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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮

@jinjingjenny1.bsky.social
661 followers 251 following 40 posts

human mom of two developmental cognitive scientist @Rutgers co-Host @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social more info sites.rutgers.edu/jinjing-jenny-wang

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Reposted by Jenny Wang 👶 🧮
Gregor Kachel @gregork.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
New Paper w/ @elmanubohn.bsky.social out in #ChildDevelopment smoothly tracing children's comprehension of various-symbol-referent relationships in the graphic domain across the preschool years with three studies, probing direct representations, part-whole relations and form analogies (Study 1)...
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Such a lovely introduction to a new special issue of JOV honoring Eileen Kowler's contributions to vision science. She was a true trailblazer and an incredible mentor. jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx...
jov.arvojournals.org
Introduction to the Special Issue: Eye movements as windows to the mind: The integration of eye movements, perception, attention, and cognition—Honoring the contributions of Eileen Kowler | JOV | AR...
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
finished a fiction about how souls of humans and spirits are taken by a machine to fuel itself and the world became total darkness… until it gets eventually saved by a bunch of devoted artists… sounds awfully realistic these days (but the artist part is hopeful at least?) #AI #art #doom
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We’re back with episode 2 of “A Conversation with a Future Luminary”! Jenna talks with UMass Boston graduate students, @ckoolh.bsky.social and @quinnpham.bsky.social about time management, working memory, episodic future thinking, collecting data in museums, and much more! itsinnate.fireside.fm/45
itsinnate.fireside.fm
A conversation with future luminaries #2: Candice Koolhaas and Quinn Pham
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steven t. piantadosi @spiantado.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A gigantic test, 650 infants across 30 laboratories, finds "no evidence" for Marcus et al.'s ABB rule learning: "to the contrary, a Bayesian analysis of the data indicated strong evidence for a null effect."
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Candice Koolhaas @ckoolh.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
@quinnpham.bsky.social and I were on the It’s Innate podcast! Thank you @jennadistefano.bsky.social @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social @deontbenton.bsky.social for the opportunity!!! It was so much fun to chat about our PhD projects! open.spotify.com/episode/4l1w...
open.spotify.com
Episode 45: A conversation with future luminaries #2: Candice Koolhaas and Quinn Pham
The It's Innate! Podcast · Episode
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
totally agreed! i banned phones and computers from my class this semester, including for myself! the class discussions have been so vibrant and thoughtful! i can directly see learning happening in their brains! although it scared away a few students at the beginning 😂
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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Mathematicians out here saying it is not the proof that matters, but the human understanding of the proof. We are all humanists now.
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
A thought-provoking piece by my esteemed colleague Jake! Although I disagree that the framework dissolves the nativist-empiricist debate, at least not for folk psychologists (and developmentalists like myself). More in our recent Psych Sci paper bsky.app/profile/jinj...
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
New ep! 🚨 Prof. Tamar Kushnir talks about her academic path & training alongside some of cognitive science’s biggest names such as Prof. Alison Gopnik. Then we chat about her latest third-person belief-revision paper & debate whether associative learning can explain it. itsinnate.fireside.fm/42
itsinnate.fireside.fm
Change starts with believing that things can be different (with Tamar Kushnir)
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
In case you missed it, we released another episode! In it, we chat with Professor Tamar Kushnir -- Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University -- about children's beliefs about others' belief change, among other things. Check it out, yeah? itsinnate.fireside.fm/42
itsinnate.fireside.fm
Change starts with believing that things can be different (with Tamar Kushnir)
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
New ep! 🚨 We’re kicking off our new series, “A Conversation with a Future Luminary,” hosted by @jennadistefano.bsky.social, spotlighting grad student life and research. First up: Rachel Foster on grad school, sociocultural influences on delay of gratification, and more! itsinnate.fireside.fm/43
itsinnate.fireside.fm
The ultimate delay of gratification test? Graduate school.
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
An inspiring conversation! But also a mystery... Give it a listen and find out what crime was committed!
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Thank you for the tip! Online talk is a great idea!! (and I'd be happy to give an online talk in (the generic) your department/lab! if my research is relevant, of course!)
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Thank you for sharing this! #hiddencurriculum Important tip for junior faculty (or all career levels!?) 👉
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
seeking help 🆘 a senior colleague advised that i need to give more invited talks to strengthen my tenure case... how do i find such opportunities?
static.klipy.com
Wirt from Over The Garden Wall Looks Awkward
ALT: Wirt from Over The Garden Wall Looks Awkward
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
An inspiring conversation for researchers at every stage of your career (but especially those like me, that are suffering from imposter syndrome)!
