Reposted by Mark ThorntonSANS @sansmeeting.bsky.social · 20hExciting news! SANS has received an R13 from the National Institute for Aging at NIH! It will provide support for trainee travel and programming focused on aging at the SANS Annual Meeting as detailed below: 093
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 30/09/2026What would you want to see in a textbook (free, online, jupyter/marimo style) about quantitative/computational approaches for analyzing naturalistic social interactions (e.g., face-to-face conversations)? I'm in the early phases of drafting one and would value external input on its audience's needs. 573
Reposted by Mark ThorntonRob Chavez @robchavez.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Our latest paper led by Taylor Guthrie with former undergrad RA Aussie Frost. We show that multivariate fMRI signals can decode the identity of specific individuals within the DMN and in the absence of visual features or other lower-level sensory information. link.springer.com/article/10.3... 12312
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 27/09/2026There are still 3 months left in 2026, and I have already reviewed significantly more papers than in any past calendar year. Yet simultaneously I have had to decline more review requests than ever. Not saying it's all AI's fault, but I have encountered some very blatant and counterproductive uses. 130
Reposted by Mark Thorntonwimpouw @wimpouw.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Here we go! We can finally share what Sharjeel Shaikh @sharjeelshaikh has been leading the work on with us! Consider participating in our detection challenge 0137
Reposted by Mark ThorntonSANS @sansmeeting.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Symposium submissions are now open for #SANS2027! Submissions must be made through the online submission portal by 23:59 (Eastern Time) on Tuesday, October 13, 2026. More details here: socialaffectiveneuro.org/symposia-sub...socialaffectiveneuro.orgSymposia Submission - Social Affective Neuroscience Society 054
Reposted by Mark ThorntonBenedek Kurdi @benedek.bsky.social · 17/09/2026🚀 Project Implicit’s critical work continues! Our website remains fully operational 24/7, collecting data and launching new studies. We are finalizing a new organizational structure to carry our research and educational mission forward. Thank you to our global community. ➡️ implicit.harvard.edu 02215
Reposted by Mark ThorntonChristopher Honey @chrishoney.bsky.social · 16/09/20261/ How do we sustain mental continuity in the face of interruption? @xianl-explorer.bsky.social found that, while people listen to a story, posterior medial cortex expresses a slowly evolving "background" representation of the story's context, which survived through silence and interfering tasks. 26828
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Yes sorry for the lack of clarity if you're outside the US! I usually specify the data source as the psych job wiki in the image itself (e.g. bsky.app/profile/mark...) but I realize now, while putting this together in a hurry, I accidently bumped that off screen while adjusting the legend this time. 120
Reposted by Mark ThorntonJonathan Peelle @jpeelle.bsky.social · 13/09/2026"I like milk and sugar in my _______" Classic work on prediction has used violation paradigms to study context and prediction. New work from my lab, led by Ryan O'Leary, compares semantic distance and GPT-2 surprisal in natural speech. #neuroscienceoflanguage www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...biorxiv.orgNeural tracking of surprisal and semantic distance in naturalistic movie viewingUnderstanding speech requires listeners to integrate incoming input with prior linguistic and thematic knowledge to access meaning, a task greatly aided by prediction. Surprisal and related phenomena ... 1201
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026The psychology job market may be showing some early signs of regaining strength, relative to last year. A week ago last year, fewer than 200 jobs had been listed - today, it is nearly 300, a figure we didn't hit till early October in '25. #psychjobs #neurojobs #academicjobs 37415
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Come join @elisabaek.bsky.social & me on the SANS social media committee! 021
Reposted by Mark ThorntonSANS @sansmeeting.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Interested in becoming a social and affective neuroscience influencer? SANS will soon be launching a new media initiative, in which we make short-form video content to reach a wider audience. If you're interested in joining this initative, please DM us here or email sans.media.chair@gmail.com! 033
