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Sally Berson

@sallyberson.bsky.social
105 followers 77 following 3 posts

psychology phd student @ johns hopkins | studying the origins and development of explanatory reasoning sallyberson.github.io

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Reposted by Sally Berson
tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We often say that humans struggle to produce random sequences… but what if that's not the whole story? In a new paper, @dorsaamir.bsky.social, @samiyousif.bsky.social & I show that context matters (a lot!). When playing strategic games, humans can produce near-random behavior osf.io/preprints/ps...
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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
for the 2nd time in 3 years, we @jhu.edu are spending the semester in a reading group on foundational issues in cognitive science, centered on the origin & format of concepts. 8 faculty from 4 depts, + many of their students & postdocs. can’t say enough about this wonderful intellectual community! 🤩
a pano and a selfie of happy cognitive scientists sitting around a seminar table in a discussion
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Kenneth Black @kennethblack.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
New paper! “Order of Explanation: Having it Both Ways” is now forthcoming in Noûs. It’s been a really fun paper to write and I’m stoked to share it.
philpapers.org
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Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Hey folks, I'll be considering PhD applications for the 2026-27 cycle over here at Duke Psych. To learn more about the lab, check us out at www.mindandculturelab.com and/or read through this short FAQ for prospective students: www.mindandculturelab.com/faq
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Jake Quilty-Dunn @quiltydunn.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
New paper, co-authored with Justin Wood, in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social: The Nativist-Empiricist Debate Is Broken We argue that radical nativism and radical empiricism are compatible and, in some cases, both plausibly true. So something is wrong. 🧵 Author share link here, valid til Oct 31:
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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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Ava Cahill @avacahill.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Very excited to share that my first paper has been published in Animal Behaviour! In this paper from my undergraduate institution, my colleagues and I assessed how domestic dogs and Australian dingoes respond to communicative cues. (1/2) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
How does domestication shape responses to communicative cues? Evidence from a novel marker task in dogs and dingoes
It has been hypothesized that domestic dogs, Canis familiaris, are unusually flexible in their capacity to follow human communicative cues due to dome…
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Sami Yousif @samiyousif.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Excited about a new paper (w @russellepstein.bsky.social): "Cognitive maps as a medium for thought", in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! We discuss how maps are an important 'middle ground' rep. medium, and how they may interact with a 'language of thought'. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Cognitive maps as a medium for thought
Cognitive maps are essential for navigation, but to what extent are they involved in thinking more broadly? In this opinion article, we examine whethe…
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
BBS recently published a great piece by @mdubova.bsky.social & @sabinasloman.bsky.social on “Excess capacity learning”. I argue D&S’s framework overlooks a special kind of representation that encodes information both minimally and perfectly: lossless compression. philpapers.org/archive/BOGC...
Figure for my BBS commentary ("Compression without compromise") on Dubova & Sloman's target article ("Excess capacity learning")
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Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
When we consider children in cultural evolution, we tend to cast them as recipients of adult culture. In our BBS target article, @sheinalew.bsky.social & I argued there's more: through 'peer cultures', children actively drive cultural adaptation. Our final paper + a rich set of responses is out now!
cambridge.org
Children as agents of cultural adaptation | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core
Children as agents of cultural adaptation - Volume 49
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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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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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Gabe Waterhouse @gabrielwaterhouse.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
When you look at a complex scene, you perceive various ensembles — sets of items of various sizes, numbers, etc. Are some more salient than others? In a new paper (w/ samiyousif.bsky.social), we provide an answer to this question! osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Complexity is ubiquitous in the world around us. But different stimuli are complex for different reasons. Does the mind nevertheless represent a ‘unified’ notion of complexity across domains? In @nathumbehav.nature.com, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show the answer is: yes! osf.io/preprints/ps...
Complex and simple stimuli across a variety of domains. Even though these stimuli are complex for different reasons, we suggest the mind unifies them by their complexity. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/p9xe3_v1
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Sally Berson @sallyberson.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Is core knowledge actually core *perception*? In a forthcoming piece in BBS, @shariliu.bsky.social, Lisa Feigenson, & I comment on @daweibai.bsky.social et al.’s target article. osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/vnbep
osf.io
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
A few years ago, my favorite website (@puddingviz.bsky.social) put out this great piece analyzing a study of how randomizing ability changes with age. It includes demos where readers produce sequences of random coin flips, dice rolls, and locations in a 3x3 grid. pudding.cool/2022/04/rand...
pudding.cool
We think this cool study we found is flawed. Help us reproduce it.
Are 25 year olds really more random than 60 year olds?
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Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
fun pre-print for your start of week reading: "People Make Graded Judgments About The Inconceivable" (by Hu, Sosa, and me) doi.org/10.31234/osf...
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Daeyeol Lee @ungteoriz.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins is inviting applications for 3 open-rank tenured/tenure-track positions in (1) Behavioral Neuroscience, (2) Cognitive Neuroscience, and (3) Cognitive Psychology. pbs.jhu.edu/about/jobs/
pbs.jhu.edu
Jobs | Psychological & Brain Sciences
Tenured/Tenure-track position in Cognitive Psychology Open Date Dec 01, 2025 Salary Range or Pay Grade The expected academic base salary range for this position is $110,000- $144,500 (Assistant Profes...
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Shari Liu @shariliu.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
