🚨Registration for Mechanistic Basis of Foraging 2025 closes October 20th 🚨

Speakers
@mkflugge.bsky.social @aaronbornstein.bsky.social @benhayden.bsky.social @ellileadbeater.bsky.social
@davidrobbe.bsky.social @dlbarack.bsky.social @becketebs.bsky.social

uobevents.eventsair.com/the-mechanis...

Our new paper "Noisy memory generates value in changing environments" just got published in Adaptive Behavior! doi.org/10.1177/1059...

tldr: we find that stochastic encoding of outcomes can perform better than perfect encoding (woot?), esp. if you have asymmetric encoding (for reward vs no reward)

we think this is a proposal for an alternative mechanism for phenomena that have been explained through e.g. asymmetric learning rates, and fits well with the (RL and working memory) literature, curious for feedback!

work with @becketebs.bsky.social

We are also still calling for abstracts for lightning talks, deadline in two weeks. Come join us! @surabhisnath.bsky.social @becketebs.bsky.social @frabraendle.bsky.social

The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!)

democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings

please retweet this ad for a tenured-research position in fMRI at ultra-high.

Join us!

Angie is a reporter with the Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social. I've talked with her before for an article. She is excellent and trustworthy.

🚨 Inviting all Curious Agents 🔍👀 to attend our workshop @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social!!
With amazing speakers from across disciplines, we attempt to arrive at the core principles underlying intrinsic motivations in biological and artificial agents 🎮🧠🤖💪
Website: sites.google.com/view/pimbaa2...

I am recruiting a 2 year postdoc! See elc-lab-ucsd.com/prospective-.... This is an NSF-funded collaboration between UCSD, Harvard, and Rutgers-Newark (co-PIs: @ebonawitz.bsky.social, @patrickshafto.bsky.social, Igor Bascandziev) examining cognitive mechanisms underlying children’s conceptual change.