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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)

@ibandlank.bsky.social
733 followers 265 following 60 posts

Cognitive (neuro)scientist studying language @ UCLA Psych (BlankLangLab.com). Views are my own. He/Him. RT ≠ endorsement. 🏳️‍🌈

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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Kanishka Misra @kanishka.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Come be my colleague and teach meaning at UT Austin Linguistics!
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Tomer’s advice (including in the original post) strongly resonates with me! Also, re: gen AI—if you can’t be bothered to write your own statements, it indicates you won’t do your own research in grad school, and I think it’s a waste of my time to mentor someone like that.
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Receiving what I'm 99% sure are AI-generated emails from students in my lab, and AI-generated replies to comments on manuscripts. All due respect to increasing productivity, I'd much rather mentor humans. This is SO insulting.
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Arthur Prat @arthurpr4t.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
We derived six laws of psychophysics from a single efficient-coding equation. The laws include Weber's law; scaling laws in visual working memory (which had been noted before, but with unclear theoretical justification); Wei & Stocker's law of human perception; arthurprat.com/pdfs/Prat-Ca...
arthurprat.com
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Kanishka Misra @kanishka.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I am looking for two emergency reviewers on standby for ARR August. Topics include theory of mind interp in LMs and grammar induction! Please DM/email
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Apparently I've been doing it wrong.
Text saying "Assistant Professor roles with over $550K/yr salary" from Linkedin
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Russ Poldrack @russpoldrack.org · 03/09/2026
We are searching for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position, with a research focus on developmental and/or social psychology. Please apply or forward to anyone who might be interested! facultypositions.stanford.edu/jobs/assista...
facultypositions.stanford.edu
Assistant Professor, Psychology - Stanford University, California, United States
The Department of Psychology at Stanford University is seeking applicants for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position, with a research focus on developmental and/or social psychology. In addition ...
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
aaron bornstein @aaronbornstein.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
UC Irvine Cognitive Sciences is hiring! Focus on social cognition, broadly construed. Come be my colleague :) I am not on the search committee but happy to talk about the campus, environment, careers, etc any time. recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF10411
recruit.ap.uci.edu
Assistant Professor - Cognitive Sciences
University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
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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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
One solution I'm using that meets several of MIT's recommendations for AI-aware education is described in this 10min video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylcF.... It works VERY well (but still imperfect), and can be used for joint work on assigned readings, colab notebooks, discussions, and more!
youtube.com
Dr. Idan Blank: ACCOUNTABLE & AUTHENTIC LEARNING IN THE AGE OF UNCHECKED & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
YouTube video by CEILS Media
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Cue the “viewpoint diversity” bros to explain why we should all have a race scientist in our departments (while no one challenges them because they are “senior”)
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Colin Phillips @colinphillips.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
We are recruiting a lab manager for our new Psycholinguistics Lab in Oxford! Good opportunity for young researchers, e.g., post-bac/masters. Open to applicants from the UK or abroad. Full details here: my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
Photo of a statue outside Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
New resource: intro workshop on contextual embeddings in Language Models! Free, standalone Google Colab notebook with lots of explanations. Built for psycholing/cogsci folks (and anyone curious about LM internals). No coding required! Just edit-and-run. 🧵 github.com/idanblank/LM...
github.com
LM-embedding-workshop-data/LM_embedding_workshop_notebook_public.ipynb at main · idanblank/LM-embedding-workshop-data
Data for a workshop on using LM contextual embeddings - idanblank/LM-embedding-workshop-data
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Matt Goldrick @mattgoldrick.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Open until filled (🚨🚨apply now!🚨🚨): Postdoc, speech acoustics and major depressive disorder, with me!, Northwestern Linguistics (working with folks in Psychology and Psychiatry). faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/matt-goldric...
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Made my day - my course "Minds in Brains and Machines" (and "Language as a Cognitive Science") had some unexpected real-world value! Here's a text I got this morning from my past student and RA, Ashley Kim.
A text message reading: Idan! How are you doing? I wanted to give a huge thank you because I got hired at my dream company for knowing Marr’s levels of analysis! So much gratitude for how you taught your classes so thoroughly with knowledge I’ll remember forever!
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Open Mind
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Do language models know who did what to whom? Led by grad student @josephdenning.bsky.social, and Hannah Guo (when she was the first undergrad RA in the lab!)
direct.mit.edu
Do Language Models Know Who Did What to Whom?
