Rachel Ryskin
@ryskin.bsky.social
Cognitive scientist @ UC Merced
http://raryskin.github.io
PI of Language, Interaction, & Cognition (LInC) lab: http://linclab0.github.io
http://raryskin.github.io
PI of Language, Interaction, & Cognition (LInC) lab: http://linclab0.github.io
Pinned
Rachel Ryskin
@ryskin.bsky.social
· Sep 18
University of California | President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
ppfp.ucop.edu
🚨 Postdoc Opportunity PSA! 🚨
🗓️ UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program applications are due Nov. 1 (ppfp.ucop.edu/info/)
Open to anyone interested in a postdoc & academic career at a UC campus.
I'm happy to sponsor an applicant if there’s a good fit— please reach out!
🗓️ UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program applications are due Nov. 1 (ppfp.ucop.edu/info/)
Open to anyone interested in a postdoc & academic career at a UC campus.
I'm happy to sponsor an applicant if there’s a good fit— please reach out!
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
Our paper @sarabogels.bsky.social covering our pre-registered multi-year research is now finally out in Cognition. We show that in conversations people reduce their multimodal signals non-linearly; the steeper this non-linear drop-off the more communicative success.
www.wimpouw.com/files/Bogels...
www.wimpouw.com/files/Bogels...
November 11, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Our paper @sarabogels.bsky.social covering our pre-registered multi-year research is now finally out in Cognition. We show that in conversations people reduce their multimodal signals non-linearly; the steeper this non-linear drop-off the more communicative success.
www.wimpouw.com/files/Bogels...
www.wimpouw.com/files/Bogels...
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
New work to appear @ TACL!
Language models (LMs) are remarkably good at generating novel well-formed sentences, leading to claims that they have mastered grammar.
Yet they often assign higher probability to ungrammatical strings than to grammatical strings.
How can both things be true? 🧵👇
Language models (LMs) are remarkably good at generating novel well-formed sentences, leading to claims that they have mastered grammar.
Yet they often assign higher probability to ungrammatical strings than to grammatical strings.
How can both things be true? 🧵👇
November 10, 2025 at 10:11 PM
New work to appear @ TACL!
Language models (LMs) are remarkably good at generating novel well-formed sentences, leading to claims that they have mastered grammar.
Yet they often assign higher probability to ungrammatical strings than to grammatical strings.
How can both things be true? 🧵👇
Language models (LMs) are remarkably good at generating novel well-formed sentences, leading to claims that they have mastered grammar.
Yet they often assign higher probability to ungrammatical strings than to grammatical strings.
How can both things be true? 🧵👇
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
New pre-print from our lab, by Lakshmi Govindarajan with help from Sagarika Alavilli, introducing a new type of model for studying sensory uncertainty. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Here is a summary. (1/n)
Here is a summary. (1/n)
Task-optimized models of sensory uncertainty reproduce human confidence judgments
Sensory input is often ambiguous, leading to uncertain interpretations of the external world. Estimates of perceptual uncertainty might be useful in guiding behavior, but it remains unclear whether hu...
www.biorxiv.org
November 9, 2025 at 9:34 PM
New pre-print from our lab, by Lakshmi Govindarajan with help from Sagarika Alavilli, introducing a new type of model for studying sensory uncertainty. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Here is a summary. (1/n)
Here is a summary. (1/n)
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
I will be recruiting PhD students via Georgetown Linguistics this application cycle! Come join us in the PICoL (pronounced “pickle”) lab. We focus on psycholinguistics and cognitive modeling using LLMs. See the linked flyer for more details: bit.ly/3L3vcyA
October 21, 2025 at 9:52 PM
I will be recruiting PhD students via Georgetown Linguistics this application cycle! Come join us in the PICoL (pronounced “pickle”) lab. We focus on psycholinguistics and cognitive modeling using LLMs. See the linked flyer for more details: bit.ly/3L3vcyA
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
The first publication of the #ERC project ‘LaDy’ is a fact and it’s an important one I think:
We show that word processing and meaning prediction is fundamentally different during social interaction compared to using language individually!
👀 short 🧵/1
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
#OpenAccess
We show that word processing and meaning prediction is fundamentally different during social interaction compared to using language individually!
👀 short 🧵/1
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
#OpenAccess
October 10, 2025 at 5:12 PM
The first publication of the #ERC project ‘LaDy’ is a fact and it’s an important one I think:
We show that word processing and meaning prediction is fundamentally different during social interaction compared to using language individually!
