Saurabh
@saurabhr.bsky.social
Ph.D. in Psychology | Currently on Job Market | blog: syntheticselves.substack.com | website: saurabhr.github.io
Pinned
Saurabh
@saurabhr.bsky.social
· Oct 7
Internal World Models as Imagination Networks in Cognitive Agents
What is the computational objective of imagination? While classical interpretations suggest imagination is useful for maximizing rewards, recent findings challenge this view. In this study, we propose...
arxiv.org
World models are a highly speculative topic in AI as well as in cognitive science. I’m excited to share my manuscript on investigating internal world models using imagination networks in humans and LLMs! 🧵1/n
arxiv.org/abs/2510.04391
arxiv.org/abs/2510.04391
Reposted by Saurabh
Meanwhile, in countries that still do scientific research and medicine.....
www.bbc.com/news/article...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time
One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.
www.bbc.com
January 4, 2026 at 1:31 PM
Meanwhile, in countries that still do scientific research and medicine.....
www.bbc.com/news/article...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Reposted by Saurabh
When in doubt (in teaching and in research) do a simulation on the computer.
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/01/04/w...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/01/04/w...
When in doubt (in teaching and in research) do a simulation on the computer. | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
January 4, 2026 at 2:58 PM
When in doubt (in teaching and in research) do a simulation on the computer.
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/01/04/w...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/01/04/w...
Reposted by Saurabh
🌱 The carbon impact of AI:
"Having attended both NeurIPS and the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP25) in 2019, he noticed that the intersection between the two conferences was almost non-existent: I don’t know if anyone else was involved in both…"
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
"Having attended both NeurIPS and the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP25) in 2019, he noticed that the intersection between the two conferences was almost non-existent: I don’t know if anyone else was involved in both…"
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
July 6, 2025 at 5:17 PM
🌱 The carbon impact of AI:
"Having attended both NeurIPS and the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP25) in 2019, he noticed that the intersection between the two conferences was almost non-existent: I don’t know if anyone else was involved in both…"
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
"Having attended both NeurIPS and the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP25) in 2019, he noticed that the intersection between the two conferences was almost non-existent: I don’t know if anyone else was involved in both…"
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Reposted by Saurabh
Have you used Project Implicit for your teaching or research? Have you found value in the website for engaging the public in discussion about bias and how to measure it?
Project Implicit needs your support!
Please consider a year-end donation to help sustain the website.
4agc.com/landing/impl...
Project Implicit needs your support!
Please consider a year-end donation to help sustain the website.
4agc.com/landing/impl...
December 30, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Have you used Project Implicit for your teaching or research? Have you found value in the website for engaging the public in discussion about bias and how to measure it?
Project Implicit needs your support!
Please consider a year-end donation to help sustain the website.
4agc.com/landing/impl...
Project Implicit needs your support!
Please consider a year-end donation to help sustain the website.
4agc.com/landing/impl...
Reposted by Saurabh
When we try to formalize a neuron computationally, we don't translate biology into code—we perform a violent collapse.
www.ocrampal.com/what-a-neuro...
#philosophy #science #psychology #AI #intelligence #physics #biology #philmind #philsci #philsky #philpsy #neurosky #neuroskyence
www.ocrampal.com/what-a-neuro...
#philosophy #science #psychology #AI #intelligence #physics #biology #philmind #philsci #philsky #philpsy #neurosky #neuroskyence
What a Neuron Teaches Us About Computation's Limits
When we try to formalize a neuron computationally, we don't translate biology into code—we perform a violent collapse. We lock causation into fixed arrows when biology lives in causal ambiguity. We sy...
www.ocrampal.com
January 3, 2026 at 4:16 PM
When we try to formalize a neuron computationally, we don't translate biology into code—we perform a violent collapse.
www.ocrampal.com/what-a-neuro...
#philosophy #science #psychology #AI #intelligence #physics #biology #philmind #philsci #philsky #philpsy #neurosky #neuroskyence
www.ocrampal.com/what-a-neuro...
#philosophy #science #psychology #AI #intelligence #physics #biology #philmind #philsci #philsky #philpsy #neurosky #neuroskyence
Reposted by Saurabh
One interesting thing about this finding: People with ADHD commonly experience issues with time perception, which Ritalin is able to restore. Notably, the networks observed here are the same ones we see in timing studies (including insula!)
This is your brain on Ritalin. Got your attention? Stimulant medications like Ritalin (methylphenidate) do, but not in the way you might think. They don't act directly on the brain’s attention systems! Find out what's really happening in @cellpress.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...
December 27, 2025 at 1:44 PM
One interesting thing about this finding: People with ADHD commonly experience issues with time perception, which Ritalin is able to restore. Notably, the networks observed here are the same ones we see in timing studies (including insula!)
Reposted by Saurabh
𝗦𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻
If we leave aside the more extreme discussions about "everything everywhere" and modularity this is a very cool paper.
