aaron bornstein
@aaronbornstein.bsky.social
associate professor, cognitive sciences, uc irvine
https://aaron.bornstein.org/
@aaronbornstein@neuromatch.social
https://aaron.bornstein.org/
@aaronbornstein@neuromatch.social
Pinned
Come see the lab's work at #SfN2025! (🧵)
Featuring:
@khoudary.bsky.social @biancaleonard.bsky.social @malejandra.bsky.social @jungsuy.bsky.social
@dalezhou.bsky.social @lovecrabmeat.bsky.social @sharonmnoh.bsky.social
Featuring:
@khoudary.bsky.social @biancaleonard.bsky.social @malejandra.bsky.social @jungsuy.bsky.social
@dalezhou.bsky.social @lovecrabmeat.bsky.social @sharonmnoh.bsky.social
Reposted by aaron bornstein
If you haven't been paying attention to Iran, please look now. Massive protests have erupted everywhere. And people are getting KILLED.
They need the world to be watching. Please share this and help keep the spotlight on them. #FreeIran
They need the world to be watching. Please share this and help keep the spotlight on them. #FreeIran
January 8, 2026 at 7:43 PM
If you haven't been paying attention to Iran, please look now. Massive protests have erupted everywhere. And people are getting KILLED.
They need the world to be watching. Please share this and help keep the spotlight on them. #FreeIran
They need the world to be watching. Please share this and help keep the spotlight on them. #FreeIran
Reposted by aaron bornstein
Neural circuit models for evidence accumulation through choice-selective sequences https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.01.555612v1
Neural circuit models for evidence accumulation through choice-selective sequences https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.01.555612v1
Decision making involves accumulating evidence for or against available options. Traditional circuit
www.biorxiv.org
September 5, 2023 at 4:15 AM
Neural circuit models for evidence accumulation through choice-selective sequences https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.01.555612v1
Reposted by aaron bornstein
NEW we are hiring 2-3 Postdocs in Social & Decision Neuroscience (SDN) at Caltech. The posting is here www.hss.caltech.edu/about/job-op...
Applications are due 15 February 2026.
Our core group in SDN is RAdolphs, me, DMobbs, JO'Doherty, and ARangel. Our track record of postdoc success is strong
Applications are due 15 February 2026.
Our core group in SDN is RAdolphs, me, DMobbs, JO'Doherty, and ARangel. Our track record of postdoc success is strong
Chen Center Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate in Social & Decision Neuroscience
From the Caltech Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
www.hss.caltech.edu
January 7, 2026 at 2:44 AM
NEW we are hiring 2-3 Postdocs in Social & Decision Neuroscience (SDN) at Caltech. The posting is here www.hss.caltech.edu/about/job-op...
Applications are due 15 February 2026.
Our core group in SDN is RAdolphs, me, DMobbs, JO'Doherty, and ARangel. Our track record of postdoc success is strong
Applications are due 15 February 2026.
Our core group in SDN is RAdolphs, me, DMobbs, JO'Doherty, and ARangel. Our track record of postdoc success is strong
Reposted by aaron bornstein
In Advice: Faculty creativity is suffocating under an expanding regime of reporting and metrics. Not every minute of the day or event needs to have a demonstrable benefit to institutional goals. https://chroni.cl/49tT1Z1
Advice | Faculty Motivation in a Uniquely Demotivating Time
It’s unreasonable to expect professors to hit hurdle after hurdle and still stay in the race. Institutions are going to have to clear some obstacles.
chroni.cl
January 6, 2026 at 4:00 PM
In Advice: Faculty creativity is suffocating under an expanding regime of reporting and metrics. Not every minute of the day or event needs to have a demonstrable benefit to institutional goals. https://chroni.cl/49tT1Z1
Reposted by aaron bornstein
Starting tomorrow, the Trump administration is set to send notices to 1,000 student loan borrowers (first round) noticing them of an intent to garnish their wages for student loan debt.
This is cruel and unnecessary.
If you receive a notice, send it to us and we'll try to help.
This is cruel and unnecessary.
If you receive a notice, send it to us and we'll try to help.
January 6, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Starting tomorrow, the Trump administration is set to send notices to 1,000 student loan borrowers (first round) noticing them of an intent to garnish their wages for student loan debt.
This is cruel and unnecessary.
If you receive a notice, send it to us and we'll try to help.
This is cruel and unnecessary.
If you receive a notice, send it to us and we'll try to help.
Support the 2026 Palestinian Advanced Computational School chuffed.org/project/s4p-...
