Bria Long
@brialong.bsky.social
Interested in how we learn to derive visual meaning. Asst. Prof. at UCSD Psych. Mom x2, open science advocate. She/her.
brialong.com | vislearnlab.org
brialong.com | vislearnlab.org
Pinned
Bria Long
@brialong.bsky.social
· Nov 18
Home | The Visual Learning Lab at UCSD
Lab webpage for the Visual Learning Lab at UCSD, lead by Dr. Bria Long, Ph.D. Launching in July 2024!
www.vislearnlab.org
The Visual Learning Lab at UC San Diego is looking for a postdoctoral research fellow to join our lab!
Read more about our lab at www.vislearnlab.org
Read more about our lab at www.vislearnlab.org
We’re recruiting a postdoctoral fellow to join our team! 🎉
I’m happy to share that I’ve opened back up the search for this position (it was temporarily closed due to funding uncertainty).
See lab page and doc below for details!
I’m happy to share that I’ve opened back up the search for this position (it was temporarily closed due to funding uncertainty).
See lab page and doc below for details!
The Visual Learning Lab at UC San Diego is looking for a postdoctoral research fellow to join our lab!
Read more about our lab at www.vislearnlab.org
Read more about our lab at www.vislearnlab.org
Home | The Visual Learning Lab at UCSD
Lab webpage for the Visual Learning Lab at UCSD, lead by Dr. Bria Long, Ph.D. Launching in July 2024!
www.vislearnlab.org
October 7, 2025 at 2:39 AM
We’re recruiting a postdoctoral fellow to join our team! 🎉
I’m happy to share that I’ve opened back up the search for this position (it was temporarily closed due to funding uncertainty).
See lab page and doc below for details!
I’m happy to share that I’ve opened back up the search for this position (it was temporarily closed due to funding uncertainty).
See lab page and doc below for details!
Reposted by Bria Long
At #COLM2025 and would love to chat all things cogsci, LMs, & interpretability 🍁🥯 I'm also recruiting!
👉 I'm presenting at two workshops (PragLM, Visions) on Fri
👉 Also check out "Language Models Fail to Introspect About Their Knowledge of Language" (presented by @siyuansong.bsky.social Tue 11-1)
👉 I'm presenting at two workshops (PragLM, Visions) on Fri
👉 Also check out "Language Models Fail to Introspect About Their Knowledge of Language" (presented by @siyuansong.bsky.social Tue 11-1)
October 7, 2025 at 1:39 AM
At #COLM2025 and would love to chat all things cogsci, LMs, & interpretability 🍁🥯 I'm also recruiting!
👉 I'm presenting at two workshops (PragLM, Visions) on Fri
👉 Also check out "Language Models Fail to Introspect About Their Knowledge of Language" (presented by @siyuansong.bsky.social Tue 11-1)
👉 I'm presenting at two workshops (PragLM, Visions) on Fri
👉 Also check out "Language Models Fail to Introspect About Their Knowledge of Language" (presented by @siyuansong.bsky.social Tue 11-1)
Reposted by Bria Long
A first blogpost from the LEVANTE team, introducing our global project perspective.
A good intro if you're interested in learning more about cross-cultural developmental data collection using LEVANTE.
levante-network.org/global-colla...
A good intro if you're interested in learning more about cross-cultural developmental data collection using LEVANTE.
levante-network.org/global-colla...
Global Collaboration to Capture Variability in Child Development - Levante
Ensuring that children around the world can flourish is one of the most important goals of our time. Developmental science has made major strides in understanding how children grow, learn, and thrive ...
levante-network.org
September 15, 2025 at 11:54 PM
A first blogpost from the LEVANTE team, introducing our global project perspective.
A good intro if you're interested in learning more about cross-cultural developmental data collection using LEVANTE.
levante-network.org/global-colla...
A good intro if you're interested in learning more about cross-cultural developmental data collection using LEVANTE.
levante-network.org/global-colla...
Reposted by Bria Long
🧠 New preprint: Why do deep neural networks predict brain responses so well?
We find a striking dissociation: it’s not shared object recognition. Alignment is driven by sensitivity to texture-like local statistics.
📊 Study: n=57, 624k trials, 5 models doi.org/10.1101/2025...