Reposted by Mark Thorntonjerrytang.bsky.social @jerrytang.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Our new study on cross-participant cortical mapping (with @alexanderhuth.bsky.social) is out in @imagingneurosci.bsky.social! direct.mit.edu/imag/article... 1/7 1175
Reposted by Mark ThorntonContext Lab @contextlab.bsky.social · 08/09/2026In our latest study, led by @paxt0n4.bsky.social, we build a geometric framework to ask how our memories change with the passage of time ⏰ Title: Delayed recountings preserve but simplify the semantic geometry of earlier recountings Preprint: osf.io/mhxtd_v1 Code/data: github.com/ContextLab/m... 🧵osf.ioOSF 12610
Reposted by Mark ThorntonLT @lindseytepfer.bsky.social · 08/09/2026We don’t just lock on to our first impression of someone and call it a day. Instead, we regularly revise our appraisals as we learn more about them. But *how* do our brains make this process possible? Check out this fresh pre-print to see how we went about answering this question! 065
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Excited to share this new preprint from @lindseytepfer.bsky.social, @chujunlin.bsky.social, and me, in which we investigate the different ways our brains allow us to change our minds about people! "The neurocomputational mechanisms of naturalistic trait impression updating" osf.io/preprints/ps... 14714
Reposted by Mark ThorntonTy @tyanna.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Linguists! What are some sociophonetic variables typical among contemporary adolescence at extremely elite cosmopolitan boarding school-type institutions? Iconic New England WASP schools if we have to narrow. 176
Reposted by Mark ThorntonBrandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026New paper with Liz Spelke, @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social, and @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social! We find that when 4- to 6-month-old infants observe two individuals share saliva, they infer that those individuals have a close relationship. Free access link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1niQg_Oow0... 16622
Reposted by Mark ThorntonWilliam J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Registration is open for the 4th annual Computational Psychology preconference at @spspnews.bsky.social Annual conference in Philly 🎊 We are on for a full day on Thursday, Feb 11. 3 keynote themes + a debate that couldn't be more timely 🧵👇 1144
Reposted by Mark ThorntonHarrison Ritz @hritz.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Our task-switching paper is now out at Current Biology! www.cell.com/current-biol... We find that that our brains reset to a task-neutral state between trials, providing flexibility when the upcoming task is uncertain. RNNs also learn this strategy, but only when trained to switch tasks. 315665
Reposted by Mark ThorntonRebecca Saxe @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social · 05/08/2026When we started scanning human infants 13 years ago, it seemed likely that functional responses in infant cortex would be qualitatively different from adults. Instead we keep finding similarities between infants and adults. Even for scene perception, despite the slow development of navigation. 17313
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Very excited to share this preprint from me, @emmatempleton.bsky.social, @lindseytepfer.bsky.social & @thaliawheatley.bsky.social! "Friends and strangers engage in distinct regimes of body motion synchrony during conversation" osf.io/preprints/ps... 29636
Reposted by Mark ThorntonAssociation for Psychological Science @psychscience.bsky.social · 30/07/2026Meet @ycleong.bsky.social, assistant professor at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on how social context and affect construct subjective experience. Leong is also a 2026 APS Spence Award recipient www.psychologicalscience.org/publications... 0194
Reposted by Mark ThorntonAssociation for Psychological Science @psychscience.bsky.social · 29/07/2026Recent surveys suggest that nearly a quarter of American adults and 13% of adolescents have used #AI for socioemotional support or mental health advice. #LLMs But can a machine provide empathy? psychologicalscience.orgSeeking Empathy in the Age of AIFindings are pushing psychologists to ask not only whether AI can simulate empathy, but what empathy requires in the first place. 031
