Tristan Yates
@tristansyates.bsky.social
baby brain scientist, perception and memory and events || PhD @yale || postdoc @columbia || she/her
https://tristansyates.github.io/
https://tristansyates.github.io/
Pinned
Tristan Yates
@tristansyates.bsky.social
· Mar 20
Hippocampal encoding of memories in human infants
Humans lack memories for specific events from the first few years of life. We investigated the mechanistic basis of this infantile amnesia by scanning the brains of awake infants with functional magne...
www.science.org
Why do we not remember being a baby? One idea is that the hippocampus, which is essential for episodic memory in adults, is too immature to form individual memories in infancy. We tested this using awake infant fMRI, new in @science.org #ScienceResearch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Beautiful and impressive work from Cliona and team on visual development — with awake 2 month olds in the MRI scanner (!!)
6/7 Our results further highlight the first year of life as a time of intricate brain function. Infants possess the foundations of visual cognition to group the world from very early on. Read more in Nature Neuroscience! 📖🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41....
Infants have rich visual categories in ventrotemporal cortex at 2 months of age - Nature Neuroscience
Using infant fMRI, the authors show that, by 2 months of age, representations in high-level visual cortex encode visual categories that align with deep neural networks, and lateral object-selective re...
www.nature.com
February 2, 2026 at 10:46 PM
Beautiful and impressive work from Cliona and team on visual development — with awake 2 month olds in the MRI scanner (!!)
Reposted by Tristan Yates
1/7 Can infants recognise the world around them? 👶🧠 As part of the FOUNDCOG project, we scanned 134 awake infants using fMRI. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, our research reveals 2-month-old infants already possess complex visual representations in VVC that align with DNNs.
February 2, 2026 at 4:00 PM
1/7 Can infants recognise the world around them? 👶🧠 As part of the FOUNDCOG project, we scanned 134 awake infants using fMRI. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, our research reveals 2-month-old infants already possess complex visual representations in VVC that align with DNNs.
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Congratulations to @lillianbehm.bsky.social, Nick Turk-Browne, and a huge team for putting together this paper (out today) on lessons from a decade of attempts to study awake infants with fMRI:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Awake Infants: Insights From More Than 750 Scanning Sessions
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in awake infants has the potential to reveal how the early developing brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. However, awake infant fMRI poses signifi...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
January 31, 2026 at 6:44 PM
Congratulations to @lillianbehm.bsky.social, Nick Turk-Browne, and a huge team for putting together this paper (out today) on lessons from a decade of attempts to study awake infants with fMRI:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Awake infant fMRI offers a rare window into early brain and cognitive development. In a new paper out now in Infancy, we leverage data from hundreds of infant scans from the Saxe and Turk-Browne Labs to reveal what factors drive scanning success — and how future studies can maximize data retention!
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Awake Infants: Insights From More Than 750 Scanning Sessions
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in awake infants has the potential to reveal how the early developing brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. However, awake infant fMRI poses signifi....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
January 31, 2026 at 10:45 PM
Awake infant fMRI offers a rare window into early brain and cognitive development. In a new paper out now in Infancy, we leverage data from hundreds of infant scans from the Saxe and Turk-Browne Labs to reveal what factors drive scanning success — and how future studies can maximize data retention!
Reposted by Tristan Yates
This paper was an awesome collaborative effort of a @fitngin.bsky.social working group. It provides a detailed review of how DNNs can be used to support dev neuro research
@lauriebayet.bsky.social and I wrote the network modeling section about how DNNs can be used to test developmental theories 🧵
@lauriebayet.bsky.social and I wrote the network modeling section about how DNNs can be used to test developmental theories 🧵
Deep learning in fetal, infant, and toddler neuroimaging research
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being integrated into everyday tasks and work environments. However, its adoption in medical image analys…
www.sciencedirect.com
January 28, 2026 at 3:08 PM
This paper was an awesome collaborative effort of a @fitngin.bsky.social working group. It provides a detailed review of how DNNs can be used to support dev neuro research
@lauriebayet.bsky.social and I wrote the network modeling section about how DNNs can be used to test developmental theories 🧵
@lauriebayet.bsky.social and I wrote the network modeling section about how DNNs can be used to test developmental theories 🧵
Reposted by Tristan Yates
In a new paper, I delve into these two findings and muse on when prediction might help vs. hurt memory (and discuss why this matters for models of memory and the hippocampus). This is my first solo-author paper, and I had a lot of fun putting these ideas on paper! direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
How Prediction of the Future Affects Encoding of the Present: Cooperation or Competition?
