Nathaniel Daw
@nathanieldaw.bsky.social
Neuro prof at Princeton, social media cynic.
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
New paper out in cognition with @arikahn.bsky.social, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social, Cate Hartley, and @katenuss.bsky.social !!
We show that children 👶 use predictive representations (e.g. SR) to guide their choices, providing an account of how they can make flexible choices in a changing world
We show that children 👶 use predictive representations (e.g. SR) to guide their choices, providing an account of how they can make flexible choices in a changing world
Children leverage predictive representations for flexible, value-guided choice
By harnessing a mental model of how the world works, learners can make flexible choices in changing environments. However, while children and adolesce…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 15, 2025 at 10:52 AM
New paper out in cognition with @arikahn.bsky.social, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social, Cate Hartley, and @katenuss.bsky.social !!
We show that children 👶 use predictive representations (e.g. SR) to guide their choices, providing an account of how they can make flexible choices in a changing world
We show that children 👶 use predictive representations (e.g. SR) to guide their choices, providing an account of how they can make flexible choices in a changing world
This is the best news for Princeton since John Nash's thesis. admission.princeton.edu/apply/standa...
Standardized Testing | Princeton Admission
admission.princeton.edu
October 10, 2025 at 12:44 AM
This is the best news for Princeton since John Nash's thesis. admission.princeton.edu/apply/standa...
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
New paper in CPsy 📢 - from Mostafa Abdou, @raziasahi.bsky.social, Thomas Hull, @eriknook.bsky.social and @nathanieldaw.bsky.social - cpsyjournal.org/articles/10....
September 15, 2025 at 4:31 PM
New paper in CPsy 📢 - from Mostafa Abdou, @raziasahi.bsky.social, Thomas Hull, @eriknook.bsky.social and @nathanieldaw.bsky.social - cpsyjournal.org/articles/10....
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
Come work with us! @princetonneuro.bsky.social and the Department of Psychology at Princeton University are searching for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the area of human cognitive neuroscience, to be hired jointly in Psychology and Neuroscience: puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
puwebp.princeton.edu
August 13, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Come work with us! @princetonneuro.bsky.social and the Department of Psychology at Princeton University are searching for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the area of human cognitive neuroscience, to be hired jointly in Psychology and Neuroscience: puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
New paper with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social in Nature Communications: an RL model that builds a successor map compositionally. The new model plans as well as the best models, and it links components of the map used for planning to neural codes in the medial entorhinal cortex.
rdcu.be/eAofi
rdcu.be/eAofi
Reconciling flexibility and efficiency: medial entorhinal cortex represents a compositional cognitive map
Nature Communications - How the brain creates compositional cognitive maps that support both flexible and efficient planning remains poorly understood. Here, authors propose a...
rdcu.be
August 12, 2025 at 5:18 PM
New paper with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social in Nature Communications: an RL model that builds a successor map compositionally. The new model plans as well as the best models, and it links components of the map used for planning to neural codes in the medial entorhinal cortex.
rdcu.be/eAofi
rdcu.be/eAofi
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
We @smfleming.bsky.social, Marion Rouault and @seowxft.bsky.social and I) have posted a reply osf.io/preprints/ps... to a preprint that recently raised concerns about the validity of associations between mental health and metacognition from online studies. I hope you can take the time to read it.
OSF
osf.io
July 1, 2025 at 8:52 AM
We @smfleming.bsky.social, Marion Rouault and @seowxft.bsky.social and I) have posted a reply osf.io/preprints/ps... to a preprint that recently raised concerns about the validity of associations between mental health and metacognition from online studies. I hope you can take the time to read it.
heads up on a cool postdoc at cambridge. i collaborate on this project as well and looking forward to interacting with the team.
We have an open postdoc position with Rik Henson @rhens.bsky.social and Emily Holmes, at the Emotional Cognition Lab dtalmi.wixsite.com/emotional-co..., @uniofcam.bsky.social to conduct advanced memory modelling. Details here: www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/50770/ Apply by 21.4!
