Yifei Cao
@yifeicaoethz.bsky.social
Incoming PhD @ucla working with Erie Boorman and @mariaeckstein.bsky.social on Cognitive Map, Reinforcement Learning and Artificial Neural Network.
Current neuroscience master student @ethzurich.bsky.social studying human decision-making.
Current neuroscience master student @ethzurich.bsky.social studying human decision-making.
Reposted by Yifei Cao
I'm very excited about this work led by @nbalamur.bsky.social Inspired by the classic "Spot the ball ⚽" task, we develop a benchmark for visual social inference. We find that human participants perform much better than vision-language models.
Try it here: v0-new-project-9b5vt6k9ugb.vercel.app
Try it here: v0-new-project-9b5vt6k9ugb.vercel.app
November 13, 2025 at 5:16 PM
I'm very excited about this work led by @nbalamur.bsky.social Inspired by the classic "Spot the ball ⚽" task, we develop a benchmark for visual social inference. We find that human participants perform much better than vision-language models.
Try it here: v0-new-project-9b5vt6k9ugb.vercel.app
Try it here: v0-new-project-9b5vt6k9ugb.vercel.app
Reposted by Yifei Cao
Today in Nature Machine Intelligence, Kazuki Irie & I discuss 4 classic challenges for neural nets — systematic generalization, catastrophic forgetting, few-shot learning, & reasoning. We argue there is a unifying fix: the right incentives & practice. rdcu.be/eLRmg
October 20, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Today in Nature Machine Intelligence, Kazuki Irie & I discuss 4 classic challenges for neural nets — systematic generalization, catastrophic forgetting, few-shot learning, & reasoning. We argue there is a unifying fix: the right incentives & practice. rdcu.be/eLRmg
Reposted by Yifei Cao
When does new learning interfere with existing knowledge in people and ANNs? Great to have this out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com
Work with @summerfieldlab.bsky.social, @tsonj.bsky.social, Lukas Braun and Jan Grohn
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Work with @summerfieldlab.bsky.social, @tsonj.bsky.social, Lukas Braun and Jan Grohn
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
October 31, 2025 at 2:47 PM
When does new learning interfere with existing knowledge in people and ANNs? Great to have this out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com
Work with @summerfieldlab.bsky.social, @tsonj.bsky.social, Lukas Braun and Jan Grohn
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Work with @summerfieldlab.bsky.social, @tsonj.bsky.social, Lukas Braun and Jan Grohn
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Yifei Cao
Very cool study showing that "apparent" asymmetric update in reinforcement learning can emerge from Bayes optimal principles by Prakhar Godara in @pnas.org
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Apparent learning biases emerge from optimal inference: Insights from master equation analysis | PNAS
Recent studies [S. Palminteri, G. Lefebvre, E. J. Kilford, S. J. Blakemore, PLoS Comput.
Biol. 13, e1005684 (2017); G. Lefebvre, M. Lebreton, F. Me...
www.pnas.org
October 13, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Very cool study showing that "apparent" asymmetric update in reinforcement learning can emerge from Bayes optimal principles by Prakhar Godara in @pnas.org
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Reposted by Yifei Cao
Very excited to share that our work (together with co-first author Shanka Subhra Mondal and @neuroai.bsky.social ) on a brain-inspired architecture for planning with LLMs is now out in Nature Communications! www.nature.com/articles/s41... (thread below)
A brain-inspired agentic architecture to improve planning with LLMs - Nature Communications
Multi-step planning is a challenge for LLMs. Here, the authors introduce a brain-inspired Modular Agentic Planner that decomposes planning into specialized LLM modules, improving performance across tasks and highlighting the value of cognitive neuroscience for LLM design.
www.nature.com
October 6, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Very excited to share that our work (together with co-first author Shanka Subhra Mondal and @neuroai.bsky.social ) on a brain-inspired architecture for planning with LLMs is now out in Nature Communications! www.nature.com/articles/s41... (thread below)
Reposted by Yifei Cao
Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Discovering cognitive strategies with tiny recurrent neural networks - Nature
Modelling biological decision-making with tiny recurrent neural networks enables more accurate predictions of animal choices than classical cognitive models and offers insights into the underlying cog...