We find a striking dissociation: it’s not shared object recognition. Alignment is driven by sensitivity to texture-like local statistics.
📊 Study: n=57, 624k trials, 5 models doi.org/10.1101/2025...
September 8, 2025 at 6:32 PM
🧠 New preprint: Why do deep neural networks predict brain responses so well?
We find a striking dissociation: it’s not shared object recognition. Alignment is driven by sensitivity to texture-like local statistics.
📊 Study: n=57, 624k trials, 5 models doi.org/10.1101/2025...
We find a striking dissociation: it’s not shared object recognition. Alignment is driven by sensitivity to texture-like local statistics.
📊 Study: n=57, 624k trials, 5 models doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Reposted by Bria Long
Humans largely learn language through speech. In contrast, most LLMs learn from pre-tokenized text.
In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, tomorrow (Aug 19) at 1:30 pm, Foyer 2.2!
In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, tomorrow (Aug 19) at 1:30 pm, Foyer 2.2!
August 19, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Humans largely learn language through speech. In contrast, most LLMs learn from pre-tokenized text.
In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, tomorrow (Aug 19) at 1:30 pm, Foyer 2.2!
In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, tomorrow (Aug 19) at 1:30 pm, Foyer 2.2!
Reposted by Bria Long
Josh Tenenbaum's inspiring keynote at #cogsci2025 on growing vs scaling AI, the big questions of cognitive science, and the many open questions for the field.
August 1, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Josh Tenenbaum's inspiring keynote at #cogsci2025 on growing vs scaling AI, the big questions of cognitive science, and the many open questions for the field.
Reposted by Bria Long
Notes from @noranewcombe.bsky.social 's beautiful Rumelhart Prize "tasting menu" - congratulations Nora!!! #CogSci2025
August 1, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Notes from @noranewcombe.bsky.social 's beautiful Rumelhart Prize "tasting menu" - congratulations Nora!!! #CogSci2025
Reposted by Bria Long
1/5 For upcoming work I lately read some articles on handling mistakes in science. They share an important consensus I think everyone should know:
Mistakes are a failure of systems, not people. In a working system, making a mistake is normal, but inconsequential. 🧵
Mistakes are a failure of systems, not people. In a working system, making a mistake is normal, but inconsequential. 🧵
July 14, 2025 at 4:38 PM
1/5 For upcoming work I lately read some articles on handling mistakes in science. They share an important consensus I think everyone should know:
Mistakes are a failure of systems, not people. In a working system, making a mistake is normal, but inconsequential. 🧵
Mistakes are a failure of systems, not people. In a working system, making a mistake is normal, but inconsequential. 🧵
Reposted by Bria Long
🧠How “old” is your model?
Put it to the test with the KiVA Challenge: a new benchmark for abstract visual reasoning, grounded in real developmental data from children and adults.
🏆 Prizes:
🥇$1K to the top model
🥈🥉$500
📅 Deadline: 10/7/25
🔗 kiva-challenge.github.io
@iccv.bsky.social
Put it to the test with the KiVA Challenge: a new benchmark for abstract visual reasoning, grounded in real developmental data from children and adults.
🏆 Prizes:
🥇$1K to the top model
🥈🥉$500
📅 Deadline: 10/7/25
🔗 kiva-challenge.github.io
@iccv.bsky.social
KiVA Challenge @ ICCV 2025
kiva-challenge.github.io
July 15, 2025 at 7:19 PM
🧠How “old” is your model?
Put it to the test with the KiVA Challenge: a new benchmark for abstract visual reasoning, grounded in real developmental data from children and adults.
🏆 Prizes:
🥇$1K to the top model
🥈🥉$500
📅 Deadline: 10/7/25
🔗 kiva-challenge.github.io
@iccv.bsky.social
Put it to the test with the KiVA Challenge: a new benchmark for abstract visual reasoning, grounded in real developmental data from children and adults.
🏆 Prizes:
🥇$1K to the top model
🥈🥉$500
📅 Deadline: 10/7/25
🔗 kiva-challenge.github.io
@iccv.bsky.social
Reposted by Bria Long
My paper with @stellalourenco.bsky.social is now out in Science Advances!
