Mike Frank
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mcxfrank.bsky.social
Mike Frank
@mcxfrank.bsky.social
9.6K followers 930 following 340 posts
Cognitive scientist at Stanford. Open science advocate. Symbolic Systems Program director. Bluegrass picker, slow runner, dad. http://langcog.stanford.edu
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mcxfrank.bsky.social
What do kids choose to do when they think that someone will help them? What about when no one will help?

New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.

osf.io/preprints/ps...
Abstract of paper Figure 1!
November 12, 2025 at 6:27 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
How do you measure early language development in languages where you don't have word lists?

New paper: Measuring children’s early vocabulary in low-resource languages using a Swadesh-style word list - led by @kachergis.bsky.social and @alvinwmtan.bsky.social

osf.io/njm7d_v1
Title and abstract of the paper
October 9, 2025 at 3:34 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Ever wonder how habituation works? Here's our attempt to understand:

A stimulus-computable rational model of visual habituation in infants and adults doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

This is the thesis of two wonderful students: @anjiecao.bsky.social @galraz.bsky.social, w/ @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social
infant data from experiment 1 conceptual schema for different habituation models title page results from experiment 2 with adults
September 29, 2025 at 11:38 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
The Item Response Warehouse is a new data resource for psychometricians interested in developing methods using bigger and more diverse sets of instruments: itemresponsewarehouse.org

New paper out now at BRM: doi.org/10.3758/s134...
Abstract of the paper. Title page of the paper.
September 8, 2025 at 3:28 AM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
*Sharing for our department’s trainees*

🧠 Looking for insight on applying to PhD programs in psychology?

✨ Apply by Sep 25th to Stanford Psychology's 9th annual Paths to a Psychology PhD info-session/workshop to have all of your questions answered!

📝 Application: tinyurl.com/pathstophd2025
Flyer for the event!
September 2, 2025 at 8:01 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
LEVANTE includes a whole host of measures. These include tasks that measure reasoning, math, language, reading (with help from ROAR), social cognition, and executive function, as well as surveys and other data on the child, the home, the caregiver, and the context.
Bronfenbrenner diagram of LEVANTE measures.
August 13, 2025 at 6:09 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Labs around the world will use the LEVANTE dashboard to deploy measures for kids and families. Then, the data are validated, scored, and preprocessed and flow to an repository for use by other researchers. The goal is a field-leading open dataset about children's growth in context.
Diagram of LEVANTE framework
August 13, 2025 at 6:09 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Our position paper is now out: "Learning Variability Network Exchange (LEVANTE): A Global Framework for Measuring Children's Learning Variability Through Collaborative Data Sharing".

srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
(preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...)

What is LEVANTE? 🧵
Screenshot of paper title
August 13, 2025 at 6:09 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Cogsci and AI: two different approaches as articulated by Josh Tenenbaum #cogsci2025
Slide from Tenenbaum talk
August 1, 2025 at 9:58 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Come see us at #cogsci2025! Here’s a (revised) list of posters and talks from my lab!
Language and cognition lab cogsci presentations!
July 30, 2025 at 3:11 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Looking forward to #cogsci2025 next week - here's a list of presentations from my lab!
Presentation list for language and cognition lab at CogSci 2025.
July 23, 2025 at 12:03 AM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Features of the book include code guides, deep dives into individual case studies, and silly line drawings. The whole thing is open source on GitHub!
Sampling figure from ch10
July 1, 2025 at 6:26 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Along the way we provide an introduction to topics including ethics, experimental design, statistical analysis, sampling, measurement, data management, and much more.
Table of contents
July 1, 2025 at 6:26 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Experimentology is out today!!! A group of us wrote a free online textbook for experimental methods, available at experimentology.io - the idea was to integrate open science into all aspects of the experimental workflow from planning to design, analysis, and writing.
Experimentology cover: title and curves for distributions.
July 1, 2025 at 6:26 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
We were also able to discuss some of the scientific incentives that can hinder participation in big science, such as challenges in tenure and promotion and challenges in authorship.
Recommendation 4-1 in the report. Recommendation 4-2 in the report.
June 24, 2025 at 4:53 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
In particular, check out Chapter 4 for some discussion of how open science enables the work of inclusive big teams (including @manybabies.org)!
Box 4-1 from the published report.
June 24, 2025 at 4:53 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Join us this Thursday/Friday for Deconstructing the Universal Mind, an open webinar with an amazing group of speakers discussing recent developments in the study of cross-cultural cognition!

