Carlos Velázquez-Vargas
@carlospsy.bsky.social
Postdoctoral researcher at @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social, Columbia University.
Reposted by Carlos Velázquez-Vargas
New post! Last week I shared why I thought cognitive (neuro)science hasn’t contributed as much as one might hope to the design of AI systems; this week I'm sharing my thoughts on how methods and principles from these fields *have* been useful in my work. infinitefaculty.substack.com/p/how-cognit...
How cognitive science can contribute to AI: methods for understanding
#2 in a series on cognitive science and AI
infinitefaculty.substack.com
December 23, 2025 at 5:10 PM
New post! Last week I shared why I thought cognitive (neuro)science hasn’t contributed as much as one might hope to the design of AI systems; this week I'm sharing my thoughts on how methods and principles from these fields *have* been useful in my work. infinitefaculty.substack.com/p/how-cognit...
Reposted by Carlos Velázquez-Vargas
Another fun project from @yangxiang.bsky.social. She asks the question: do people assign responsibility to personality traits in the same way that they assign reponsibility to people? The answer: sort of!
osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
December 6, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Another fun project from @yangxiang.bsky.social. She asks the question: do people assign responsibility to personality traits in the same way that they assign reponsibility to people? The answer: sort of!
osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Carlos Velázquez-Vargas
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 Carlos Velázquez-Vargas
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 Carlos Velázquez-Vargas
The cerebellum isn’t just about coordinating movement. It’s implicated in nearly every domain of cognition—from language to social behavior.
But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵
Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵
Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
Cerebellar Contributions to Action and Cognition: Prediction, Timescale, and Continuity
The cerebellum is implicated in nearly every domain of human cognition, yet our understanding of how this subcortical structure contributes to cognition remains elusive. Efforts on this front have ten...
arxiv.org
September 15, 2025 at 12:19 PM
The cerebellum isn’t just about coordinating movement. It’s implicated in nearly every domain of cognition—from language to social behavior.
But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵
Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵
Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
Reposted by Carlos Velázquez-Vargas
New preprint from the lab! 🧠
Led by Juliana Trach, w/ Sophia Ou
Using fMRI, we discovered evidence for time-sensitive reward prediction errors (RPEs) in the human cerebellum.
Builds on, and extends, recent work in both rodents and NHPs
Led by Juliana Trach, w/ Sophia Ou
Using fMRI, we discovered evidence for time-sensitive reward prediction errors (RPEs) in the human cerebellum.
Builds on, and extends, recent work in both rodents and NHPs
September 8, 2025 at 2:31 PM
New preprint from the lab! 🧠
Led by Juliana Trach, w/ Sophia Ou
Using fMRI, we discovered evidence for time-sensitive reward prediction errors (RPEs) in the human cerebellum.
Builds on, and extends, recent work in both rodents and NHPs
Led by Juliana Trach, w/ Sophia Ou
Using fMRI, we discovered evidence for time-sensitive reward prediction errors (RPEs) in the human cerebellum.
Builds on, and extends, recent work in both rodents and NHPs
New paper out!
Ever wondered what it's like to be the Knight piece in chess? 🧠♞ In this study with #JordanTaylor, we asked people to learn a visuomotor "Knight mapping" and make sequential decisions—linking motor learning with abstract planning. Find out more here:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Ever wondered what it's like to be the Knight piece in chess? 🧠♞ In this study with #JordanTaylor, we asked people to learn a visuomotor "Knight mapping" and make sequential decisions—linking motor learning with abstract planning. Find out more here:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Learning to Move and Plan like the Knight: Sequential Decision Making with a Novel Motor Mapping - Computational Brain & Behavior
Many skills that humans acquire throughout their lives, such as playing video games or sports, require substantial motor learning and multi-step planning. While both processes are typically studied se...
link.springer.com
June 11, 2025 at 6:02 PM
New paper out!
Ever wondered what it's like to be the Knight piece in chess? 🧠♞ In this study with #JordanTaylor, we asked people to learn a visuomotor "Knight mapping" and make sequential decisions—linking motor learning with abstract planning. Find out more here:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Ever wondered what it's like to be the Knight piece in chess? 🧠♞ In this study with #JordanTaylor, we asked people to learn a visuomotor "Knight mapping" and make sequential decisions—linking motor learning with abstract planning. Find out more here:
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Reposted by Carlos Velázquez-Vargas
Thrilled to share the new paper from the lab out today in
@nathumbehav.nature.com, led by the great @jetrach.bsky.social!
"Mental graphs structure the storage and retrieval of visuomotor associations"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@nathumbehav.nature.com, led by the great @jetrach.bsky.social!
"Mental graphs structure the storage and retrieval of visuomotor associations"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Mental graphs structure the storage and retrieval of visuomotor associations - Nature Human Behaviour
Trach and McDougle show that motor responses can form part of structured, graph-like memory representations.
www.nature.com
June 2, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Thrilled to share the new paper from the lab out today in
@nathumbehav.nature.com, led by the great @jetrach.bsky.social!
"Mental graphs structure the storage and retrieval of visuomotor associations"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@nathumbehav.nature.com, led by the great @jetrach.bsky.social!
"Mental graphs structure the storage and retrieval of visuomotor associations"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...