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
This research has made me wonder what the implications might be for our research, if nature-nurture is indeed part of human thinking. Rutgers Today also wrote about it! www.rutgers.edu/news/nature-...
rutgers.edu
In the Nature-Versus-Nurture Debate, Intuition Is a Common Denominator
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Nicole McNeil @nicolemmcneil.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Early math skills are one of the strongest predictors of later academic success. That's why six governors are asking the American Academy of Pediatrics to encourage families to build numeracy through everyday games. Add your name: weareallsolvers.org/aap
weareallsolvers.org
National Guidance on Early Numeracy - We're All Solvers
Early numeracy has no national guidance. It should. Join governors, researchers, educators, and pediatric professionals calling on the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Surgeon General to gi...
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Alison Gopnik @alisongopnik.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
My commencement speech for the MIT School of Science, now online. I worked very hard on this, trying to put together the MIT scientists, children, human evolution, and the Lunar Society - I hope it provides some hope and inspiration in a hard time for science. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YNs...
youtube.com
Alison Gopnik Commencement Address | MIT School of Science 2026
YouTube video by MIT School of Science
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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Why won't nature-nurture go away? Maybe it's part of how we think! Xianwei Meng at Nagoya University used a bottom-up approach to study intuitive beliefs about how mental capacities develop, and saw a 2D structure resembling nature-nurture emerge consistently across cultures! Now in Psych Sci:
A 2D structure resembling nature-nurture emerged from people's intuitive beliefs about the development of different mental capacities
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Lizzie O'Leary @lizzieohreally.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
This entire Lost Science series the NYT has been doing is great: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/c...
nytimes.com
She Studied Ways to Make People Smarter
Jessica Cantlon had a grant with the U.S. Navy to explore whether people could improve spatial problem-solving skills through training. Then the program was cut.
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Alexis Smith-Flores @asmithflores.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
One year down at Lehigh! 🎉 This year we built the lab, did some cool science, and sent out our very first newsletter (tinyurl.com/5n978emu). I'm also excited to share that I'll be recruiting a PhD student this cycle! If you know any trainees who might be a great fit, please send them my way!
tinyurl.com
2026 Newsletter.pdf
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
New ep! 🚨 We chatted with Dr. Shari Liu (shariliu.bsky.social) about her recent Nature Reviews Psychology paper. How do infants make sense of other people's minds? According to Shari, part of the answer lies in understanding the physical world. itsinnate.fireside.fm/40
itsinnate.fireside.fm
Mind o̶v̶e̶r̶ Matter? (with Shari Liu)
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
In case you missed our latest episode, check it out below!
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
We are SO excited to chat with Dr. Shari Liu (@shariliu.bsky.social) about her scientific journey and, most importantly, about her recent Nature Reviews paper entitled "How physical information is used to make sense of the psychological world"!
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
NEW EPISODE 🚨 Part II is here! Jenny & Deon continue their discussion of Bayesian models and number cognition, including how Lee and Sarnecka used the same Bayesian model to test two competing theories of how children acquire number knowledge. itsinnate.fireside.fm/39
itsinnate.fireside.fm
Give-N you Bayes and Backpropagation (Pt. II)
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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
So excited about Jane's new work with our BabyView data!
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Well, would ya look at that! NSF is going to send >10% of its current budget to industry (read: tech start ups) instead of universities…it’s as if the admin is trying to dismantle our basic science mechanism and use it as a start up fund for private companies 💁🏻‍♀️ www.nsf.gov/tip/updates/...
nsf.gov
NSF announces $1.5B NSF X-Labs initiative to pursue generational breakthrough science efforts
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 14/05/2026
It's VERY important to understand what's happening with the NASA 🔭 budget. White House proposed cuts to everything *but* Artemis. The GOP-led House proposal restores the size of the budget BUT shifts spending, which is to say *House committee and White House agree on cutting NASA astrophysics* 🧪⚛️
spacenews.com
House appropriators approve spending bill that keeps NASA budget flat
The House Appropriations Committee advanced a spending bill May 13 that rejects many of the cuts to NASA proposed by the administration.
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Deon T. Benton @deontbenton.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
🔥
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
New ep! 🚨 In Part I of this 2-part episode, Jenny & Deon discuss connectionist modeling, developmental change, developmental tasks, one-hot vs. distributed representations, the give-N task, Bayesian models, Marr’s levels, & more. Stay tuned for Part II! itsinnate.fireside.fm/38
itsinnate.fireside.fm
Give-N you Bayes and Backpropagation (Pt. I)
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
The fun continues! In an upcoming episode, Jenny and Deon discuss connectionist modeling, then dive into Lee & Sarnecka (2010), their Bayesian model of the give-N task, and what a more mechanistically-oriented (in Marr's algorithm sense) connectionist version might look like
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Jenna DiStefano @jennadistefano.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Such a fun one!
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Deon T. Benton @deontbenton.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
This was an especially fun one, not least because we got to discuss one of my all-time favorite dev psych papers with none other than the first-author herself!