Abstract. Language models (LMs) are commonly criticized for not “understanding” language. However, many critiques focus on cognitive abilities that, in humans, are distinct from language processing. H...
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
I recently submitted a manuscript to OpenMind, and the review process was excellent—much better than many other journals I had submitted to! Highly recommended :)
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
For years I’ve always started with the same word… I was not prepared for this.
A Wordle badge earned by solving the puzzle in one guess
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Every time a word violates a textbook grammatical rule, a corpus linguist gets their wings. (Lucas Zelnick using a predicative adjective before the noun)
Lucas Zelnick in a stand up show, telling an audience member: “you have an alive ex-wife”. Screenshot of an Instagram reel.
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Evidence against syntactic encapsulation in “syntax-specialized” attention heads - now with the thread from Thomas!
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
Evidence against syntactic encapsulation in large language models onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Evidence Against Syntactic Encapsulation in Large Language Models
Transformer-based large language models (LLMs) have recently demonstrated exceptional performance in a variety of linguistic tasks. LLMs primarily combine information across words in a sentence using...
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Adele Goldberg @adelegoldberg.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Idan Blank (UCLA, psych) makes the complex intuitive if you want to learn how LLMs work, watch👇 newly posted to YouTube (no ads) www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMn...
youtu.be
How Transformers Work: A Detailed, Conceptual Explanation (No Coding / Math)
YouTube video by IbanDlank
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Anna (Anya) Ivanova @neuranna.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Looking forward to #CogSci2025 ! Find us throughout the conference
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Noga Zaslavsky @nogazs.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
📣 I'm looking for a postdoc to join my lab at NYU! Come work with me on a principled, theory-driven approach to studying language, learning, and reasoning, in humans and AI agents. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/170656 And come chat with me at #CogSci2025 if interested!
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Dr Anna Leshinskaya @annaleshinskaya.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Thrilled to announce our symposium, Cognitively Inspired Interpretability inn Large Neural Networks, at #CogSci2025 featuring @taylorwwebb.bsky.social, Ellie Pavlick, Jiahai Feng, Gustaw Opielka, ‪‪@claires012345.bsky.social‬, and Idan Blank!
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Explaining “viewpoint diversity”, a senior faculty told me—a gay person—that if we don’t hire people who oppose living near gay people, we’ll never hire from countries where most people oppose gay rights, and that’s discrimination. How am I supposed to handle that?
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
Does training LLMs on word prediction result in human-like representation of thematic roles? Work by @josephdenning.bsky.social, Hannah Guo, and Bryor Snefjella who is no longer with us
arxiv.org
Do Large Language Models know who did what to whom?
Large Language Models (LLMs) are commonly criticized for not understanding language. However, many critiques focus on cognitive abilities that, in humans, are distinct from language processing. Here, ...
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Lauren Forrest @laurenforrest.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
1/x My NIH grant that would collect data to help *prevent suicidal thoughts and behaviors* among LGBTQ+ people was terminated today, along with many other LGBTQ+ focused grants. These terminations make no sense scientifically. Here's why:
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Ruimin Gao 高睿敏 @ruimingao.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Excited to introduce funROI: A Python package for functional ROI analyses of fMRI data! funroi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ #fMRI #Neuroimaging #Python #OpenScience Work w @neuranna.bsky.social 🧵👇
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Leyla Isik @lisik.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
New preprint “Monkey See, Model Knew: LLMs accurately predict visual responses in humans AND NHPs” Led by Colin Conwell with @emaliemcmahon.bsky.social Akshay Jagadeesh, Kasper Vinken @amrahs-inolas.bsky.social @jacob-prince.bsky.social George Alvarez @taliakonkle.bsky.social & Marge Livingstone 1/n
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Martin Hebart @martinhebart.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
People talk a lot about objects, but what about the softness of a cushion, the greenness of an emerald, or the viscosity of oil? In our work just published @pnas.org, we shed light on how we make sense of the hundreds of materials around us. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
It's the *anti-DEI* drive now that has outsiders acting "like many faculty members' direct supervisor and telling them how and what to teach." DEI officials never reviewed syllabi or challenged course titles or targeted entire fields of scholarship. That's what the anti-DEI forces do.