Reposted by Mark ThorntonDartmouth Arts and Sciences @dartmouthartsci.bsky.social · 28/07/2026“We are not getting AI empathy. We are getting a synthesis of human empathy.” @dartmouthpbs.bsky.social professor @markthornton.bsky.social argues AI “empathy” results from the averaging of human responses, not machine feeling.psychologicalscience.orgSeeking Empathy in the Age of AIFindings are pushing psychologists to ask not only whether AI can simulate empathy, but what empathy requires in the first place. 043
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 23/07/2026APS (@psychscience.bsky.social) Observer coverage of recent research and perspectives on AI empathy: www.psychologicalscience.org/publications... Including comments from me relating to my recent PoPS article: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....psychologicalscience.orgSeeking Empathy in the Age of AIFindings are pushing psychologists to ask not only whether AI can simulate empathy, but what empathy requires in the first place. 0124
Reposted by Mark ThorntonBenedek Kurdi @benedek.bsky.social · 17/07/2026Are the mental contents underlying implicit evaluations accessible to conscious introspection? Prior studies show high predictive accuracy, leading to a growing consensus that people can introspectively access their implicit biases. New paper out in JPSP! 🧵🧵🧵 13210
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 15/07/2026As a surprise parting gift to Lindsey, we ended her thesis DEFENSE in a very literal way: by giving her a chance to exercise her muay thai skills and live out a dream many PhD students have had at least once or twice - giving their advisor a punch to the gut! 0270
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 15/07/2026Incredibly proud of my first PhD student @lindseytepfer.bsky.social for defending her dissertation yesterday! Lindsey was a founding member of SCRAP Lab, and her presence will always be felt here. We'll miss her greatly, but we're excited for her future endeavours, starting soon with @inquirer.com! 0211
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 03/07/2026Now in press at Cortex! "False discovery rate correction promotes confounded neuroimaging designs" Paper 🔓: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 44620
Reposted by Mark ThorntonHayley Dorfman @hayleydorfman.bsky.social · 08/06/2026🌵🏜️🌵 Out now in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social with @rbhui.bsky.social! If your advisor sends you an unclear email, do you interpret it as good or bad? 😏😱 In a new paper, we show how people make inferences about this type of ambiguous feedback during learning. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...sciencedirect.comAmbiguity and confirmatory reward learningWe tend to interpret feedback in ways that confirm our pre-existing beliefs. Such confirmatory tendencies are often viewed as cognitive flaws, but mig… 15122
Reposted by Mark ThorntonJoão Guassi Moreira @jfguassimoreira.bsky.social · 22/05/2026Excited to share my latest preprint, with @jasilvers.bsky.social and @raziasahi.bsky.social! We applied hierarchical Bayesian modeling to an EMA dataset of emotion regulation to uncover how trait-like repertoires of emotion regulation relate to momentary emotion regulation and experiences of affect 1255
Reposted by Mark ThorntonLauren Atlas @laurenatlas.bsky.social · 20/05/2026Our multiverse analysis of associations between skin conductance and acute pain is published! >550 participants x 18 SCR pipelines = 1 winning approach to SCR analysis! (Ledalab + artifact detection). thread below. We hope others find this useful! Please RT :) journals.lww.com/pain/fulltex... 02715
Reposted by Mark ThorntonJin Ke @jinke.bsky.social · 18/05/2026Preprint alert! 🧠 Using movie-watching fMRI and NLP, we show that prior social impressions shape how new social information is processed and updated over time, while moments of sudden insight ("aha"!) accompany transient shifts in brain activity that predict impression updates. (1/10)biorxiv.org 15217
Reposted by Mark ThorntonTy @tyanna.bsky.social · 17/05/2026Carrot, Peach, Crocus, Goji Berry, Tulip, Asparagus, and Primrose in the garden 🐣 Kiwi, Eki, Barb, and Squash staying far away 🐓🐓🐓🐓 031