Abstract. Each day brings new experiences and the opportunity to form new episodic memories. However, our everyday experiences are not isolated episodes; rather, there is significant spatial and tempo...
direct.mit.edu
January 20, 2026 at 9:45 PM
In a new paper, I delve into these two findings and muse on when prediction might help vs. hurt memory (and discuss why this matters for models of memory and the hippocampus). This is my first solo-author paper, and I had a lot of fun putting these ideas on paper! direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
Reposted by Tristan Yates
We can use past experience to make predictions about the future. How do predictions affect our memory for the present? My own work (tinyurl.com/42kyukch) suggests that predictions compete with memory. But other recent work (tinyurl.com/2ekd4wr6) found the opposite--cooperation! What's going on here?
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
tinyurl.com
January 20, 2026 at 9:45 PM
We can use past experience to make predictions about the future. How do predictions affect our memory for the present? My own work (tinyurl.com/42kyukch) suggests that predictions compete with memory. But other recent work (tinyurl.com/2ekd4wr6) found the opposite--cooperation! What's going on here?
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Our new paper is out in @natmed.nature.com 😱! A thread:
Can our thoughts and feelings directly affect our physical well-being? Our pre-registered, double-blind RCT investigated this by testing if modulating the brain's reward system could enhance immune responses to vaccination.
Can our thoughts and feelings directly affect our physical well-being? Our pre-registered, double-blind RCT investigated this by testing if modulating the brain's reward system could enhance immune responses to vaccination.
January 21, 2026 at 5:55 PM
Our new paper is out in @natmed.nature.com 😱! A thread:
Can our thoughts and feelings directly affect our physical well-being? Our pre-registered, double-blind RCT investigated this by testing if modulating the brain's reward system could enhance immune responses to vaccination.
Can our thoughts and feelings directly affect our physical well-being? Our pre-registered, double-blind RCT investigated this by testing if modulating the brain's reward system could enhance immune responses to vaccination.
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Agency reorganizes memory around relevant decisions. This was collaboration the deeply missed Sarah DuBrow and steer-headed by our grad students @lindsayrait.bsky.social and Elizabeth Horwath.
p.s. the task design involves curating gift baskets.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41436249/
p.s. the task design involves curating gift baskets.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41436249/
Agency alters memory organization during free recall - PubMed
This study examined how agentic decisions in the absence of explicit rewards influence memory organization. Participants studied lists of items to assign as gifts to two characters-either choosing freely (Choice group) or following instructions (Fixed group). During free recall, participants in the …
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
January 7, 2026 at 2:05 AM
Agency reorganizes memory around relevant decisions. This was collaboration the deeply missed Sarah DuBrow and steer-headed by our grad students @lindsayrait.bsky.social and Elizabeth Horwath.
p.s. the task design involves curating gift baskets.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41436249/
p.s. the task design involves curating gift baskets.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41436249/
Reposted by Tristan Yates
This project is trying to raise science awareness by doing short videos about cancelled research — including mine.
A new video in the What We'll Never Know series, featuring Jessica Cantlon's groundbreaking research on improving spatial intelligence 🧪@sciencehomecoming.bsky.social @cantlonlab.bsky.social
December 12, 2025 at 10:02 PM
This project is trying to raise science awareness by doing short videos about cancelled research — including mine.
Reposted by Tristan Yates
We are recruiting a lab manager/research assistant to start in early 2026! The successful candidate will conduct awake infant fMRI, meet cute babies, and join a fun team!
More details (e.g. responsibilities): soc.stanford.edu/people/#join...
Apply here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/social-...
More details (e.g. responsibilities): soc.stanford.edu/people/#join...
Apply here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/social-...
People – Scaffolding of Cognition Team
soc.stanford.edu
November 21, 2025 at 12:16 AM
We are recruiting a lab manager/research assistant to start in early 2026! The successful candidate will conduct awake infant fMRI, meet cute babies, and join a fun team!
More details (e.g. responsibilities): soc.stanford.edu/people/#join...
Apply here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/social-...
More details (e.g. responsibilities): soc.stanford.edu/people/#join...
Apply here: careersearch.stanford.edu/jobs/social-...
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Join us on Thursday, December 4th at 10am EST (7am PST, 3pm GMT) for our next free Functional Analysis Fall event:
Brain age modeling with fetal and neonatal neuroimaging data, featuring @huilisun.bsky.social and Dr. Kiho Im!
