Nathaniel Daw
@nathanieldaw.bsky.social
Neuro prof at Princeton, social media cynic.
Thanks for the kind words and also the cogent summary. This was such a challenging study to wrap our heads around & I think your tweet is better than our abstract.
February 11, 2026 at 3:21 AM
Thanks for the kind words and also the cogent summary. This was such a challenging study to wrap our heads around & I think your tweet is better than our abstract.
Bachelorette parties obviously!
December 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Bachelorette parties obviously!
Reminds me of how Google maps, some years ago, reached 3.8 miles away to call my attention to this establishment of interest
December 14, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reminds me of how Google maps, some years ago, reached 3.8 miles away to call my attention to this establishment of interest
With all respect (really!) it would make a great 3000-word TICS position piece: it's funny and thought provoking. But stretching it out to book length would be bonkers; I can't see either the joke or the serious point lasting.
December 13, 2025 at 5:18 PM
With all respect (really!) it would make a great 3000-word TICS position piece: it's funny and thought provoking. But stretching it out to book length would be bonkers; I can't see either the joke or the serious point lasting.
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 also why Sacks' writing is so extraordinary.
October 15, 2025 at 11:44 AM
This is also why Sacks' writing is so extraordinary.
They didn't need the scientific literature, nor faculty input, to do the right thing all along. They have always had more access to private data, which must tell the same story as the public data even more clearly. It's distressing to admit but the only thing that has changed is the political winds.
October 14, 2025 at 9:34 PM
They didn't need the scientific literature, nor faculty input, to do the right thing all along. They have always had more access to private data, which must tell the same story as the public data even more clearly. It's distressing to admit but the only thing that has changed is the political winds.
I don't think anyone realized anything. They had to know all along if you and I did: just different factors weighed differently at different times.
October 13, 2025 at 1:13 AM
I don't think anyone realized anything. They had to know all along if you and I did: just different factors weighed differently at different times.
It's embarrassing and outrageous it took us five years to bring them back.
October 13, 2025 at 12:54 AM
It's embarrassing and outrageous it took us five years to bring them back.
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...
... the dark hole in my soul...
September 20, 2025 at 7:45 PM
... the dark hole in my soul...
I think the Nazi submarine at science and industry museum is extraordinary, as is pequod's pizza.
September 20, 2025 at 12:56 AM
I think the Nazi submarine at science and industry museum is extraordinary, as is pequod's pizza.
(I'm actually just trying to bait @nicolecrust.bsky.social into scolding you for my reactionary tweets again.)
September 20, 2025 at 12:38 AM
(I'm actually just trying to bait @nicolecrust.bsky.social into scolding you for my reactionary tweets again.)
Do you think Lord Krebs would have let trainees speak let alone squeal with delight?
September 19, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Do you think Lord Krebs would have let trainees speak let alone squeal with delight?
Excited to read this paper but you should really clamp down on this undecorous emotion in your lab meeting.
September 19, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Excited to read this paper but you should really clamp down on this undecorous emotion in your lab meeting.
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....
I am not sure how far this goes back in Earl's thinking. For my own part I legit expected Earl's early experiments to find grandmother cells for task set variables in pfc (maybe based on my own shallow reading of eg miller & cohen) and was surprised when he found mixed codes instead.
September 15, 2025 at 1:39 PM
I am not sure how far this goes back in Earl's thinking. For my own part I legit expected Earl's early experiments to find grandmother cells for task set variables in pfc (maybe based on my own shallow reading of eg miller & cohen) and was surprised when he found mixed codes instead.
To be fair, Earl was probably fifteen years ahead of this becoming a commonplace idea in deep networks (which arguably happened only quite recently with the ideas about superposition in LLMs)
September 15, 2025 at 1:31 PM
To be fair, Earl was probably fifteen years ahead of this becoming a commonplace idea in deep networks (which arguably happened only quite recently with the ideas about superposition in LLMs)
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
Not exactly related but not exactly unrelated either: xkcd.com/793
Physicists
xkcd.com
July 23, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Not exactly related but not exactly unrelated either: xkcd.com/793
Have you considered that maybe your problem is that you are talking to physicists?
July 22, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Have you considered that maybe your problem is that you are talking to physicists?
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.
grumpy-old-men-muppet-show.gif that I don't know how to send.
May 20, 2025 at 11:26 PM
grumpy-old-men-muppet-show.gif that I don't know how to send.