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yinan cao

@ycaoneuro.bsky.social
211 followers 966 following 10 posts

yinancao.github.io msca fellow LNC^2 ENS paris, Wyart team

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Reposted by yinan cao
Lilian Weber @lilweb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
✨New PhD Position!✨ Come and work with us on understanding cognition with a mix of cognitive modelling and ultrasound neuromodulation! More info on the lab & position: mic-lab.de/positions/ph... Official job ad: tinyurl.com/miclab-phd 🙏Please RT - deadline is Oct 14 ‼️
mic-lab.de
Research Associate (m/f/d): Models, Interventions, and Cognition — MIC-Lab
Models and interventions of cognition.
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Roxana Zeraati @roxana-zeraati.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We are thrilled 🥳 to share that we’re joining forces with @neuroprinciplist.bsky.social to establish a joint research unit, @cmc-unit.bsky.social integrating natural and embodied decision making across species! We also have open PhD and postdoc positions (check below for more info) 🎉
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Shervin Safavi @neuroprinciplist.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We are thrilled 🥳 to share that we’re joining forces with @roxana-zeraati.bsky.social to establish a joint research unit, @cmc-unit.bsky.social integrating embodied and natural decision making across species! We also have open PhD and postdoc positions (check below for more info) 🎉
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yinan cao @ycaoneuro.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Congratulations Maxime!!
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Reposted by yinan cao
Alireza Modirshanechi @modirshanechi.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Excited to share that I'll be starting as a junior professor and Emmy Noether awardee at the University of Göttingen this October! 🥳 🚀 I'll be hiring #phd students and #postdoc across #machinelearning, #neuroscience and #cogsci: modirlab.github.io/open-positio... Please spread the word! 🙏
PhD ad informationPostdoc ad informationInformation about Göttingen and equal opportunities
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Ida Momennejad @neuroai.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
We combine RL, computational neuro, & AI interpretability for tools to address this gap. In Lippl et al 2026 we extract compositional operations from the latent space geometry of reasoning models. The latent spaces of transformers offer highD spaces as a testbed for composition of cog functions. 4/n
arxiv.org
Algorithmic Primitives and Compositional Geometry of Reasoning in Language Models
How do latent and inference time computations enable large language models (LLMs) to solve multi-step reasoning? We introduce a framework for tracing and steering algorithmic primitives that underlie ...
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Roxana Zeraati @roxana-zeraati.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Our paper "Neural timescales from a computational perspective" is finally out in @natneuro.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... We discuss how computational models and methods can distill empirical observations on neural timescales into quantitative, testable theories of brain computation.
nature.com
Neural timescales from a computational perspective - Nature Neuroscience
This review integrates computational approaches to provide a unified view on how data analysis methods, biophysical mechanistic models and machine learning approaches can help to uncover the origins a...
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Nils Kolling @nilskolling.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
New preprint alert! doi.org/10.64898/202... Throughout life, we are often told to persist in the pursuit of our long term goals. However, the most important factor to consider in the real world for whether to continue pursuit or abandon one's goal is knowing how much progress you are making.
doi.org
Prefrontal mechanisms of goal progress inference and monitoring in macaque monkeys
Primates pursue goals over extended periods and over multiple steps. The ability to track progress and its rate is critical for such pursuit, yet the neural mechanisms of this tracking are unclear. We...
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Nature @nature.com · 23/06/2026
A researcher in Europe feels left out of their team and held to different standards from their colleagues. How can they challenge exclusion without risking their position? go.nature.com/4eqGadJ
go.nature.com
How should I respond to race-based exclusion in my lab?
A researcher in Europe feels left out of their team and held to different standards from their colleagues. How can they challenge exclusion without risking their position?
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Harrison Ritz @hritz.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
🚨 Tom Griffiths has a podcast where he interviews cognitive scientists podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t... This just went to the top of my list.
podcasts.apple.com
The Cognition Project
Science Podcast · How can we study the mind, something we can never see or touch? This podcast tells the story of how psychologists, neuroscientists, computer scientists, linguists, and philosophers w...
