Yue Du
@yuedu.bsky.social
Assistant Professor @ Texas A&M; Study how we learn motor skills and achieve expertise.
Reposted by Yue Du
New preprint! tinyurl.com/y6z57dsm
How do people discover an effective strategy when the environment shifts—say, when adapting to an unfamiliar trackpad?
Our take: strategic motor adaptation isn’t a smooth process of error reduction but rather a process of hypothesis testing.
🧵
How do people discover an effective strategy when the environment shifts—say, when adapting to an unfamiliar trackpad?
Our take: strategic motor adaptation isn’t a smooth process of error reduction but rather a process of hypothesis testing.
🧵
Hypothesis Testing Governs an Efficiency-Flexibility Trade-off in Strategic Motor Learning
It remains unknown how people discover an effective movement strategy when the environment changes (e.g., when adapting to a new computer trackpad). We propose that strategic adaptation operates throu...
tinyurl.com
December 3, 2025 at 12:50 PM
New preprint! tinyurl.com/y6z57dsm
How do people discover an effective strategy when the environment shifts—say, when adapting to an unfamiliar trackpad?
Our take: strategic motor adaptation isn’t a smooth process of error reduction but rather a process of hypothesis testing.
🧵
How do people discover an effective strategy when the environment shifts—say, when adapting to an unfamiliar trackpad?
Our take: strategic motor adaptation isn’t a smooth process of error reduction but rather a process of hypothesis testing.
🧵
Reposted by Yue Du
JOB ALERT: I am offering a 4-year funded PhD opportunity. The position is specifically linked to the project “Assessing the balance between goal-directed and habitual processing through the course of learning". The project is about learning habits and include eye tracking and pupillometry...
October 23, 2025 at 1:14 PM
JOB ALERT: I am offering a 4-year funded PhD opportunity. The position is specifically linked to the project “Assessing the balance between goal-directed and habitual processing through the course of learning". The project is about learning habits and include eye tracking and pupillometry...
Reposted by Yue Du
New Pre-Print:
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
We’re all familiar with having to practice a new skill to get better at it, but what really happens during practice? The answer, I propose, is reinforcement learning - specifically policy-gradient reinforcement learning.
Overview 🧵 below...
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
We’re all familiar with having to practice a new skill to get better at it, but what really happens during practice? The answer, I propose, is reinforcement learning - specifically policy-gradient reinforcement learning.
Overview 🧵 below...
Policy-Gradient Reinforcement Learning as a General Theory of Practice-Based Motor Skill Learning
Mastering any new skill requires extensive practice, but the computational principles underlying this learning are not clearly understood. Existing theories of motor learning can explain short-term ad...
www.biorxiv.org
October 20, 2025 at 2:58 PM
New Pre-Print:
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
We’re all familiar with having to practice a new skill to get better at it, but what really happens during practice? The answer, I propose, is reinforcement learning - specifically policy-gradient reinforcement learning.
Overview 🧵 below...
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
We’re all familiar with having to practice a new skill to get better at it, but what really happens during practice? The answer, I propose, is reinforcement learning - specifically policy-gradient reinforcement learning.
Overview 🧵 below...
Reposted by Yue Du
For all the knucklehead reviewers out there.
Principles for proper peer review - Earl K. Miller
jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/qag76ip8...
#neuroscience
Principles for proper peer review - Earl K. Miller
jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/qag76ip8...
#neuroscience
Principles for proper peer review
jocnf.pubpub.org
October 6, 2025 at 7:59 PM
For all the knucklehead reviewers out there.
Principles for proper peer review - Earl K. Miller
jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/qag76ip8...
#neuroscience
Principles for proper peer review - Earl K. Miller
jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/qag76ip8...
#neuroscience
Reposted by Yue Du
@aaronlwong.bsky.social @laurelbuxbaum.bsky.social & @sthibault.bsky.social found that incongruence between tool & hand motions may exacerbate competition between motions of the hand & tool. Resolving this competition is challenging for people with #LimbApraxia.
👉 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40925673/
👉 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40925673/
September 25, 2025 at 3:34 PM
@aaronlwong.bsky.social @laurelbuxbaum.bsky.social & @sthibault.bsky.social found that incongruence between tool & hand motions may exacerbate competition between motions of the hand & tool. Resolving this competition is challenging for people with #LimbApraxia.
👉 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40925673/
👉 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40925673/
Reposted by Yue Du
Thrilled that our new review "Motor Working Memory" is now in press at TiCS!
@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social
@cellpress.bsky.social
By me +
Hanna Hillman
We argue that a dedicated research program on 'working memory for movements' is long overdue
Link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lmMX4sIRv...
@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social
@cellpress.bsky.social
By me +
Hanna Hillman
We argue that a dedicated research program on 'working memory for movements' is long overdue
Link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lmMX4sIRv...
September 15, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Thrilled that our new review "Motor Working Memory" is now in press at TiCS!
@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social
@cellpress.bsky.social
By me +
Hanna Hillman
We argue that a dedicated research program on 'working memory for movements' is long overdue
Link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lmMX4sIRv...
@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social
@cellpress.bsky.social
By me +
Hanna Hillman
We argue that a dedicated research program on 'working memory for movements' is long overdue
Link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lmMX4sIRv...
Reposted by Yue Du
New pre-print!
We attempt to survey the two different universes of motor learning research: basic (meetings like NCM, MLMC) and applied (e.g. NASPSA), and consider what these fields can learn from each other and what the future might look like if they can be better integrated.
More in Eric's 🧵 👇
We attempt to survey the two different universes of motor learning research: basic (meetings like NCM, MLMC) and applied (e.g. NASPSA), and consider what these fields can learn from each other and what the future might look like if they can be better integrated.
More in Eric's 🧵 👇
September 12, 2025 at 3:44 PM
New pre-print!
We attempt to survey the two different universes of motor learning research: basic (meetings like NCM, MLMC) and applied (e.g. NASPSA), and consider what these fields can learn from each other and what the future might look like if they can be better integrated.
More in Eric's 🧵 👇
We attempt to survey the two different universes of motor learning research: basic (meetings like NCM, MLMC) and applied (e.g. NASPSA), and consider what these fields can learn from each other and what the future might look like if they can be better integrated.
More in Eric's 🧵 👇
Reposted by Yue Du
Full professor complaining to an assistant professor on how hard it is to get funding nowadays
September 10, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Full professor complaining to an assistant professor on how hard it is to get funding nowadays
Reposted by Yue Du
The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science
This study reveals that non-native English speakers, especially early in their careers, spend more effort than native English speakers in conducting scientific activities, from reading and writing pap...
journals.plos.org
August 14, 2025 at 4:37 PM
The manifold costs of being a non-native English speaker in science
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
Very excited to share our new paper with @adrianhaith.bsky.social, now published in @nathumbehav.nature.com.
In this article, @yuedu.bsky.social and @adrianhaith.bsky.social show that behavior can become habitual in two different ways, involving response initiation and response preparation, respectively
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Dissociable habits of response preparation versus response initiation - Nature Human Behaviour
Du and Haith show that behaviour can become habitual in two different ways, involving response initiation and response preparation.
www.nature.com
June 3, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Very excited to share our new paper with @adrianhaith.bsky.social, now published in @nathumbehav.nature.com.