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Jamie Reilly 🦜 @reilly-coglab.com · 26/02/2025
Submit your discourse studies to this SI of Cortex. I’m co-editing with the fabulous @briellestark.bsky.social and @andreaeyleen.bsky.social. May 1 deadline.
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Prof. EAGZ @emmmilygz.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Come work with me! We're hiring a 3-year Visiting Assistant Prof in Semantics, bonus if you can teach courses in other areas too. We're a small liberal arts college just outside Philly with a robust undergrad Ling dept. Full info at apply.interfolio.com/160957 Feel free to ping me with any Qs! 🐦🐦 🧪
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Francisco Pereira @franciscopereira.bsky.social · 11/02/2024
Interested in a researcher position studying the neural and computational bases of adaptive and maladaptive decision-making, and their relationship to mental health? Our colleague Silvia Lopez-Guzman is hiring a Data Scientist/Data Analyst, read more at cdn-lab.github.io .
A logo of the National Institute of Mental Health
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Gary Lupyan @glupyan.bsky.social · 22/12/2023
Registration for #Evolang2024 is now open! And in addition to a great regular program, we have 7 amazing workshops! evolang2024.github.io
aerial view of the Madison isthmus - evolang fifteen - Madison, Wisconsin May 18-21, 2024
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Jon Brennan @jonrbrennan.bsky.social · 21/12/2023
We are now accepting submissions for HSP2024 at UMich! Deadline: Jan 8th. See the CfP for details.
hsp2024.github.io
HSP 2024 - Call for Papers
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 20/12/2023
My first post-doc, Bryor Snefjella, unexpectedly passed away last year. Before leaving the lab, he drew some punny sketches on the whiteboard. To commemorate him, I asked undergrad Faustine Wang to turn them into a poster, which we hung in the lab today. Rest in peace, friend.
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 06/12/2023
Me applying for grants.
instagram.com
@travellifes_ on Instagram: "Unbelievable 😱"
8,028 likes, 428 comments - travellifes_ on December 5, 2023: "Unbelievable 😱"
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 09/11/2023
A video shows UCLA pro-Palestenian protestors hitting and punching a piñata of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. I despise that man, and yet... this is unacceptable.
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 08/11/2023
Mac email search is the WORST system I've encountered. Can't even do simple string match.
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Anna (Anya) Ivanova @neuranna.bsky.social · 06/11/2023
First post and big news - I am starting as an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Georgia Tech in Jan 2024! www.language-intelligence-thought.net
language-intelligence-thought.net
LIT Lab
Our goal is to understand the relationship between language and human thought. How does the language network in the brain interact with other systems to interpret meaning in the world? Can models...
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Daniel Acuna @danielacuna.bsky.social · 25/10/2023
Tenure/tenure-track faculty positions in NLP in CS. Looking for people in science of science! Super interdisciplinary dept, great place to work and grow, amazing location. Learn more jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta... Feel free to reach out and ask about the position and details.
jobs.colorado.edu
Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Search in Natural Language Processing
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Namnezia 🥑 @namnezia.bsky.social · 25/10/2023
The Department of Neuroscience at brown is looking to hire tenure track assistant professors in any field of neuroscience! Come join our inclusive community of scholars and educators! For details check out: apply.interfolio.com/132440
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Naomi Caselli @naomicaselli.bsky.social · 25/10/2023
We have a job opening in AI and Education as part of an AI cluster hire at Boston University. If you're doing work at the intersection of AI and Education--very broadly defined--please apply! www.bu.edu/cds-faculty/...
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 25/10/2023
Graduate programs: when you send faculty a link to upload rec letters please state the deadline in the email. Why do I even have to say this.
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Reposted by Iban Dlank (b↔︎d)
Konrad Kording @kordinglab.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
I will probably hire one PhD student for science of science and one to fit big models to neural data/ neuroAI. Relevant prior experience and love for nerding out/ building algorithms and math will be needed.
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
Excited to share with you a conversation that I had with Justine Boone on his podcast #LivingUntitled, about the relationship between language and thinking in humans and AI. Available on Apple / Google Podcasts and Spotify! www.livinguntitled.com #UntitledFuture
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Iban Dlank (b↔︎d) @ibandlank.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
The pushback my colleagues and I get when proposing *any* small EDI-related action (not to mention big actions)... Why is everything a battle and why do we invoke fake "complexities" to challenge new ideas but never to question the status quo.
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