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Externally driven attention to internal working memory content www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Shervin Safavi @neuroprinciplist.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
If you need a method to infer causality from neural data, even when the signal is short, check our recent paper: Paper: joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21... Code: github.com/CMC-lab/Tran...
joss.theoj.org
TranCIT: Transient Causal Interaction Toolbox
Nouri et al., (2025). TranCIT: Transient Causal Interaction Toolbox. Journal of Open Source Software, 10(116), 9302, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.09302
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Constantin Rothkopf @c-rothkopf.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
How do humans adapt their behavior in natural, uncertain environments? Open PhD position in the collaborative DFG Excellence Cluster “The Adaptive Mind” (theadaptivemind-excellencecluster.de) Apply: www.career.tu-darmstadt.de/tu-darmstadt...
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Shervin Safavi @neuroprinciplist.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Are you #Coayne2026? Wanna know how we can have a common notion of state in mind and machines and find them in an unsupervised fashion with temporal embeddings based on dynamic similarity check @armanbehrad.bsky.social and @maxschwabe.bsky.social’s poster today, 3-001!
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Charley Wu @thecharleywu.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
🚀 Postdoc Alert! Are you passionate about social learning & cultural evolution? @dominikdeffner.bsky.social & I have a 3-year position with freedom to develop your research and work on cutting-edge multiplayer and immersive experiments. Apply by March 30! hmc-lab.com/SocialLearni... Pls share 🙏
hmc-lab.com
Postdoc position -- Social Learning and Cultural Evolution
Postdoc position -- Social Learning and Cultural Evolution posted on March 2, 2026 We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual...
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Lucas Benjamin @lucaswbenjamin.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Excited to share our new paper in @pnas.org with @bnmorillon.bsky.social & @valentinwyart.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We study three core inference systems, and how their interaction shapes human learning and decision-making.
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Charley Wu @thecharleywu.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
🚨Four postdoc positions at the #ReasonableAI excellence cluster @tuda.bsky.social! jobs.rhein-main-universitaeten.de/rmu/job/52370 Please share widely 🙏
jobs.rhein-main-universitaeten.de
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yinan cao @ycaoneuro.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
🔎Updated preprint "Humans use a dual policy to improve inferences during epistemic information seeking" by Yinan Cao, Clémence Alméras, Junseok Lee, Inès Maye, and Valentin Wyart. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Fanny Cazettes @fannycazettes.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Marseille folks: I’m organizing a one-day workshop on Distributed Computations for Flexible Behavior (Apr 16, Timone Campus) with a great line-up of speakers bridging theory, circuits & whole-brain dynamics! 🧠 Free registration (mandatory, incl. lunch): fannycazettes.limesurvey.net/172448?lang=...
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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Cognition is not steady state. Rhythmic sampling of multiple decision alternatives in the human brain www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience
nature.com
Rhythmic sampling of multiple decision alternatives in the human brain - Nature Communications
How humans process competing information when making multi-alternative decisions remains unclear. Here, the authors show that the brain resolves the trade-off between “evaluating within” and “comparin...
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Konstantinos Tsetsos @ktsetsos.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
New paper on information sampling in multialternative choice, part of the ERC @erc.europa.eu Starting Grant "INFOSAMPLE". One of projects emerging from the first semi-gigantic MEG dataset we collected as the "Irrationality" Lab in Hamburg, around COVID lockdowns.
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yinan cao @ycaoneuro.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Glad to see this paper out @natcomms.nature.com! in this work, we investigated neural sampling across multiple choice options (N > 2).
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yinan cao @ycaoneuro.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Amazing resources!
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Marcus Siems @marcussiems.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
New Preprint alert 🚨 “Inter-areal coupling for cognition through coincident oscillatory transients” together with @ycaoneuro.bsky.social @ktsetsos.bsky.social @donnerlab.bsky.social & Andreas Engel #MEG #neuroscience #bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Inter-areal coupling for cognition through coincident oscillatory transients
How do large-scale brain networks interact to enable cognition? Correlated oscillations, a mechanism for inter-areal interactions, can be expressed as phase coherence or amplitude co-fluctuations. Whi...
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Konstantinos Tsetsos @ktsetsos.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
🧠 We’re hiring! Join the Irrationality Lab @ Trinity College Dublin for ERC-funded postdoc positions in Decision Neuroscience. Work with OPM-MEG + computational modeling to uncover how the brain shapes, maintains and revises preferences. Apply & info: www.ktsetsoslab.net/_files/ugd/0... #NeuroJobs
ktsetsoslab.net
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yinan cao @ycaoneuro.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Damn I hope this is true. Can we REALLY trust this?