Support the 2026 Palestinian Advanced Computational School
University students in Palestine are working to continue theireducation in the midst of scholasticide. This advanced school willintroduce students inside Gaza, students in the West Bank and thosedispl...
chuffed.org
January 5, 2026 at 5:38 PM
Support the 2026 Palestinian Advanced Computational School chuffed.org/project/s4p-...
Reposted by aaron bornstein
Published @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social with @drewlinsley.bsky.social & @tonyfeng.bsky.social: As vision models scale to human/superhuman accuracy, they’re becoming worse models of primate vision—benchmark engineering isn’t neuroscience. @carneyinstitute.bsky.social @browncopsy.bsky.social
Better artificial intelligence does not mean better models of biology
Deep neural networks (DNNs) once showed increasing alignment with primate perception
as they improved on vision benchmarks, raising hopes that advances in artificial intelligence
(AI) would naturally ...
cell.com
January 5, 2026 at 3:33 PM
Published @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social with @drewlinsley.bsky.social & @tonyfeng.bsky.social: As vision models scale to human/superhuman accuracy, they’re becoming worse models of primate vision—benchmark engineering isn’t neuroscience. @carneyinstitute.bsky.social @browncopsy.bsky.social
Reposted by aaron bornstein
It's disappointing that the UC has taken a back seat in the fight for admission autonomy & academic freedom that Harvard & others have undertaken. Don't believe CA leg. will support a capitulation, however.
UC's Trump fight grinds on, leaving UCLA in limbo - POLITICO share.google/gau7HczoyMXi...
UC's Trump fight grinds on, leaving UCLA in limbo - POLITICO share.google/gau7HczoyMXi...
No deal, no defiance: UC's Trump fight grinds on, leaving UCLA in limbo
School officials and the Trump administration have been at a standstill for months over $584 million in research grants.
share.google
December 29, 2025 at 11:05 AM
It's disappointing that the UC has taken a back seat in the fight for admission autonomy & academic freedom that Harvard & others have undertaken. Don't believe CA leg. will support a capitulation, however.
UC's Trump fight grinds on, leaving UCLA in limbo - POLITICO share.google/gau7HczoyMXi...
UC's Trump fight grinds on, leaving UCLA in limbo - POLITICO share.google/gau7HczoyMXi...
Reposted by aaron bornstein
BREAKING: The National Institutes of Health has agreed to evaluate grant applications that were wrongfully frozen due to the Trump administration’s ideological purge of biomedical research.
December 29, 2025 at 11:14 PM
BREAKING: The National Institutes of Health has agreed to evaluate grant applications that were wrongfully frozen due to the Trump administration’s ideological purge of biomedical research.
Reposted by aaron bornstein
New, from me: The NYT reporter who specializes in profiles of beleaguered right-wingers on campus went to New College...and found out that things were going ok!
So let me explain some pretty massive errors of omission: 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nyt-re...
So let me explain some pretty massive errors of omission: 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nyt-re...
The NYT Recruiting Brochure for New College
A failing Ron DeSantis higher ed experiment gets a boost
donmoynihan.substack.com
December 28, 2025 at 7:50 PM
New, from me: The NYT reporter who specializes in profiles of beleaguered right-wingers on campus went to New College...and found out that things were going ok!
So let me explain some pretty massive errors of omission: 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nyt-re...
So let me explain some pretty massive errors of omission: 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-nyt-re...
Reposted by aaron bornstein
As someone who has been in academia for most of my life, let me tell you that faculty are often the most cowardly and collaborationist of the student/staff/faculty triad.
If this is true—the advice or the hiring practices—then faculty, especially tenured faculty, need to take a fucking look in the mirror.
We have incredibly privileged positions despite it all + if you won’t use it to hire trans people out of fear of backlash you don’t deserve the position you have.
We have incredibly privileged positions despite it all + if you won’t use it to hire trans people out of fear of backlash you don’t deserve the position you have.
December 25, 2025 at 2:47 AM
As someone who has been in academia for most of my life, let me tell you that faculty are often the most cowardly and collaborationist of the student/staff/faculty triad.
Reposted by aaron bornstein
They have made enormous headway. The central issue is that driving isn't _really_ a rule-based process; the rules are codifications of social mores but fundamentally driving around other people is about theory of mind and social negotiation, which ML is largely hopeless at; here's a thing I wrote.
Driving is a social process
Photo by Sangga Rima Roman Selia on Unsplash There is something very strange about automobiles. They are much faster and more dangerous than our brains are...
buttondown.com
December 22, 2025 at 1:19 AM
They have made enormous headway. The central issue is that driving isn't _really_ a rule-based process; the rules are codifications of social mores but fundamentally driving around other people is about theory of mind and social negotiation, which ML is largely hopeless at; here's a thing I wrote.