Register at: tinyurl.com/FAF3brainage
Brain age modeling with fetal and neonatal neuroimaging data, featuring @huilisun.bsky.social and Dr. Kiho Im!
Register at: tinyurl.com/FAF3brainage
November 25, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Join us on Thursday, December 4th at 10am EST (7am PST, 3pm GMT) for our next free Functional Analysis Fall event:
Brain age modeling with fetal and neonatal neuroimaging data, featuring @huilisun.bsky.social and Dr. Kiho Im!
Register at: tinyurl.com/FAF3brainage
Brain age modeling with fetal and neonatal neuroimaging data, featuring @huilisun.bsky.social and Dr. Kiho Im!
Register at: tinyurl.com/FAF3brainage
Reposted by Tristan Yates
New paper from the lab, "Perceiving Event Structure in Brief Actions," now out in Cognitive Psychology :)
Led by the inimitable Zekun Sun
This was my lab's first foray into event cognition
gift link: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Led by the inimitable Zekun Sun
This was my lab's first foray into event cognition
gift link: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 25, 2025 at 3:40 PM
New paper from the lab, "Perceiving Event Structure in Brief Actions," now out in Cognitive Psychology :)
Led by the inimitable Zekun Sun
This was my lab's first foray into event cognition
gift link: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Led by the inimitable Zekun Sun
This was my lab's first foray into event cognition
gift link: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Tristan Yates
🥳 So pleased to share our new publication: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... The whole @kinderstudien.bsky.social lab got together to do a little scientific retreat last year and this is the result - a truly developmental perspective on the phenomenon of interpersonal neural synchrony 🧠🧠 👨🍼👩🍼
A developmental framework of interpersonal neural synchrony
Interpersonal neural synchrony (INS), the temporal alignment of brain activities between individuals, has been proposed as a biomarker for successful …
www.sciencedirect.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:09 PM
🥳 So pleased to share our new publication: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... The whole @kinderstudien.bsky.social lab got together to do a little scientific retreat last year and this is the result - a truly developmental perspective on the phenomenon of interpersonal neural synchrony 🧠🧠 👨🍼👩🍼
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Really enjoyed chatting with @michaelhobbes.bsky.social for this episode! In addition to being a delight to talk to, Michael was _extremely_ committed to getting the facts right & engaged very earnestly with our feedback. A scientist's dream.
Episode 46: Sapiens
It's an ambitious goal to write the entire history of humanity in just 400 pages. It's even more ambitious to do it without reading any research.
It's an ambitious goal to write the entire history of humanity in just 400 pages. It's even more ambitious to do it without reading any research.
Sapiens
Podcast Episode · If Books Could Kill · 11/20/2025 · 1h 38m
podcasts.apple.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Really enjoyed chatting with @michaelhobbes.bsky.social for this episode! In addition to being a delight to talk to, Michael was _extremely_ committed to getting the facts right & engaged very earnestly with our feedback. A scientist's dream.
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Inspiring Q and A with Dick Aslin! Look for more such content over the next few months from @psychscience.bsky.social
www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
Collective Action Is Essential for Universities in Current Political Climate
In this Q&A, Richard Aslin shares his thoughts on the real meaning of “academic freedom” and why members of the higher education community have reason to be cautiously optimistic.
www.psychologicalscience.org
November 19, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Inspiring Q and A with Dick Aslin! Look for more such content over the next few months from @psychscience.bsky.social
www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Join us on Tuesday, November 18th at 11:00am EST for our next free Functional Analysis Fall event:
Encoding Models for Understanding High-Level Representations in Early Development, featuring Dr. Freddy Kamps and Dr. Sarah Jessen!
Register at: tinyurl.com/fitngFAF2rep...
Encoding Models for Understanding High-Level Representations in Early Development, featuring Dr. Freddy Kamps and Dr. Sarah Jessen!
Register at: tinyurl.com/fitngFAF2rep...
November 7, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Join us on Tuesday, November 18th at 11:00am EST for our next free Functional Analysis Fall event:
Encoding Models for Understanding High-Level Representations in Early Development, featuring Dr. Freddy Kamps and Dr. Sarah Jessen!
Register at: tinyurl.com/fitngFAF2rep...
Encoding Models for Understanding High-Level Representations in Early Development, featuring Dr. Freddy Kamps and Dr. Sarah Jessen!
Register at: tinyurl.com/fitngFAF2rep...