We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Fast and robust visual object recognition in young children
The visual recognition abilities of preschool children rival those of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence models.
doi.org
July 2, 2025 at 7:38 PM
My paper with @stellalourenco.bsky.social is now out in Science Advances!
We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
Reposted by Bria Long
🎈 Out now: 🎈
"The capacity limits of moving objects in the imagination"
(by Balaban & me)
of interest to people thinking about the imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, capacity limits, and more
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
"The capacity limits of moving objects in the imagination"
(by Balaban & me)
of interest to people thinking about the imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, capacity limits, and more
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
July 2, 2025 at 1:10 PM
🎈 Out now: 🎈
"The capacity limits of moving objects in the imagination"
(by Balaban & me)
of interest to people thinking about the imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, capacity limits, and more
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
"The capacity limits of moving objects in the imagination"
(by Balaban & me)
of interest to people thinking about the imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, capacity limits, and more
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Amazing resource that I now use myself in teaching graduate methods at UCSD! Highly recommended.
Experimentology is out today!!! A group of us wrote a free online textbook for experimental methods, available at experimentology.io - the idea was to integrate open science into all aspects of the experimental workflow from planning to design, analysis, and writing.
July 2, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Amazing resource that I now use myself in teaching graduate methods at UCSD! Highly recommended.
Reposted by Bria Long
Experimentology is out today!!! A group of us wrote a free online textbook for experimental methods, available at experimentology.io - the idea was to integrate open science into all aspects of the experimental workflow from planning to design, analysis, and writing.
July 1, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Experimentology is out today!!! A group of us wrote a free online textbook for experimental methods, available at experimentology.io - the idea was to integrate open science into all aspects of the experimental workflow from planning to design, analysis, and writing.
Reposted by Bria Long
Out today in @nature.com: we show that individual neurons have diverse tuning to a decision variable computed by the entire population, revealing a unifying geometric principle for the encoding of sensory and dynamic cognitive variables.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
June 25, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Out today in @nature.com: we show that individual neurons have diverse tuning to a decision variable computed by the entire population, revealing a unifying geometric principle for the encoding of sensory and dynamic cognitive variables.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Bria Long
Trump’s NIH cuts aren’t just numbers. They are delayed cures, abandoned treatments, futures stolen, lives that will be lost. This is why we Stand Up For Science.
#StandUpForScience
#SummerFightForScience
#StandUpForScience
#SummerFightForScience
“I would like to cure brain cancer. I think that's not particularly controversial.” Be that as it may, the NIH terminated that scientist's grant. Here's a huge survey of the 2,500 grants that NIH has killed or delayed...so far. Gift link: nyti.ms/43Jz1yJ
June 4, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Trump’s NIH cuts aren’t just numbers. They are delayed cures, abandoned treatments, futures stolen, lives that will be lost. This is why we Stand Up For Science.
#StandUpForScience
#SummerFightForScience
#StandUpForScience
#SummerFightForScience
Reposted by Bria Long
How bad will it be? Catastrophic.
Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come.
But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget.
Speak up now before it is too late.
(inflation adjusted $-s below)
Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come.
But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget.
Speak up now before it is too late.
(inflation adjusted $-s below)
May 31, 2025 at 2:50 AM
Reposted by Bria Long
If you haven't been looking recently at the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (oecs.mit.edu), here's your reminder that we are a free, open access resource for learning about the science of mind.
Today we are launching our new Thematic Collections to organize our growing set of articles!
Today we are launching our new Thematic Collections to organize our growing set of articles!
May 30, 2025 at 12:18 AM
If you haven't been looking recently at the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (oecs.mit.edu), here's your reminder that we are a free, open access resource for learning about the science of mind.
Today we are launching our new Thematic Collections to organize our growing set of articles!
Today we are launching our new Thematic Collections to organize our growing set of articles!
Reposted by Bria Long
I feel grateful and fortunate to have international students in my lab, as well as numerous international collaborators and colleagues. You all make my science better. It pains me to think of the anxiety this causes all of you. I hope that universities come together and fight for what is right.
May 23, 2025 at 6:53 PM
I feel grateful and fortunate to have international students in my lab, as well as numerous international collaborators and colleagues. You all make my science better. It pains me to think of the anxiety this causes all of you. I hope that universities come together and fight for what is right.