Reposted by aaron bornstein
“I get the sense from my students that A.I. feels like the sour icing on an already bitter cake. Adults need to step up and set parameters so that it’s not on these kids to self-regulate.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...
Opinion | What Happened When My Yale Students Gave Up Their Phones for Four Weeks
www.nytimes.com
December 20, 2025 at 3:10 AM
“I get the sense from my students that A.I. feels like the sour icing on an already bitter cake. Adults need to step up and set parameters so that it’s not on these kids to self-regulate.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...
Reposted by aaron bornstein
The sequel to this story should be about those in civic institutions-partners at law firms, journalists & editors, university presidents & others-who simply have just gone along. The ease with which these figures chose collaboration is stunning & they should be held accountable for their actions.
Anyone still serving in the Trump Administration must reckon with the reality that, when the government has previously perpetrated egregious miscarriages of justice, history has not been forgiving to those who’ve gone along, however reluctantly. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
History’s Judgment of Those Who Go Along
Some civil servants and senior officials in the Trump Administration are experiencing bouts of conscience.
www.newyorker.com
December 15, 2025 at 4:19 PM
The sequel to this story should be about those in civic institutions-partners at law firms, journalists & editors, university presidents & others-who simply have just gone along. The ease with which these figures chose collaboration is stunning & they should be held accountable for their actions.
Reposted by aaron bornstein
NEW: 9 ex-DOJ lawyers who resigned from antisemitism investigations into UCLA and other UC campuses say they were pressured to find UC guilty of violations in a rushed and politically motivated process.
One called it a "fraudulent and sham investigation."
www.latimes.com/california/s...
One called it a "fraudulent and sham investigation."
www.latimes.com/california/s...
Times Investigation: Ex-Trump DOJ lawyers say 'fraudulent' UC antisemitism probes led them to quit
The Times spoke to nine former Department of Justice civil rights attorneys tasked with investigating antisemitism complaints at the University of California. They all resigned during their invetigati...
www.latimes.com
December 13, 2025 at 10:53 PM
NEW: 9 ex-DOJ lawyers who resigned from antisemitism investigations into UCLA and other UC campuses say they were pressured to find UC guilty of violations in a rushed and politically motivated process.
One called it a "fraudulent and sham investigation."
www.latimes.com/california/s...
One called it a "fraudulent and sham investigation."
www.latimes.com/california/s...
Reposted by aaron bornstein
It’s good to see papers start to address LLMs as structural plagiarism — provenance, more hidden than the original words or training data. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
LLM use in scholarly writing poses a provenance problem
Nature Machine Intelligence - LLM use in scholarly writing poses a provenance problem
www.nature.com
December 14, 2025 at 11:13 AM
It’s good to see papers start to address LLMs as structural plagiarism — provenance, more hidden than the original words or training data. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Reposted by aaron bornstein
New preprint: Empathy, Thick and Thin
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/
December 11, 2025 at 8:50 PM
New preprint: Empathy, Thick and Thin
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
It is perhaps foolhardy to attempt to say something new about a topic as widely studied as empathy. I tried anyway! 1/
Reposted by aaron bornstein
Alternative take: Universities (and all institutions really) are terrible at predicting job market changes over a timescale of 5 to 10 years. Thus, turning them into clout chasing vocational training centers is a stupid bet when the original Humboldtian mission showed surprising resilience.
Opinion | Stop Blaming AI. Start Preparing Students for Work
AI isn’t taking jobs, but it is changing them. Colleges should listen to calls for more work-based learning to set students up for success in an unpredictable job market. https://bit.ly/4iTQc7J
AI isn’t taking jobs, but it is changing them. Colleges should listen to calls for more work-based learning to set students up for success in an unpredictable job market. https://bit.ly/4iTQc7J
December 11, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Alternative take: Universities (and all institutions really) are terrible at predicting job market changes over a timescale of 5 to 10 years. Thus, turning them into clout chasing vocational training centers is a stupid bet when the original Humboldtian mission showed surprising resilience.