Reposted by Tristan Yates
🚨 New preprint on the first infant 7T MRI project in North America! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We showcase that by leveraging 7T for infants, we can improve data quality and thereby facilitate precision functional mapping in early development.
We showcase that by leveraging 7T for infants, we can improve data quality and thereby facilitate precision functional mapping in early development.
www.biorxiv.org
November 12, 2025 at 4:37 AM
🚨 New preprint on the first infant 7T MRI project in North America! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We showcase that by leveraging 7T for infants, we can improve data quality and thereby facilitate precision functional mapping in early development.
We showcase that by leveraging 7T for infants, we can improve data quality and thereby facilitate precision functional mapping in early development.
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Join us on Monday, November 3rd at 12:00pm EST for our free Functional Analysis Fall event:
Functional alignment as a tool to improve and expand your analyses with FIT data, featuring @camerontellis.bsky.social
Register at: tinyurl.com/fitngFAF
Functional alignment as a tool to improve and expand your analyses with FIT data, featuring @camerontellis.bsky.social
Register at: tinyurl.com/fitngFAF
October 28, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Join us on Monday, November 3rd at 12:00pm EST for our free Functional Analysis Fall event:
Functional alignment as a tool to improve and expand your analyses with FIT data, featuring @camerontellis.bsky.social
Register at: tinyurl.com/fitngFAF
Functional alignment as a tool to improve and expand your analyses with FIT data, featuring @camerontellis.bsky.social
Register at: tinyurl.com/fitngFAF
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Our experience of time is powerfully shaped by boundaries between events (i.e., going from one meeting to the next). But what about time *within an event*? In new work, we find reliable distortions of time based on internal event structure (e.g., beginnings, middles, and ends)! tinyurl.com/n8mn2sn7
Unfolding event structure distorts subjective time
Our experience of time is often distorted in striking ways. Although prior work has shown that boundaries between events can shape temporal perception…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 29, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Our experience of time is powerfully shaped by boundaries between events (i.e., going from one meeting to the next). But what about time *within an event*? In new work, we find reliable distortions of time based on internal event structure (e.g., beginnings, middles, and ends)! tinyurl.com/n8mn2sn7
Woohoo!! Excited for this free (!) virtual talk series on novel ways to analyse your fetal/infant/toddler neuroimaging data! First talk on Monday 🍂🍁
It's FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS FALL 🍁🎃🍂
Check out our free, upcoming talks and register here: fitng.org/fitng-togeth...
Check out our free, upcoming talks and register here: fitng.org/fitng-togeth...
October 28, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Woohoo!! Excited for this free (!) virtual talk series on novel ways to analyse your fetal/infant/toddler neuroimaging data! First talk on Monday 🍂🍁
Reposted by Tristan Yates
Im very excited about this work out from our recent infant ssVEP study! Led by postdoc Maeve Boylan! After infants learn about objects while reading a book with a parent, their brains prioritize the processing of familiarity. www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Competitive Cortical Prioritization Emerges for Trained Objects across the First Year of Life
Learning to detect and recognize a broad range of visual objects is a crucial developmental task during the first year of life. However, many of the neurophysiological changes underlying the emergence...
www.jneurosci.org
October 24, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Im very excited about this work out from our recent infant ssVEP study! Led by postdoc Maeve Boylan! After infants learn about objects while reading a book with a parent, their brains prioritize the processing of familiarity. www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Reposted by Tristan Yates
"We hope to inspire curiosity ... prompting researchers to uncover why children experience the world so distinctively and what this reveals about cognitive development."
@jocn.bsky.social's November issue presents a special focus on the development of event segmentation: #NeuroSky #cognition
@jocn.bsky.social's November issue presents a special focus on the development of event segmentation: #NeuroSky #cognition
Volume 37 Issue 11 | Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience | MIT Press
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience | 37 | 11 | November 2025
direct.mit.edu
October 20, 2025 at 7:06 PM
"We hope to inspire curiosity ... prompting researchers to uncover why children experience the world so distinctively and what this reveals about cognitive development."
@jocn.bsky.social's November issue presents a special focus on the development of event segmentation: #NeuroSky #cognition
@jocn.bsky.social's November issue presents a special focus on the development of event segmentation: #NeuroSky #cognition
Reposted by Tristan Yates
thrilled to share our preprint on false memories in naturalistic recollection!
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
October 16, 2025 at 7:29 PM
thrilled to share our preprint on false memories in naturalistic recollection!
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