New perspective paper (w/ @sedaakbiyik.bsky.social, Joseph Outa, & @minjaek.bsky.social ) in @natrevpsychol.nature.com ⚽💭🧠👶 : www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
How physical information is used to make sense of the psychological world - Nature Reviews Psychology
Reasoning about minds and reasoning about physical objects are governed by two distinct systems. In this Perspective, Liu et al. review research from developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscienc...
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Dawei Bai @daweibai.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
Happy to share that our BBS target article has been accepted: “Core Perception”: Re-imagining Precocious Reasoning as Sophisticated Perceiving With Alon Hafri, @veroniqueizard.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & Brent Strickland Read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S014... A short thread [1/5]👇
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Brynn Sherman @brynnsherman.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Last month, I launched my lab at Ohio State. Our lab website is now live, and we're recruiting graduate students this cycle! If you're interested in the cognitive (neuro)science of learning & memory, please reach out! www.momentslab.org
momentslab.org
Moments Lab
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Sami Yousif @samiyousif.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
I am recruiting graduate students for Fall 2026 through both the cognitive and developmental areas at Ohio State. If you are interested in spatial cognition, visual perception, and/or mental representation -- please reach out! I'd love to hear from you. www.cogdevlab.org
cogdevlab.org
PCDL @ OSU
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Rui Zhe Goh @ruizhegoh.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
Great to have another paper with @chazfirestone.bsky.social @ianbphillips.bsky.social and the brilliant Hanbei Zhou out! In this paper we demonstrate that stimuli within events are perceived further apart in time — an event-based analog of “object-based warping”. psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
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Rui Zhe Goh @ruizhegoh.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Really happy to have a new paper forthcoming at PPR! Ever wondered if there’s any point in feeling regret? In this paper, I argue that regret is valuable because it helps us overcome temptation. Check it out: philpapers.org/rec/GOHRLA
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Sami Yousif @samiyousif.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Visual adaptation is viewed as a test of whether a feature is represented by the visual system. In a new paper, Sam Clarke and I push the limits of this test. We show spatially selective, putatively "visual" adaptation to a clearly non-visual dimension: Value! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Can we “see” value? Spatiotopic “visual” adaptation to an imperceptible dimension
In much recent philosophy of mind and cognitive science, repulsive adaptation effects are considered a litmus test — a crucial marker, that distinguis…
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Chris Krupenye @chriskrupenye.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
When an animals' groupmates go out of sight, do they also go out of mind? In a new paper in Proc B @royalsocietypublishing.org, Luz Carvajal and I show that a bonobo (Kanzi) can keep mental tabs on the whereabouts of multiple hidden social partners royalsocietypublishing.org/eprint/4GI7G...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Mental representation of the locations and identities of multiple hidden agents or objects by a bonobo | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Humans are adept at navigating the social world in part because we flexibly map the locations and identities of agents around us. While field studies suggest primates can track individual conspecifics...
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Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
this is extremely cool; I also think it's important for people to know Tal made coasters of these
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
On the left is a rabbit. On the right is an elephant. But guess what: They’re the *same image*, rotated 90°! In @currentbiology.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show how these images—known as “visual anagrams”—can help solve a longstanding problem in cognitive science. bit.ly/45BVnCZ
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Gabe Waterhouse @gabrielwaterhouse.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
I am excited to announce my first ever paper (w/ @samiyousif.bsky.social ) about a new illusion of *number*: the “Crowd Size Illusion”. osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
@sallyberson.bsky.social in action at @socphilpsych.bsky.social! #SPP2025
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Brynn Sherman @brynnsherman.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
New preprint! How do we integrate new information into prior knowledge? We find that existing knowledge enables rapid new learning but that interleaved replay during sleep promotes integration of new and old information. Modeling suggests a sleep context suppression mechanism. osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Looking at Van Gogh’s Starry Night, we see not only its content (a French village beneath a night sky) but also its *style*. How does that work? How do we see style? In @nathumbehav.nature.com, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I take an experimental approach to style perception! osf.io/preprints/ps...
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Justine Griego @justinegriego.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Science and DEI in the sciences and the arts is what makes America great #standupforscience
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
Watch this video. Do you remember seeing a ball in the second half of the video? Up to 37% of our participants reported seeing a ball, even though it wasn’t there. Why? In a new paper in press @ Cognition, Brent Strickland and I ask what causes event completion. osf.io/preprints/ps...
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Chris Krupenye @chriskrupenye.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Are humans the only species that communicates when a collaborator is missing information? In @pnas.org, Luke Townrow and I show that our closest relatives, bonobos, can track when a partner is knowledgeable or ignorant, and tailor communication accordingly www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Bonobo Nyota at Ape Initiative, a science and education nonprofit
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Suppose you generated a sequence of 100 random numbers. Then one year later, you did it again. Do you think we could predict one sequence from the other? It turns out, we can! Now in press @ JEP:G with @samiyousif.bsky.social @actlab.bsky.social @robbrutledge.bsky.social; osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
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tal boger @talboger.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Which is more complex: A bicycle or a car? Object complexity comes in many different kinds — such as visual, mechanistic, and more. How are these kinds related? Now out @ JEP:G, Frank Keil and I argue that mechanistic complexity is fundamental. psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...
psycnet.apa.org
APA PsycNet
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