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Anjali Sharma @anjalisharma.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Comment by Prof @icouzin.bsky.social that explores how collective intelligence emerges from local interactions in animal groups, and how these principles inform the design of swarm robotic systems. @natureportfolio.nature.com @natcomms.nature.com #robotics www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Collective intelligence in animals and robots - Nature Communications
This commentary explores how collective intelligence arises from local interactions in animal groups and how these principles inform the design of swarm robotic systems, addressing the challenge of ac...
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Eelke Spaak @eelkespaak.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
🚨🧠🚨 POSTDOC POSITION 🚨🧠🚨 in my lab: www.ru.nl/en/working-a... Connectivity in Working Memory. Deadline 12 Nov! Apply via website; please repost.
ru.nl
Postdoc Position: Neural Circuitry Underlying Working Memory | Radboud University
Do you want to work as a Postdoc Position: Neural Circuitry Underlying Working Memory at the Faculty of Social Sciences? Check our vacancy!
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yinan cao @ycaoneuro.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
🚀Our new chapter is out, “Perspectives on the Mechanistic Underpinnings of Choice Biases,” written with @ktsetsos.bsky.social and published in Decision Making: Mechanisms and Applications (edited by Carsten Murawski, Ulrich Ettinger, and Bert Heinrichs): link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
link.springer.com
Decision Making
This book offers reports on new findings relating to mechanisms of decisions, modeling of decision making and impaired decision making upon diseases.
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Martin Hebart @martinhebart.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Noise ceilings are really useful: You can estimate the reliability of your data and get an index of how well your model can possibly perform given the noise in the data. But, contrary to what you may think, noise ceilings do not provide an absolute index of data quality. Let's dive into why. 🧵
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yinan cao @ycaoneuro.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
first paper with valentin wyart.
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Donner Lab @donnerlab.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
1/ New paper by Hame Park, (@AraziAyelet), Bharath Talluri, Marco Celotto, Stefano Panzeri, Alan Stocker & Tobias Donner published in Nature Communications – “Confirmation Bias through Selective Readout of Information Encoded in Human Parietal Cortex”: rdcu.be/etlR7. Here is a summary:
rdcu.be
Confirmation bias through selective readout of information encoded in human parietal cortex
Nature Communications - People often discard incoming information when it contradicts their pre-existing beliefs about the world. Here, the authors show that this discarded information is precisely...
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Marino Pagan @marinopagan.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
My small tribute to one of my favourite papers ever
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koenfucius @koenfucius.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
“Legal decisions are not totally arbitrary, like a lottery. However, they still fall short of the expected standards” —often through irrelevant influences, like cognitive biases: buff.ly/o2uruLU
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Patrick Mineault @patrickmineault.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
. @kordinglab.bsky.social 's substack is great. Lots of food for thought from one of the most piercing thinkers in NeuroAI. kording.substack.com/p/why-are-we...
kording.substack.com
Why Are We Professors Doing “Research As Usual” While AI Systems Advance at Breakneck Speed?
Introduction
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Freek van Ede @freekvanede.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Our latest findings showing how internal and external visual selection do not necessarily ‘take turns’ but can run in parallel, led by @baiweiliu.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Concurrent selection of internal goals and external sensations during visual search
Flexible goal-directed behaviour relies on the selective processing of internal goal representations and external sensations. Yet, internal and external selection processes have classically been studi...
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Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Scientists use VR + lab + field study to rewrite the rules of locust swarming 🦗🦗 Latest @science.org from first author @sercansayin.bsky.social and #Konstanz team ⬇️ @einatcouzin.bsky.social @icouzin.bsky.social @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
The behavioral mechanisms governing collective motion in swarming locusts
Collective motion, which is ubiquitous in nature, has traditionally been explained by “self-propelled particle” models from theoretical physics. Here we show, through field, lab, and virtual reality e...