Research Assistant/Research Associate in computational modelling of emotional memory (Fixed Term) - Job Opportunities - University of Cambridge
Research Assistant/Research Associate in computational modelling of emotional memory (Fixed Term) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge.
www.jobs.cam.ac.uk
April 11, 2025 at 8:57 PM
heads up on a cool postdoc at cambridge. i collaborate on this project as well and looking forward to interacting with the team.
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
New preprint 📝 - another fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social, @licezhang.bsky.social, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social, @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social
We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎
osf.io/preprints/ps...
We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
March 6, 2025 at 12:54 PM
New preprint 📝 - another fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social, @licezhang.bsky.social, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social, @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social
We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎
osf.io/preprints/ps...
We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
Excited to share a new paper with Daphna Shohamy & @nathanieldaw.bsky.social! Using fmri reactivation, we measured *when* people build preferences from memory. We found that people tend to do so before a choice, but that they also wait until choice time when options are linked to multiple memories
Proactive and reactive construction of memory-based preferences - Nature Communications
Making new decisions requires retrieving memories, but when this occurs is unclear. The authors show that people typically access memories before a choice unless there are many related memories to con...
www.nature.com
February 14, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Excited to share a new paper with Daphna Shohamy & @nathanieldaw.bsky.social! Using fmri reactivation, we measured *when* people build preferences from memory. We found that people tend to do so before a choice, but that they also wait until choice time when options are linked to multiple memories
one of the most intriguing projects i've been involved in: automated scientific discovery in an area (human/animal RL) I've been working on forever. can an LLM do the job of my grad students? if it is backed up by super smart scientists incl @pcastr.bsky.social @neurokim.bsky.social & kevin miller
Can LLMs be used to discover interpretable models of human and animal behavior?🤔
Turns out: yes!
Thrilled to share our latest preprint where we used FunSearch to automatically discover symbolic cognitive models of behavior.
1/12
Turns out: yes!
Thrilled to share our latest preprint where we used FunSearch to automatically discover symbolic cognitive models of behavior.
1/12
February 10, 2025 at 1:50 PM
one of the most intriguing projects i've been involved in: automated scientific discovery in an area (human/animal RL) I've been working on forever. can an LLM do the job of my grad students? if it is backed up by super smart scientists incl @pcastr.bsky.social @neurokim.bsky.social & kevin miller
announcing this year's neuroeconomics summer school, this time outside paris. too many great lecturers to list, even too many great organizers (plassmann,glimcher,tymula,kable,me). & you wouldnt believe all the past students and where they are now. sign up: www.insead.edu/events/neuro...
Neuroeconomics Summer School
www.insead.edu
February 10, 2025 at 2:26 AM
announcing this year's neuroeconomics summer school, this time outside paris. too many great lecturers to list, even too many great organizers (plassmann,glimcher,tymula,kable,me). & you wouldnt believe all the past students and where they are now. sign up: www.insead.edu/events/neuro...
hello world. we have an opening for a strong theory postdoc to work in my lab on a exciting collaboration with Josh Berke and Loren Frank labs modeling and analyzing data on rat hipp-pfc-bg-da involvement in spatial maze foraging, replay, value etc. apply here: www.princeton.edu/acad-positio...
Application for Postdoctoral Research Associate
www.princeton.edu
February 5, 2025 at 2:29 PM
hello world. we have an opening for a strong theory postdoc to work in my lab on a exciting collaboration with Josh Berke and Loren Frank labs modeling and analyzing data on rat hipp-pfc-bg-da involvement in spatial maze foraging, replay, value etc. apply here: www.princeton.edu/acad-positio...
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
Hey 🦋 fam! Check out this great summary of our study by @psypost.bsky.social, out now in Psychological Medicine doi.org/10.1017/S003... w Deanna Barch, Johanne Solis, Temitope Oshinowo, Ivan Grahek, Anna Konova, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social & Jon Cohen. Thanks to funders @njacts.bsky.social & NJHF!