So much can be done with data from 260 regions and 60K neurons.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
#neuroskyence
If we leave aside the more extreme discussions about "everything everywhere" and modularity this is a very cool paper.
So much can be done with data from 260 regions and 60K neurons.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
#neuroskyence
January 3, 2026 at 5:30 PM
𝗦𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻
If we leave aside the more extreme discussions about "everything everywhere" and modularity this is a very cool paper.
So much can be done with data from 260 regions and 60K neurons.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
#neuroskyence
If we leave aside the more extreme discussions about "everything everywhere" and modularity this is a very cool paper.
So much can be done with data from 260 regions and 60K neurons.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
#neuroskyence
Reposted by Saurabh
avellinofarms
No, this isn’t from some brand-new viral study that dropped last week. It’s one of those widely accepted, repeatedly confirmed, deeply inconvenient facts science keeps bringing up no matter how hard we ignore it.
No, this isn’t from some brand-new viral study that dropped last week. It’s one of those widely accepted, repeatedly confirmed, deeply inconvenient facts science keeps bringing up no matter how hard we ignore it.
January 2, 2026 at 3:55 PM
avellinofarms
No, this isn’t from some brand-new viral study that dropped last week. It’s one of those widely accepted, repeatedly confirmed, deeply inconvenient facts science keeps bringing up no matter how hard we ignore it.
No, this isn’t from some brand-new viral study that dropped last week. It’s one of those widely accepted, repeatedly confirmed, deeply inconvenient facts science keeps bringing up no matter how hard we ignore it.
Reposted by Saurabh
Smart read by Rachel Barr on how brain science reshapes the idea of free will, meaning, and the self.👇
open.substack.com/pub/bigthink...
open.substack.com/pub/bigthink...
3 philosophical debates from the 20th century that neuroscience is reshaping
Neuroscience isn’t dissolving philosophy’s hardest problems — it’s forcing us to rethink where they live.
open.substack.com
January 3, 2026 at 7:24 AM
Smart read by Rachel Barr on how brain science reshapes the idea of free will, meaning, and the self.👇
open.substack.com/pub/bigthink...
open.substack.com/pub/bigthink...
Reposted by Saurabh
The whole "Grok admits" "Grok apologizes" thing reminds me of the famous IBM presentation quote that evidently everyone has forgotten. And I do think representing your brand on social media counts as a "management decision".
January 2, 2026 at 11:54 PM
The whole "Grok admits" "Grok apologizes" thing reminds me of the famous IBM presentation quote that evidently everyone has forgotten. And I do think representing your brand on social media counts as a "management decision".
Reposted by Saurabh
Anxiety Selectively Impairs Reward Learning Under Uncertainty, While N3 Sleep Recalibrates It https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.01.696994v1
January 3, 2026 at 1:15 AM
Anxiety Selectively Impairs Reward Learning Under Uncertainty, While N3 Sleep Recalibrates It https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.01.696994v1
Reposted by Saurabh
In today's supplementary reading, I discuss how the late John Searle's Chinese Room is a masterclass in rhetorical sleight of hand - and a lost cause when it comes to generative, productive philosophical thought.
rollofthedice2.substack.com/p/deconstruc...
rollofthedice2.substack.com/p/deconstruc...
Deconstructing the Chinese Room
How intuition pumps burst when given faulty pipes
rollofthedice2.substack.com
January 2, 2026 at 10:57 PM
In today's supplementary reading, I discuss how the late John Searle's Chinese Room is a masterclass in rhetorical sleight of hand - and a lost cause when it comes to generative, productive philosophical thought.
rollofthedice2.substack.com/p/deconstruc...
rollofthedice2.substack.com/p/deconstruc...
Reposted by Saurabh
Neural representations of beliefs in a multi-dimensional inference task https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.31.697231v1
January 3, 2026 at 12:15 AM
Neural representations of beliefs in a multi-dimensional inference task https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.31.697231v1
Reposted by Saurabh
Inspired by my reading this week, I wrote a list of the resources I think every cognitive science researcher should read/listen to about theory development. It's in this google.doc (feel free to add your own suggestions) and in the thread below. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Theory: Whtat to read
The role of theory in cognitive science Or: my guide to what to read if you really want to understand how to do good, robust , theory-driven cognitive science. (disclaimer: this is an aspirational gu...
docs.google.com
March 28, 2025 at 7:15 AM
Inspired by my reading this week, I wrote a list of the resources I think every cognitive science researcher should read/listen to about theory development. It's in this google.doc (feel free to add your own suggestions) and in the thread below. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Reposted by Saurabh
Reposted by Saurabh
Seeing a lot of fiction in academic Bluesky over the break. Here is a paragraph I like from Brandon Sanderson’s “Tress of the Emerald”:
December 29, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Seeing a lot of fiction in academic Bluesky over the break. Here is a paragraph I like from Brandon Sanderson’s “Tress of the Emerald”:
Reposted by Saurabh
Finally time to share all the things I love about this field all of 2026.
Love: papers that have present an fMRI finding first that inspires a behavioral study to confirm a mechanism.
