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Melissa Kibbe

@levelsof.bsky.social
4.3K followers 1.3K following 481 posts

Cognitive Scientist, Associate Professor at Boston University, Director of the Developing Minds Lab www.bu.edu/cdl/developing-minds-lab

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Reposted by Melissa Kibbe
Tibor Tauzin @tibortauzin.bsky.social · 12h
The current non-replication of Marcus et al. (1999) may reflect this confound. DOI:10.1111/desc.70259 We have empirical data on infants' ability to differentiate between repetition of the same sound sequence vs variable sequences. It induces different oculomotor and brain responses in them.
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okay Kelly @kmdoublev.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
two hands grasping meme: Latin classes in October and me at movie night united by declining hocus pocus
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Jorge Morales @jorgemorales.me · 29/09/2026
Massive congratulations to my colleague @felipedebrigard.bsky.social for being awarded a MacArthur Fellowship! today.duke.edu/2026/09/duke...
today.duke.edu
Duke Scientist Awarded MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ | Duke Today
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Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 29/09/2026
For the first time in a while, a philosophy professor has been awarded one of the MacArthur genius grants...
dailynous.com
A Philosopher Among the MacArthur Fellows - Daily Nous
Felipe De Brigard, professor of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience at Duke University, principal investigator at the Imagination and Modal Cognition Lab, and core faculty of […]
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Lick Lips Tongue Out
Alt: A klingon licking lips
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This has nothing to do with this awesome paper, but one time I (a 5'2" person) found myself standing in a group of 8 other women who were all SHORTER than me, and it was one of the strangest feelings of my life. I felt like a giant. Never happened before or since.
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Michelle Greene @mgreenephd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Critically, height predicted observers' performance in a rapid categorization task: shorter observers performed better for faces in the upper visual field, while taller observers were better in the lower, consistent with their lived experience of faces. 5/
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Rebecca Peretz-Lange @rebeccaperetzlange.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
💥New paper! Not “Born that Way”: Homophobic Social Preferences and Non‐Essentialism of Sexual Orientation in Childhood dx.doi.org/10.1111/sode...
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I genuinely can't tell if this thread is sincere or if it's going for the same absurdist vibe as the CPSC account...
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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
sometimes i give people feedback on job market materials, and thought it might be useful to do a thread of some common feedback i find myself giving. just one guy's opinion (and one thing that can be frustrating about producing and getting feedback on these documents is that informed people *will*
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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
i think it's better to write from the perspective of someone who wrote a good dissertation, and is now poised to write many interesting journal articles (even if you are in fact in the midst of writing a dissertation).
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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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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Slowly realizing that many people believe "pumpkin spice" is supposed to contain actual pumpkin
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Experimental Philosophy @xphilosopher.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Anderson's idea is: Maybe philosophers' positions on these issues are unrelated to their personality traits because *they aren't really beliefs* Taking a position isn't really believing that something is true – it's more like a making a certain kind of move in the practice of being a philosopher
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mahwishkittur.bsky.social @mahwishkittur.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
After years of analyzing thousands of drawings from hundreds of adults and children, I am excited to share my first ever paper (w/ @samiyousif.bsky.social )! Using a simple drawing task, we show how topological structure is represented in the mind and its importance in spatial memory.
elifesciences.org
Topological structure in human spatial representation revealed through drawing
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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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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
My alma mater is hiring! Such an amazing department.
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Esra Nur Turan-Küçük @esranur.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Why do estimates of when kids can reason about multiple possibilities vary so widely? We argue it’s partly because common possibility reasoning tasks pile on ancillary demands that mask true possibility reasoning ability. psycnet.apa.org/record/2028-...
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I feel bad for anyone named Al these days
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Now out online! Why do kids sometimes bomb possibility reasoning tasks and other times totally nail it? We review the lit and show how differences in a set of common ancillary cognitive demands in these tasks "push around" the age at which children succeed - psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...
psycnet.apa.org
APA PsycNet
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Ashley Thomas @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Excited to finally have these data out! And, @deontbenton.bsky.social and Hoch’s paper inspired us to combine data to look at age effects from 4.5—19 months; w/ replication data from Ciftci, @jfkominsky.bsky.social & Csibra). Across 4 measures we find age effects in 1 (despite 4+x experience)
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
And here's the official journal version! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
New from me and Jessica Applin! We find that infants' behavior in a cracker choice task is impacted by an agent’s partial knowledge of object quantity: infants choose based on the agent's (inaccurate) representation rather than their own 🤯 Now in press at JECP, preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
OSF
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Me reading Fodor
meme of Homer Simpson walking and saying "everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974" with the word rock overwritten by the word philosophy
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
going to start printing my pre-reg documents and data files and mailing them to myself to be postmarked, like we used to do back in the day if we wanted docs to have an official time stamp
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Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Not to brag, but I can write a paper that makes a marginal and flat-footed contribution to a literature, does so in a needlessly technical way, and is a slog to read while spending $0 in Claude tokens
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bergelsonlab @bergelsonlab.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Pretty confused ab the coming @cos.io changes to OSF. looks like they’re phasing out “projects” (ie where u share/store code, stimuli, etc) which has been a keystone for our replicable pipelines: the info recreates our manuscript, figs, analyses, etc & lets u do ur own. Open science at its best! 1/4
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Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Good morning, scholars! It's time to put the noise of the world away and (say it with me!) Hit! The! Mother! Fucking! Tomes! Let's rise and cite!! 😤😤😤 To the scholarship!
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Now out in an issue! Children find it easier to represent uncertainty about *what* an object is than *where* an object is, with interesting implications for both early possibility reasoning and object representations ~~ Check it out 👉 direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
direct.mit.edu
Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”
Abstract. Young children struggle in situations involving mere possibility, such as when a target object could be in one of two possible locations. This difficulty is often interpreted as a general li...
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Now out in an issue! Children find it easier to represent uncertainty about *what* an object is than *where* an object is, with interesting implications for both early possibility reasoning and object representations ~~ Check it out 👉 direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
direct.mit.edu
Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”
Abstract. Young children struggle in situations involving mere possibility, such as when a target object could be in one of two possible locations. This difficulty is often interpreted as a general li...
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
New from me and Alan Leslie! We got the band back together to lay out our view on object representations in the infant mind: non-discursive indexes that operate within a language of thought, & which get development of a more complex object concept off the ground www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
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pbkalra.bsky.social @pbkalra.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
I’m excited to announce that I will be giving a talk at #CogSci2026 this week! Friday, July 24 Concepts II Session “Similarity Ratings Reveal Expert-Novice Differences in Knowledge Organization “ Brazil East: 15:45 EDT: 14:45 PDT: 11:45am Where: Ipanema room and online
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MSU Psychology @msupsychology.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Congratulations to Dr. Meltem Yucel on being elected as a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology! psychology.msu.edu/news-events/... @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social @moralmindslab.bsky.social
A headshot of Meltem Yucel with the word congratulations repeating in the background.