January 26, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Hey 🦋 fam! Check out this great summary of our study by @psypost.bsky.social, out now in Psychological Medicine doi.org/10.1017/S003... w Deanna Barch, Johanne Solis, Temitope Oshinowo, Ivan Grahek, Anna Konova, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social & Jon Cohen. Thanks to funders @njacts.bsky.social & NJHF!
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
New preprint - "Children leverage predictive representations for flexible, value-guided choice."
A fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social @nathanieldaw.bsky.social @catehartley.bsky.social, led by @licezhang.bsky.social
🧠🧒💻
A fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social @nathanieldaw.bsky.social @catehartley.bsky.social, led by @licezhang.bsky.social
🧠🧒💻
psyarxiv.com/y3dzn preprint from the time i spent at @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social 💜 - we were puzzled by past findings suggesting that children learn about the structure of the world, but don't use this knowledge to flexibly guide their decision-making as much as adults do.
OSF
psyarxiv.com
January 20, 2025 at 10:25 PM
New preprint - "Children leverage predictive representations for flexible, value-guided choice."
A fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social @nathanieldaw.bsky.social @catehartley.bsky.social, led by @licezhang.bsky.social
🧠🧒💻
A fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social @nathanieldaw.bsky.social @catehartley.bsky.social, led by @licezhang.bsky.social
🧠🧒💻
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
In a dynamic reinforcement learning task, human players adaptively employ a mix of decision strategies, including model-based learning but also the successor representation.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Humans rationally balance detailed and temporally abstract world models - Communications Psychology
In a dynamic reinforcement learning task, human players adaptively employ a mix of decision strategies, including model-based learning but also the successor representation.
www.nature.com
January 9, 2025 at 11:02 AM
In a dynamic reinforcement learning task, human players adaptively employ a mix of decision strategies, including model-based learning but also the successor representation.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
My paper on hierarchical plans is out in Cognition!🎉
tldr: We ask participants to generate hierarchical plans in a programming game. People prefer to reuse beyond what standard accounts predict, which we formalize as induction of a grammar over actions.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kBQr2Hx2x...
tldr: We ask participants to generate hierarchical plans in a programming game. People prefer to reuse beyond what standard accounts predict, which we formalize as induction of a grammar over actions.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kBQr2Hx2x...
December 3, 2024 at 3:37 PM
My paper on hierarchical plans is out in Cognition!🎉
tldr: We ask participants to generate hierarchical plans in a programming game. People prefer to reuse beyond what standard accounts predict, which we formalize as induction of a grammar over actions.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kBQr2Hx2x...
tldr: We ask participants to generate hierarchical plans in a programming game. People prefer to reuse beyond what standard accounts predict, which we formalize as induction of a grammar over actions.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kBQr2Hx2x...
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
How do DA and 5HT drugs alter reinforcement learning? Join us next Wednesday for talks by @anahitm.bsky.social, Diego Pizzagalli, Michael Browning, Roshan Cools, Emma Robinson, Yael Niv, Cath Harmer, Isabel Berwian, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social and Anne Collins. Links etc: acplab.org/2024/11/15/r...
RELMED Workshop 20th Nov 2024 – Applied Computational Psychiatry Lab
acplab.org
November 15, 2024 at 6:00 PM
How do DA and 5HT drugs alter reinforcement learning? Join us next Wednesday for talks by @anahitm.bsky.social, Diego Pizzagalli, Michael Browning, Roshan Cools, Emma Robinson, Yael Niv, Cath Harmer, Isabel Berwian, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social and Anne Collins. Links etc: acplab.org/2024/11/15/r...
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
New in Nature Communication with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social : humans tell apart volatility from stochasticity & adapt their learning adaptively in opposite directions. Both response times and prediction data suggest outcome autocorrelation is key in this process
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Computational processes of simultaneous learning of stochasticity and volatility in humans - Nature Communications
Adaptive learning is difficult in noisy environments, yet people often succeed. Here, the authors show that humans do this by distinguishing between two easily confused types of noise—volatility and s...