Reposted by Mark ThorntonDr. Yin Wang @bruceyinwang.bsky.social · 12/05/20261/ I’m excited to share our new @NatureHumBehav paper “Social Functioning in Autism: A Systematic Review & Meta-analysis” 🧵We synthesized 35 yrs of autism research to ask a fundamental Question: How is social functioning organized, developed, and altered in autism? Free link: rdcu.be/figGlrdcu.beSocial functioning in autism: a systematic review and meta-analysisNature Human Behaviour - Impaired social functioning is a core feature of autism spectrum disorders. This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesizes the evidence for this across studies... 23011
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 11/05/2026For a while, folks have asked me about older psyc job market numbers, and how they might reflect the 2008 financial crisis. I've finally been able to put together some numbers to reflect that (below) though the raw estimates come with some important interpretational caveats 🧵👇 1103
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 05/05/2026Where did this year's #psychjobs market end up? Thanks to an unusually high number late postings, not as bad as it was looking earlier in the year. Still, this is the smallest number of jobs posted since 2012, representing a 26% decline from last year (~2/3rds the size of the covid drop in 2020). 15014
Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 20/04/2026New paper from me at Perspectives on Psychological Science! "Reframing the Performance and Ethics of Empathic AI: Wisdom of the Crowd and Placebos" I use analogies to two classic psychological effects to recast recent findings about the performance of empathy by LLMs. doi.org/10.1177/1745...doi.orgSage Journals: Discover world-class researchSubscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher. 2237
Reposted by Mark ThorntonSANS @sansmeeting.bsky.social · 17/04/2026Next is @gabefajardo.bsky.social presenting on high dimensional neural representations of facial expressions 182
Reposted by Mark ThorntonSANS @sansmeeting.bsky.social · 15/04/2026#SANS2026 starts TODAY in San Diego! ☀️🧠 We can't wait to see everyone. If you are already here! Join us for the pre-conference workshops kick off this afternoon! socialaffectiveneuro.org/conference/socialaffectiveneuro.orgConference - Social Affective Neuroscience Society 0142
Reposted by Mark ThorntonGabriel Fajardo @gabefajardo.bsky.social · 15/04/2026I’m thrilled to share that I was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Thanks to all my mentors and lab mates for the incredible support :) 5223
Reposted by Mark ThorntonErik Nook 🏳️🌈 @eriknook.bsky.social · 12/04/2026New paper: Jamil Zaki and I integrate theories of empathy + emotion regulation to describe how therapists have to regulate a "therapeutic emotional circuit" in each session. Lots of applications and avenues for new research. Just published in CPS! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...journals.sagepub.comSage Journals: Discover world-class researchSubscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher. 14010
Reposted by Mark ThorntonTravis Lim @travislim.bsky.social · 14/04/2026New paper out in JPSP with @erichehman.bsky.social! We asked: What is the framework underlying our impressions of environments? Our large bottom-up study shows that people pay attention to 4 factors. We’re calling it the Environment Impressions Model: doi.org/10.1037/pspa... 13421
Reposted by Mark ThorntonJae-Young Son @jaeyoungson.bsky.social · 14/04/2026How do we represent maps of social relationships in the mind & brain? To find out, we tracked 1st-year university students’ friendships, as well as students’ *beliefs* about who was friends with whom in their network. Yang breaks down what we found in the quoted thread 👇🏻 Broader context below: 1358
Reposted by Mark ThorntonOHBM Communications Committee (ComCom) @ohbm-com.com · 13/04/2026How do we keep track of what different people are like and use that knowledge in the moment? 🧠🤓 Read our latest #BrainBites Based on work by @markthornton.bsky.social www.ohbm-com.com/brain-bites/...ohbm-com.comHow Your Brain Makes Sense of the People You Know — OHBM CommunicationsInteracting with people you know often feels natural. You might sense that your friend is nervous before giving a presentation, or that your sibling is joking even when their words sound serious, and ... 064
Reposted by Mark ThorntonNakwon Rim @nwrim.bsky.social · 10/04/2026New paper in @commspsychol.nature.com, with @ycleong.bsky.social, Marc Berman, and @joshcjackson.bsky.social! Two-sentence summary: Political pundits often talk as if partisans are divided in how they feel about political issues, as in “Democrats love abortion” or “Republicans hate immigrants.” 1/2 1145