔄 !

tinyurl.com

Careers | Emory University | Atlanta GA

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Join the Thought Dynamics Lab! 💭 We seek PhD students passionate about computational psychiatry, thought dynamics, NLP, communication, and semantic alignment. 🔗 sites.google.com/view/thought... Consider applying for the new, prestigious, and generous Insight Scholarship!

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Reposted by Isaac Fradkin

Paul Sharp @paulbsharp.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Our lab has an opening for a postdoctoral fellow. We're working on models of planning and their disruption in anxiety. We have access to OPM-MEG scanning, VR, and deep phenotyping of clinical and non-clinical populations. Apply now! see here: www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/41...

linkedin.com

Bar-Ilan University hiring Postdoctoral Fellowship - Sharp Lab in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv District, Israel | LinkedIn

Posted 5:59:53 AM. The Sharp Lab at Bar-Ilan University is looking for a Postdoctoral fellows to conduct leading work…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

If you are coming to #ISCOP, please check out the cool🆕work from our thought dynamics lab! 💭 Semantic cognition, Interacting minds🧠, Computational modeling🧮, Ostracism, Social dynamics.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Join the Thought Dynamics Lab!💭 We seek postdocs passionate about computational psychiatry, thought dynamics, NLP, communication, and semantic alignment. sites.google.com/view/thought... Consider applying for the prestigious Azrieli Post-Doctoral Fellowship: azrielifoundation.org/fellows/inte...

sites.google.com

Thought Dynamics Lab

We study thought, communication, and psychopathology

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

If you find this work interesting, and would like to know more about how we use modeling and NLP to uncover semantic processes and mentalization in interacting individuals, please get in touch or see our lab website sites.google.com/view/thought...

sites.google.com

Thought Dynamics Lab

We study thought, communication, and psychopathology

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

I want to thank my amazing collaborators, Ray Dolan, Rani Moran, @drrickadams.bsky.social, and Noam Siegelman, Max Planck Centre for Computational Psychiatry, Editor and reviewers at Nature Mental Health, as well as the EU Horizon 2020 MSCA-IF program for supporting this work.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Our findings also extend previous work using NLP to characterize language incoherence in psychosis in a large, general population sample, thereby allowing for rigorous testing of the psychometric properties of different NLP measures.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Our finding that alterations in speech and thought are relatively specific is striking given the ubiquity of transdiagnostic findings in psychopathology. Notably, the relevant dimensions were distinctly interpersonal, reflecting the inherently social nature of language.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Whereas Formal Thought Disorder, prevalent in psychosis, is usually diagnosed based on speech incoherence, computational modeling of associative output allowed us to uncover disorganized semantic retrieval as a core mechanism, evident even when language output is intact.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Our findings suggest a core mechanism underlying language incoherence in psychosis is more widespread than commonly assumed, while also showing notable specificity to particular dimensions of psychopathology.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

We aimed to map alterations in thought and discourse across dimensions of psychopathology and detail their underlying mechanisms. We combine a transdiagnostic approach, inspired by @clairegillan.bsky.social, @tobywise.bsky.social, and others, with NLP and comp. modeling of associative thinking.

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Isaac Fradkin @fradkinisaac.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

I’m excited to share our new, open-access paper published today in NatMentHealth, “Latent mechanisms of language disorganization relate to specific dimensions of psychopathology”. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

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