Reposted by Bria Long
All of NIH funding to Northwestern University is frozen. This pause includes noncompeting approved funding, new and competing grants with fundable scores. No reimbursements for money already spent have been received since March. This situation is rarely reported so please Please get the word out!
May 23, 2025 at 5:56 PM
All of NIH funding to Northwestern University is frozen. This pause includes noncompeting approved funding, new and competing grants with fundable scores. No reimbursements for money already spent have been received since March. This situation is rarely reported so please Please get the word out!
Reposted by Bria Long
Outstanding presentation of the devastating cuts at NSF and their impact across multiple areas of scientific research and training. Angry at the impact now and in the long-term to US research. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades (Gift Article)
The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.
www.nytimes.com
May 23, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Outstanding presentation of the devastating cuts at NSF and their impact across multiple areas of scientific research and training. Angry at the impact now and in the long-term to US research. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Reposted by Bria Long
Word learning is usually about what a word does refer to. But can toddlers learn from what it doesn’t?
Our new Cognition paper shows 20-month-olds use negative evidence to infer novel word meanings, reshaping theories of language development.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Our new Cognition paper shows 20-month-olds use negative evidence to infer novel word meanings, reshaping theories of language development.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
May 20, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Word learning is usually about what a word does refer to. But can toddlers learn from what it doesn’t?
Our new Cognition paper shows 20-month-olds use negative evidence to infer novel word meanings, reshaping theories of language development.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Our new Cognition paper shows 20-month-olds use negative evidence to infer novel word meanings, reshaping theories of language development.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Bria Long
super excited that the first paper from my PhD is now out! we develop a "philosophical toolkit" for computational cognitive modeling & use it to conceptually re-analyze a long-standing debate about evidence accumulation models of decision making 🧠📈 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Reasoning Goals and Representational Decisions in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience: Lessons From the Drift Diffusion Model
The appropriate form of the drift diffusion model depends on how one wishes to reason about their target with the model. If the goal is to parsimoniously explain the speed-accuracy tradeoff, the appr...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
May 20, 2025 at 11:00 PM
super excited that the first paper from my PhD is now out! we develop a "philosophical toolkit" for computational cognitive modeling & use it to conceptually re-analyze a long-standing debate about evidence accumulation models of decision making 🧠📈 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Bria Long
UC San Diego Psychology hosted the first Southern California Meeting for Investigations in Developmental Science (SoCal MInDS) this Saturday. We were joined by wonderful folks from the southernmost UC campuses, SDSU, CSULA, Occidental College, and USC.
May 21, 2025 at 12:49 AM
UC San Diego Psychology hosted the first Southern California Meeting for Investigations in Developmental Science (SoCal MInDS) this Saturday. We were joined by wonderful folks from the southernmost UC campuses, SDSU, CSULA, Occidental College, and USC.
Reposted by Bria Long
We're still accepting apps for our research scientist position with LEVANTE (levante-network.org). This position is ideal for folks wanting to be the interface between a cool scientific project and an awesome team of software developers. Think of it as a technical product manager, but for science!
May 20, 2025 at 7:15 PM
We're still accepting apps for our research scientist position with LEVANTE (levante-network.org). This position is ideal for folks wanting to be the interface between a cool scientific project and an awesome team of software developers. Think of it as a technical product manager, but for science!
Reposted by Bria Long
Whelp. See you later 1.8 Million in NSF research funds -- all designed to better understand learning mechanisms in early childhood so we can develop effective early childhood educational interventions.
Proud of Harvard for standing up to fascism, though.
We will persist.
Proud of Harvard for standing up to fascism, though.
We will persist.
a man in a blue shirt and tie is pointing at a woman and saying " too legit to quit " .
Alt: a man in a blue shirt and tie is pointing at a woman and saying " too legit to quit " .
media.tenor.com
May 15, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Whelp. See you later 1.8 Million in NSF research funds -- all designed to better understand learning mechanisms in early childhood so we can develop effective early childhood educational interventions.
Proud of Harvard for standing up to fascism, though.
We will persist.
Proud of Harvard for standing up to fascism, though.
We will persist.