Register here: cps-vo.org/group/cise-s...
Main page of conference website (link in post text). Thursday program - screenshot from link in main text. Friday program - screenshot from link in main text.
June 9, 2025 at 7:16 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Congrats to Veronica Boyce on her dissertation defense! That’s three amazing talks by three great students in 8 days!
Committee selfie!
May 30, 2025 at 6:33 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
If you haven't been looking recently at the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (oecs.mit.edu), here's your reminder that we are a free, open access resource for learning about the science of mind.

Today we are launching our new Thematic Collections to organize our growing set of articles!
OECS thematic collections.
May 30, 2025 at 12:18 AM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Huge congratulations to Drs Anjie Cao and Rondeline Williams on their successful defenses this week!! @anjiecao.bsky.social
Rondeline giving her acknowledgements at her defense. Anjie showing cat photos at her defense.
May 23, 2025 at 7:28 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
We're still accepting apps for our research scientist position with LEVANTE (levante-network.org). This position is ideal for folks wanting to be the interface between a cool scientific project and an awesome team of software developers. Think of it as a technical product manager, but for science!
We are seeking a Research Scientist for a large-scale project on developmental data collection with children ages 2-12 called LEVANTE (Learning Variability Network Exchange). LEVANTE is a global research network to improve our understanding of variability in learning and development through coordinated data collection. The project is funded by the Jacobs Foundation; learn more at http://levante-network.org. This position is a mix of scientific work and work with a software development team: we are looking for someone to act as the interface between the scientific goals of the project and our team of ~6 software engineers who work to implement different aspects of our web platform including researcher management, tasks and surveys, and data processing. We expect the role to be ideal for someone with technical experience from their scientific work and an interest in building good tools for other scientists through software development. This position is appropriate for recent PhD grads and candidates with postdoctoral experience; exact title and compensation will be relative to experience post-PhD. The RS will contribute to – and have the opportunity to lead on – research products including papers and presentations. The LEVANTE team is a large and lively group pushing the boundaries of cross-cultural developmental measurement through a combination of technical innovation and psychometrics. The RS will also be part of the Language and Cognition Lab at Stanford, a broad interdisciplinary group interested in using data to understand human development. Requirements for the position include: - some kind of scientific software development experience (examples include developing experiments, computational models, or complex data analyses) - theoretical knowledge of psychology or a related discipline (e.g., cognitive science, neuroscience), ideally doing behavioral measurements of some kind - project management experience on a technical or scientific project with multiple participants Additional optional qualifications include: - experience with modern database-backed web applications - experience with measure development or psychometrics - R data analysis experience Applicants should submit a current CV, a short (~1 page) coverletter stating their qualifications for the position, and a link to a github account (preferred) or other code sample.
May 20, 2025 at 7:15 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Word recognition is also coupled to total vocabulary size, consistent with proposals by Anne Fernald and Virginia Marchman. Kids who are faster language processors also show faster vocabulary growth.
Growth curves for fast and slow processors.
April 14, 2025 at 9:58 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Our analysis shows continuous changes in the speed, accuracy, and variability of kids' word recognition. Consistent with "language as a skill" proposals, accuracy and log reaction time increase linearly in the log of age. Trial-wise variability decreases linearly in the log of age as well.
April 14, 2025 at 9:58 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
We report a developmental "mega-analysis" of the peekbank.stanford.edu dataset of eye-tracking during word recognition. Over years of effort by dozens of folks, we reconciled data from 30+ eye-tracking studies. This paper analyzes 24 datasets of kids ages 1-6 recognizing concrete nouns.
Table 1
April 14, 2025 at 9:58 PM
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Super excited to submit a big sabbatical project this year: "Continuous developmental changes in word
recognition support language learning across early
childhood": osf.io/preprints/ps...
title of paper (in text) plus author list Time course of word recognition for kids at different ages.
April 14, 2025 at 9:58 PM