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Rasmus Bruckner @rasmusbruckner.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
🚀 New paper out in Psychological Review! How does learning change across the lifespan? We propose that resource rationality—adapting belief updating to cognitive limitations—can explain age-related differences in learning. 📖 doi.org/10.1037/rev0... 👇 A short thread:
doi.org
APA PsycNet
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Chunyu Ann Duan @annduan.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
First preprint from our lab! An @jerlich.bsky.social collaboration We developed novel frameworks to study multi-agent decisions in mice. Mice flexibly shift their decision preference under social competition, by integrating real-time self and opponent information! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Mice dynamically adapt to opponents in competitive multi-player games
Competing for resources in dynamic social environments is fundamental for survival, and requires continuous monitoring of both 'self' and 'others' to guide effective choices. Yet our understanding of ...
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Rasmus Bruckner @rasmusbruckner.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
In our new @commspsychol.bsky.social review, we explore how humans adjust learning to different types of uncertainty, why biases arise, and what this reveals about learning and psychiatric conditions. 📖 Read more: nature.com/articles/s44... With Matt Nassar & @haukeren.bsky.social
nature.com
Understanding learning through uncertainty and bias - Communications Psychology
Flexible learning requires humans to adjust their behaviour to uncertainty. While normative learning models explain many adaptive behaviours, systematic biases-arising from inaccurate assumptions or c...
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Peter Kok @peterkok.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
We have an opening for a 12 month Research Assistant post, funded by an ERC grant. The postholder would help with several neuroimaging projects, including MEG and 7T fMRI. Please repost and share with anyone who may be interested. www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/... #neuroskyence #Neuroimaging
ucl.ac.uk
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
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Nature Neuroscience @natneuro.nature.com · 11/02/2025
The latent circuit model identifies low-dimensional mechanisms of task execution from heterogeneous neural responses. This approach revealed a latent inhibitory mechanism for context-dependent decisions in neural network models and prefrontal cortex 🧪🧠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Latent circuit inference from heterogeneous neural responses during cognitive tasks - Nature Neuroscience
The latent circuit model identifies low-dimensional mechanisms of task execution from heterogenous neural responses. This approach reveals a latent inhibitory mechanism for context-dependent decisions...
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Nature Neuroscience @natneuro.nature.com · 06/02/2025
Using a novel method for isolating cognitive and motor neural dynamics reveals that dynamics often attributed to cognitive processes were corrupted by movements and that distinct populations of neurons encode cognitive and motor variables 🧪🧠 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Separating cognitive and motor processes in the behaving mouse - Nature Neuroscience
Using a novel method for isolating cognitive and motor neural dynamics, the authors show that dynamics often attributed to cognitive processes were corrupted by movements and that distinct populations...
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David G. Clark @david-g-clark.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
(1/30) New preprint! "Symmetries and continuous attractors in disordered neural circuits" with Larry Abbott and Haim Sompolinsky bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Symmetries and Continuous Attractors in Disordered Neural Circuits
A major challenge in neuroscience is reconciling idealized theoretical models with complex, heterogeneous experimental data. We address this challenge through the lens of continuous-attractor networks...
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Mohamady El-Gaby @melgaby.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
This is an elegant dispatch summarising our study on mFC schema from Sina Tafazoli Adel Ardalan and @timbuschman.bsky.social Really beautifully explained! "Cognitive neuroscience: How the brain navigates abstract task spaces" www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Cognitive neuroscience: How the brain navigates abstract task spaces
Humans and other animals learn the abstract structure of a task and then use this structure to rapidly generalize to new situations. A recent study reveals how the brain builds and uses abstract task ...
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Joao Barbosa @jbarbosa.org · 12/01/2025
Check our latest in which we leverage shape metrics to compare neural geometry across regions, sessions or subjects and how their differences predict behavior. w/ Nejatbakhsh, Duong, @sarah-harvey.bsky.social, Brincat, @siegellab.bsky.social, @earlkmiller.bsky.social & @itsneuronal.bsky.social
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Konstantinos Tsetsos @ktsetsos.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Deeply honoured to receive an #ERCCoG ERC Consolidator Grant to explore the Dynamics of Attribute Weighting in Multiattribute Choice. Grateful to my amazing ERC StG team: @ycaoneuro.bsky.social, @marcussiems.bsky.social , Maryam Tohidi, Molly Stapleton for their support and trust. 🙏@ERC_Research
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yinan cao @ycaoneuro.bsky.social · 18/07/2024
@ktsetsos.bsky.social and I wrote a new Perspective paper: osf.io/preprints/ps... We've long known that decisions can be biased by normatively irrelevant factors. But how do these biases arise in the brain?
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