Congratulations to Dr. Meltem Yucel on being elected as a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology!

This honor recognizes Dr. Yucel's substantial contributions to social psychology as an empirical science. She joins a select group of researchers that grows by less than 5% each year.
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Laurel Joy Gabard-Durnam @laurelgd.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Honored and thrilled to receive the Early Career Award from @infantstudies.bsky.social! Thanks to my mentees and collaborators for making my research possible and to @nataliebrito.bsky.social for the very kind nomination and @drkoraly.bsky.social and Chuck Nelson for their letters of support!
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
How do ancillary cognitive demands systematically shape young children's behaviors in a range of possibility reasoning tasks? Find out in our new paper, now in press at Developmental Psychology!
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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
You press ‘send’ on a high-stakes email but hesitate when lifting your finger. You make a chess move but linger on the piece before letting go. Familiar? In @pnas.org, Hanbei Zhou @ruizhegoh.bsky.social @ianbphillips.bsky.social & I show that response *duration* tracks confidence! shorturl.at/A9NVe
Two images, one of a finger pressed a key, another of a hand on a chess pieceScreenshot of first page of paper, "Response duration tracks confidence"
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
YESSSSSSSSSS 🔥
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Elizabeth Bonawitz @ebonawitz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
As of today, I am officially a Full Professor. I would not wish pursuing the tenure-race twice on even my greatest enemies (you know who you are), but I am profoundly grateful to the mentors, colleagues, trainees, & incredible friends that have helped me along the way. share.google/QcorDYWiI5OI...
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Rebecca Peretz-Lange @rebeccaperetzlange.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Shoutout to my former undergrad Jane Singman (now @pearlhanli.bsky.social's lab manager), who helped me launch this project when I first started my own lab in 2021. She will soon be applying to PhD programs! 👀
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Rebecca Peretz-Lange @rebeccaperetzlange.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Now out in Child Dev: "If moms do it, it can't be that important: Children's reasoning about gender disparities in domestic work" academic.oup.com/chidev/advan... Kids' awareness that moms do most housework + their intrinsic explanations for this jointly predict their devaluing domestic work 🧵
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Tania Lombrozo @tanialombrozo.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
I wrote a book! It's called WHY WE ASK WHY, and it's about the human drive to explain, combining psychology, philosophy, and stories. It will be released on October 6, but it's currently available for pre-order from Barnes & Noble at 25% off with code PREORDER25.
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The HOPOS Journal @hoposjournal.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
The 2026 #HOPOS conference is underway! Hosted by The Ohio State University. A full roster of talks begins today with sessions on logical empiricism, Aristotle, the life sciences, sociology, and neo-Kantianism. Download the full program here: hopos2026.dryfta.com/81-program
hopos2026.dryfta.com
Program Booklet
81 program
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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Adding this sticker to the slides describing my thought experiments
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
looking forward to reading the hell out of this paper!
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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
‘Abstract contents? Hell yeah’— @levelsof.bsky.social, Stanton prize lecture
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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…another creative & impactful project from the rocket-fueled @talboger.bsky.social, applying the wickedly cool “visual anagrams” method to animacy! Read the paper in @elife.bsky.social today, then attend his presentation at @socphilpsych.bsky.social later this week. 🦆✈️
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Come find me at SPP (at my poster on June 18) to hear more, or even just to grab a coaster! Demo page here: www.perceptionresearch.org/anagrams_ani...
Coasters of our anagram stimuli, including for real-world size (right).
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Do we perceive animacy itself, beyond its lower-level visual correlates? In @elife.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social and I leverage “visual anagrams” — images whose interpretations change with orientation — to suggest the answer is: yes! elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Yessssss such a great paper, I'm so happy this is officially out!
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Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Huh, apparently there was never an S at the end of Caldor, Lechmere, or JC Penney...
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