For example: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25319696/
Love: papers that have present an fMRI finding first that inspires a behavioral study to confirm a mechanism.
For example: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25319696/
Temporal memory is shaped by encoding stability and intervening item reactivation - PubMed
Making sense of previous experience requires remembering the order in which events unfolded in time. Prior work has implicated the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe cortex in memory for temporal information associated with individual episodes. However, the processes involved in encoding and retri …
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
January 3, 2026 at 1:39 AM
Finally time to share all the things I love about this field all of 2026.
Love: papers that have present an fMRI finding first that inspires a behavioral study to confirm a mechanism.
For example: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25319696/
Love: papers that have present an fMRI finding first that inspires a behavioral study to confirm a mechanism.
For example: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25319696/
Reposted by Saurabh
People keeps saying Apple is "falling behind in AI."
But I think it's because they're the only big tech company that isn't ok with rushing out a low-quality product that constantly spits out misinformation.
Reporting says the holdup is that Apple's not satisfied with the high error rate. Good.
But I think it's because they're the only big tech company that isn't ok with rushing out a low-quality product that constantly spits out misinformation.
Reporting says the holdup is that Apple's not satisfied with the high error rate. Good.
January 2, 2026 at 5:29 PM
People keeps saying Apple is "falling behind in AI."
But I think it's because they're the only big tech company that isn't ok with rushing out a low-quality product that constantly spits out misinformation.
Reporting says the holdup is that Apple's not satisfied with the high error rate. Good.
But I think it's because they're the only big tech company that isn't ok with rushing out a low-quality product that constantly spits out misinformation.
Reporting says the holdup is that Apple's not satisfied with the high error rate. Good.
Reposted by Saurabh
a restaurant-kitchen practice I highly recommend to all cooks is recipe logging, wherein, especially for complex dishes, one dates & documents each attempt with alterations and their outcomes
so, my first written date of the year is 01 Jan 2026, for a new years' bejgli (following my xmas batch)
so, my first written date of the year is 01 Jan 2026, for a new years' bejgli (following my xmas batch)
January 2, 2026 at 1:36 AM
a restaurant-kitchen practice I highly recommend to all cooks is recipe logging, wherein, especially for complex dishes, one dates & documents each attempt with alterations and their outcomes
so, my first written date of the year is 01 Jan 2026, for a new years' bejgli (following my xmas batch)
so, my first written date of the year is 01 Jan 2026, for a new years' bejgli (following my xmas batch)
Reposted by Saurabh
2020s: AI "System Prompts" are lengthy, carefully constructed sets of expert rules about a particular domain, created by "prompt engineers".
1980s: AI "Expert Systems" were lengthy, carefully constructed sets of expert rules about a particular domain, created by "knowledge engineers".
1980s: AI "Expert Systems" were lengthy, carefully constructed sets of expert rules about a particular domain, created by "knowledge engineers".
January 1, 2026 at 8:59 PM
2020s: AI "System Prompts" are lengthy, carefully constructed sets of expert rules about a particular domain, created by "prompt engineers".
1980s: AI "Expert Systems" were lengthy, carefully constructed sets of expert rules about a particular domain, created by "knowledge engineers".
1980s: AI "Expert Systems" were lengthy, carefully constructed sets of expert rules about a particular domain, created by "knowledge engineers".
Reposted by Saurabh
"Simple heuristics to run a research group" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
January 1, 2026 at 7:16 PM
"Simple heuristics to run a research group" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Reposted by Saurabh
My new years resolution is: simplify
January 1, 2026 at 7:11 PM
My new years resolution is: simplify
Reposted by Saurabh
Adopting an engineering mindset will help the field focus its research priorities, writes @timothyoleary.bsky.social.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...
Neuroscience needs engineers—for more reasons than you think
Adopting an engineering mindset will help the field focus its research priorities.
www.thetransmitter.org
November 10, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Adopting an engineering mindset will help the field focus its research priorities, writes @timothyoleary.bsky.social.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...
Reposted by Saurabh
Memory schema reorganization induced by the deliberate processing in the executive network supported by widespread amplified activity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.30.697002v1
December 31, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Memory schema reorganization induced by the deliberate processing in the executive network supported by widespread amplified activity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.30.697002v1
Reposted by Saurabh
"My New Year's Resolution is to find a principled way to think about all those cell types in the brain"
Why friend, you are in luck, because @rgast.bsky.social has just the perspective for you: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Why friend, you are in luck, because @rgast.bsky.social has just the perspective for you: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
How heterogeneity shapes dynamics and computation in the brain
Much effort has been spent clustering neurons into transcriptomic or functional cell types and characterizing the differences between them. Beyond sub…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 30, 2025 at 4:54 PM
"My New Year's Resolution is to find a principled way to think about all those cell types in the brain"
Why friend, you are in luck, because @rgast.bsky.social has just the perspective for you: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Why friend, you are in luck, because @rgast.bsky.social has just the perspective for you: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...