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
New ep! 🚨 We chatted with our editor Jenna's PI, Dr. Katie Graf Estes, about her academic journey, mentorship, and dealing with failure. We also discuss her Psych Science paper, "Can Infants Map Meaning to Newly Segmented Words?: Statistical Segmentation and Word Learning." itsinnate.fireside.fm/37
itsinnate.fireside.fm
From statistics to meaning (with Katie Graf Estes)
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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Many of us were taught experiments are for testing hypotheses. In Ch 1 of Experimentology, our free, open methods textbook, my coauthors and I argue differently: experiments are for estimating the magnitude of causal effects. This reframing has important consequences. 🧵 experimentology.io
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
New work from my lab! Young children find it easier to represent mutually-exclusive possible identities of an object than possible locations of an object - an early object-rep-architecture limitation on possibility reasoning! Work led by @esranur.bsky.social recently accepted in Open Mind ✨
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Viridiana L. Benitez @viribeni.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
This conversation was SO much fun! Thank you for the opportunity to talk about my journey and work! @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
New ep! 🚨 We chatted with Dr. Viridiana Benitez (viribeni.bsky.social) about her academic journey and mentorship. We also discuss her Current Biology paper, “Predictable Events Enhance Word Learning in Toddlers,” as well as her work on predictability and bilingualism. itsinnate.fireside.fm/36
itsinnate.fireside.fm
The goldilocks of predicability (with Viridiana Benitez)
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Cell Press @cellpress.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
"Prenatal behavioral contagion through maternal yawning and fetal resonance" Read more in Current Biology: spkl.io/63320AAVza Giulia D’Adamo & colleagues @currentbiology.bsky.social
graphical abstract
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Duaa Eldeib @deldeib.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
This was a hard story to report. Newborns who don’t get a vitamin K shot are 81 times more likely to develop a condition where they bleed uncontrollably. But more and more families are declining the shot. And babies are dying. www.propublica.org/article/more...
propublica.org
Babies Are Bleeding to Death as Parents Reject a Vitamin Shot Given at Birth
A lifesaving injection given at birth to prevent severe bleeding has become collateral damage of the anti-vaccine movement.
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
NEW: NSF has been funding research at a fraction of its historic rate. Last week, the agency finally began distributing money to its directorates and is now likely to pick up the grantmaking pace. But these allocations also amount to substantial cuts across the sciences. My reporting:
nature.com
Delays have kept new NSF grants to a trickle — that could be about to change
The agency is finally ready to distribute a spate of new grants, but it is also preparing substantial cuts to areas such as biological and social sciences.
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Vlad Ayzenberg @vayzenb.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
My (very) short piece on how prenatal experience with the mother's voice may rapidly scaffold the development of face perception in newborn infants is now out in @natrevpsychol.nature.com ! www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Prenatal and multimodal origins of face perception - Nature Reviews Psychology
Nature Reviews Psychology - Prenatal and multimodal origins of face perception
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Great news! It's Innate! is now available on Apple Podcasts! Listen and subscribe here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
podcasts.apple.com
The It's Innate! Podcast
Education Podcast · Updated Biweekly · Two opinionated developmental cognitive scientists wax theoretical about how infants and children acquire knowledge!
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
New ep! 🚨 In the first half, they discuss Jenny’s recent paper showing that children’s number estimates can be influenced by the gender of the person providing the estimate. In the second half, they talk about Deon's recent paper examining children's causal judgements. itsinnate.fireside.fm/34
itsinnate.fireside.fm
"There are only so many experiments one can do!"
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CantlonLab @cantlonlab.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Good to see journalists scrutinizing “The Edge Network,” an intellectual circle of academic men who think that women are inherently inferior to men. (and great interview by @laurenaulet.bsky.social) 19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...
19thnews.org
The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM
In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”
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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
New ep! 🚨 In it, we introduce a new member of our team — Jenna DiStefano (@jennadistefano.bsky.social) — and chat with her about her work — how Infant Directed Speech varies across context. With Jenna as our editor, we may *finally* be able to release episodes regularly! itsinnate.fireside.fm/33
itsinnate.fireside.fm
Finding common ground (with Jenna DiStefano)
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Deon T. Benton @deontbenton.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Indeed to the second part!
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Urvi Maheshwari ツ @urvi.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
By age 6, many children in the US believe that numbers are infinite, despite initially representing counting as a meaningless & finite chain of words. In a new paper w/ Jess Sullivan & @drbarner.bsky.social, we explored the basis for this conceptual change. 1/n www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Counting without end: A cross-linguistic exploration of infinity beliefs in English and Hindi learners
Recent studies (Cheung et al., 2017; Chu et al., 2020; Sullivan et al., 2023) argue that children may infer the existence of infinite magnitudes throu…
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