Reposted by aaron bornstein
are better-performing face recognition models more human-like? turns out: NO
in terms of how we see/treat different faces as similar/different to each other, there seems to be tradeoff: better models are LESS human-like
so they already work in some 'alien' ways...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧠📈🧠🤖🧠💻
in terms of how we see/treat different faces as similar/different to each other, there seems to be tradeoff: better models are LESS human-like
so they already work in some 'alien' ways...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧠📈🧠🤖🧠💻
OSF
osf.io
December 10, 2025 at 12:34 AM
are better-performing face recognition models more human-like? turns out: NO
in terms of how we see/treat different faces as similar/different to each other, there seems to be tradeoff: better models are LESS human-like
so they already work in some 'alien' ways...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧠📈🧠🤖🧠💻
in terms of how we see/treat different faces as similar/different to each other, there seems to be tradeoff: better models are LESS human-like
so they already work in some 'alien' ways...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧠📈🧠🤖🧠💻
Reposted by aaron bornstein
When we see something that's moving, our memories about it end up projected forward in time: We remember it further along than it was. In a new paper in 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, out today and led by @dillonplunkett.bsky.social, we demonstrate that this happens even when there is 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙤𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.🧵
Representational Momentum Transcends Motion
Dillon Plunkett & Jorge Morales (2025) Psychological Science
subjectivitylab.org
December 9, 2025 at 3:37 PM
When we see something that's moving, our memories about it end up projected forward in time: We remember it further along than it was. In a new paper in 𝘗𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, out today and led by @dillonplunkett.bsky.social, we demonstrate that this happens even when there is 𝙣𝙤 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙨𝙤𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.🧵
Reposted by aaron bornstein
New paper in Psych Review on a model of false recognition in Deese-Roediger-McDermott DRM task.
Not just recognition responses, but also associated RTs!
And not just the semantic task, but also the structural task - where words overlap in orthography/phonology!
A thread!
Not just recognition responses, but also associated RTs!
And not just the semantic task, but also the structural task - where words overlap in orthography/phonology!
A thread!
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org
December 8, 2025 at 4:39 AM
New paper in Psych Review on a model of false recognition in Deese-Roediger-McDermott DRM task.
Not just recognition responses, but also associated RTs!
And not just the semantic task, but also the structural task - where words overlap in orthography/phonology!
A thread!
Not just recognition responses, but also associated RTs!
And not just the semantic task, but also the structural task - where words overlap in orthography/phonology!
A thread!
"In the violations findings letter, Hermalin compared “the visible physical toll” of Kao’s hunger strike and the “adverse consequences it may have had” on his ability to teach, to a professor who might wear a political T-shirt."
www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...
www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...
UC Berkeley suspends lecturer Peyrin Kao for pro-Palestinian speech
UC Berkeley administration has suspended lecturer Peyrin Kao for the spring 2026 semester without pay for pro-Palestinian speech.
www.dailycal.org
December 8, 2025 at 5:34 PM
"In the violations findings letter, Hermalin compared “the visible physical toll” of Kao’s hunger strike and the “adverse consequences it may have had” on his ability to teach, to a professor who might wear a political T-shirt."
www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...
www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...
Reposted by aaron bornstein
the reason its bad to run universities like businesses is that almost all businesses fail on any reasonable timeline of evaluation.
hudson's bay made it the longest and even they only got to about half an oxford of longevity
hudson's bay made it the longest and even they only got to about half an oxford of longevity
They claim financial exigency, but then turn down $4 million pledges to keep the PhD programs open and disregard financial analyses that point to the real problem—bad real estate deals, spending on consultants, and their own salaries 2/2
December 6, 2025 at 5:42 PM
the reason its bad to run universities like businesses is that almost all businesses fail on any reasonable timeline of evaluation.
hudson's bay made it the longest and even they only got to about half an oxford of longevity
hudson's bay made it the longest and even they only got to about half an oxford of longevity
Reposted by aaron bornstein
Excited to share a new article, led by Barnes Jannuzi. Here we tried to pinpoint something about visual familiarity that isn't reflected in visual cortex via something putatively hippocampal. Nope! Per the theme of this era, the brain is not so simple. /1
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
Sharpened visual memory representations are reflected in inferotemporal cortex
Humans and other primates can robustly report whether they've seen specific images before, even when those images are extremely similar to ones they've previously seen. Multiple lines of evidence sugg...
www.jneurosci.org
December 6, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Excited to share a new article, led by Barnes Jannuzi. Here we tried to pinpoint something about visual familiarity that isn't reflected in visual cortex via something putatively hippocampal. Nope! Per the theme of this era, the brain is not so simple. /1
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
Reposted by aaron bornstein
Many, many unpaid labour-hours will be required for the ICLR authors and organizers to sort this mess out, and the conference will be worse for it. A perfect case study on why AI productivity gains are largely a mirage.
November 30, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Many, many unpaid labour-hours will be required for the ICLR authors and organizers to sort this mess out, and the conference will be worse for it. A perfect case study on why AI productivity gains are largely a mirage.