doi.org
July 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Reposted by Yifei Cao
Epic recordings of model-based and model-free learning signals from Kennerley lab (Bruno Miranda). Now at @elife.bsky.social
doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
Neural signatures of model-based and model-free reinforcement learning across prefrontal cortex and striatum
doi.org
April 16, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Epic recordings of model-based and model-free learning signals from Kennerley lab (Bruno Miranda). Now at @elife.bsky.social
doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
Reposted by Yifei Cao
getting this paper published was a bit painful but I am proud of it: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... We use deep RL to find mechanisms that help (real) people sustain the commons. Well done to Raphael Koster and Miruna Pislar (not on BlueSky). non-paywalled version on arxiv.
Deep reinforcement learning can promote sustainable human behaviour in a common-pool resource problem - Nature Communications
Koster et al introduce a deep reinforcement learning (RL) mechanism designed to manage common-pool resources successfully encourages sustainable cooperation among human participants by dynamically adj...
www.nature.com
March 24, 2025 at 8:22 AM
getting this paper published was a bit painful but I am proud of it: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... We use deep RL to find mechanisms that help (real) people sustain the commons. Well done to Raphael Koster and Miruna Pislar (not on BlueSky). non-paywalled version on arxiv.
Reposted by Yifei Cao
Applications for the global Google PhD Fellowship Program are open! Fellowships directly support graduate students doing exceptional and innovative research in computer science and related fields as they pursue their PhD. Learn more and apply by May 15 at goo.gle/phdfellowship.
Google PhD fellowship program
The Google PhD Fellowship Program recognizes outstanding graduate students doing exceptional work in computer science, related disciplines, or promising research areas.
goo.gle
April 10, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Applications for the global Google PhD Fellowship Program are open! Fellowships directly support graduate students doing exceptional and innovative research in computer science and related fields as they pursue their PhD. Learn more and apply by May 15 at goo.gle/phdfellowship.
Reposted by Yifei Cao
We are looking for two PhD students at our institute in Munich.
Both postions are open-topic, so anything between cognitive science and machine learning is possible.
More information: hcai-munich.com/PhDHCAI.pdf
Feel free to share broadly!
Both postions are open-topic, so anything between cognitive science and machine learning is possible.
More information: hcai-munich.com/PhDHCAI.pdf
Feel free to share broadly!
hcai-munich.com
April 9, 2025 at 12:11 PM
We are looking for two PhD students at our institute in Munich.
Both postions are open-topic, so anything between cognitive science and machine learning is possible.
More information: hcai-munich.com/PhDHCAI.pdf
Feel free to share broadly!
Both postions are open-topic, so anything between cognitive science and machine learning is possible.
More information: hcai-munich.com/PhDHCAI.pdf
Feel free to share broadly!
Reposted by Yifei Cao
New preprint with Aly Dayan Eliza Kosoy Yuqing Du.I really love this study, play and exploration, comparing free exploration of children adults and agents w entropy, empowerment and info gain as rewards. Plus kids private speech increases exploration.
arxiv.org/abs/2503.23631
arxiv.org/abs/2503.23631
Intrinsically-Motivated Humans and Agents in Open-World Exploration
What drives exploration? Understanding intrinsic motivation is a long-standing challenge in both cognitive science and artificial intelligence; numerous objectives have been proposed and used to train...
arxiv.org
April 1, 2025 at 2:00 PM
New preprint with Aly Dayan Eliza Kosoy Yuqing Du.I really love this study, play and exploration, comparing free exploration of children adults and agents w entropy, empowerment and info gain as rewards. Plus kids private speech increases exploration.
arxiv.org/abs/2503.23631
arxiv.org/abs/2503.23631
Reposted by Yifei Cao
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 12:21 PM
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