www.nature.com
October 22, 2024 at 10:38 PM
New in Nature Communication with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social : humans tell apart volatility from stochasticity & adapt their learning adaptively in opposite directions. Both response times and prediction data suggest outcome autocorrelation is key in this process
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Nathaniel Daw
Human behavior is hierarchically structured. But what determines *which* hierarchies people use? In a preprint, we run an experiment where people create programs that correspond to hierarchies, finding that people prefer structures with more reuse.
arxiv.org/abs/2311.18644
1/7
arxiv.org/abs/2311.18644
1/7
February 13, 2024 at 4:30 PM
Human behavior is hierarchically structured. But what determines *which* hierarchies people use? In a preprint, we run an experiment where people create programs that correspond to hierarchies, finding that people prefer structures with more reuse.
arxiv.org/abs/2311.18644
1/7
arxiv.org/abs/2311.18644
1/7
One more week to apply for our joint faculty position in Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Computer Science Dept, in neuroAI and intelligent systems, broadly construed. Do you fit? Yes. But feel free to contact me with q's. puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
puwebp.princeton.edu
November 8, 2023 at 8:21 PM
One more week to apply for our joint faculty position in Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Computer Science Dept, in neuroAI and intelligent systems, broadly construed. Do you fit? Yes. But feel free to contact me with q's. puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
Come work with us! @PrincetonNeuro and @PrincetonCS are searching for a joint faculty member in NeuroAI and intelligent systems. On the PNI side, our human cog neuro group (already v. computational) is esp keen to develop more connections with AI and CS. puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
puwebp.princeton.edu
October 2, 2023 at 6:29 PM
Come work with us! @PrincetonNeuro and @PrincetonCS are searching for a joint faculty member in NeuroAI and intelligent systems. On the PNI side, our human cog neuro group (already v. computational) is esp keen to develop more connections with AI and CS. puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/app...
@mgallen.bsky.social Interception is narcissism. Change my mind on Twitter.
September 18, 2023 at 8:48 PM
@mgallen.bsky.social Interception is narcissism. Change my mind on Twitter.
My favorite part of the consciousness pseudoscience letter discourse is the repeated sense that free energy theory is implicitly criticized or perhaps next up against the wall.
September 17, 2023 at 9:09 PM
My favorite part of the consciousness pseudoscience letter discourse is the repeated sense that free energy theory is implicitly criticized or perhaps next up against the wall.
I think the right way to understand the pseudoscience letter is like a letter to the editor of NYTimes or something. It's responding to media coverage, not directly arguing science. So it does read a little weird as a psyrxiv preprint, and I think this is driving some of the backlash.
September 17, 2023 at 7:57 PM
I think the right way to understand the pseudoscience letter is like a letter to the editor of NYTimes or something. It's responding to media coverage, not directly arguing science. So it does read a little weird as a psyrxiv preprint, and I think this is driving some of the backlash.
I didnt sign the letter because it's out of my lane. But I am v sympathetic. HL fills in context below which is rly about lifting the veil on what ppl rly think/pushing back on comms. Wont satisfy backlashers looking for direct science debate. For that start w Hakwan's earlier preprint on Cogitate.
this is promised preprint. it addresses 3 things:
1)what i mean by (IIT as) 'pseudoscience'
2) what's wrong w/ the recently highly publicized adversarial collaborations
3) what's wrong w/ the field of consciousness in general
psyarxiv.com/28z3y
1)what i mean by (IIT as) 'pseudoscience'
2) what's wrong w/ the recently highly publicized adversarial collaborations
3) what's wrong w/ the field of consciousness in general
psyarxiv.com/28z3y
this will understandably generate some questions & pushbacks. are we using the term too lightly? of course, it wasn't an easy decision
i will address these & provide more background here in a few days, w/ a longer preprint
please 'follow' me & stay tuned
i will address these & provide more background here in a few days, w/ a longer preprint
please 'follow' me & stay tuned
September 17, 2023 at 7:24 PM
I didnt sign the letter because it's out of my lane. But I am v sympathetic. HL fills in context below which is rly about lifting the veil on what ppl rly think/pushing back on comms. Wont satisfy backlashers looking for direct science debate. For that start w Hakwan's earlier preprint on Cogitate.