👀 short 🧵/1
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
#OpenAccess
We show that word processing and meaning prediction is fundamentally different during social interaction compared to using language individually!
👀 short 🧵/1
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
#OpenAccess
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
As our lab started to build encoding 🧠 models, we were trying to figure out best practices in the field. So @neurotaha.bsky.social
built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets!
We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it!
1/
built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets!
We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it!
1/
🚨 Paper alert:
To appear in the DBM Neurips Workshop
LITcoder: A General-Purpose Library for Building and Comparing Encoding Models
📄 arxiv: arxiv.org/abs/2509.091...
🔗 project: litcoder-brain.github.io
To appear in the DBM Neurips Workshop
LITcoder: A General-Purpose Library for Building and Comparing Encoding Models
📄 arxiv: arxiv.org/abs/2509.091...
🔗 project: litcoder-brain.github.io
September 29, 2025 at 5:33 PM
As our lab started to build encoding 🧠 models, we were trying to figure out best practices in the field. So @neurotaha.bsky.social
built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets!
We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it!
1/
built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets!
We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it!
1/
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
New paper: We argue that linearization in language production is a foraging process, with speakers navigating semantic and spatial clusters. Lead author: Karina Tachihara, former UC Davis postdoc, now faculty at UIUC!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Planning to be incremental: Scene descriptions reveal meaningful clustering in language production
How do speakers plan complex descriptions and then execute those plans? In this work, we attempt to answer this question by asking subjects to describ…
www.sciencedirect.com
September 22, 2025 at 10:44 PM
New paper: We argue that linearization in language production is a foraging process, with speakers navigating semantic and spatial clusters. Lead author: Karina Tachihara, former UC Davis postdoc, now faculty at UIUC!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🚨 Postdoc Opportunity PSA! 🚨
🗓️ UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program applications are due Nov. 1 (ppfp.ucop.edu/info/)
Open to anyone interested in a postdoc & academic career at a UC campus.
I'm happy to sponsor an applicant if there’s a good fit— please reach out!
🗓️ UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program applications are due Nov. 1 (ppfp.ucop.edu/info/)
Open to anyone interested in a postdoc & academic career at a UC campus.
I'm happy to sponsor an applicant if there’s a good fit— please reach out!
University of California | President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
ppfp.ucop.edu
September 18, 2025 at 6:19 PM
🚨 Postdoc Opportunity PSA! 🚨
🗓️ UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program applications are due Nov. 1 (ppfp.ucop.edu/info/)
Open to anyone interested in a postdoc & academic career at a UC campus.
I'm happy to sponsor an applicant if there’s a good fit— please reach out!
🗓️ UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program applications are due Nov. 1 (ppfp.ucop.edu/info/)
Open to anyone interested in a postdoc & academic career at a UC campus.
I'm happy to sponsor an applicant if there’s a good fit— please reach out!
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
Officially out! "Predicting relative intelligibility from inter-talker distances in a perceptual similarity space for speech" S.E Kim, B. R. Chernyak, @keshet.bsky.social, me, & A. Bradlow link.springer.com/article/10.3.... BONUS: free online similarity calculator so you can join in the fun! 1/
Predicting relative intelligibility from inter-talker distances in a perceptual similarity space for speech - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Researchers have generally assumed that listeners perceive speech compositionally, based on the combined processing of local acoustic–phonetic cues associated with individual linguistic units. Yet, th...
link.springer.com
September 8, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Officially out! "Predicting relative intelligibility from inter-talker distances in a perceptual similarity space for speech" S.E Kim, B. R. Chernyak, @keshet.bsky.social, me, & A. Bradlow link.springer.com/article/10.3.... BONUS: free online similarity calculator so you can join in the fun! 1/
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
Humans largely learn language through speech. In contrast, most LLMs learn from pre-tokenized text.
In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, tomorrow (Aug 19) at 1:30 pm, Foyer 2.2!
In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, tomorrow (Aug 19) at 1:30 pm, Foyer 2.2!
August 19, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Humans largely learn language through speech. In contrast, most LLMs learn from pre-tokenized text.
In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, tomorrow (Aug 19) at 1:30 pm, Foyer 2.2!
In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, tomorrow (Aug 19) at 1:30 pm, Foyer 2.2!
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
New paper with @rjantonello.bsky.social @csinva.bsky.social, Suna Guo, Gavin Mischler, Jianfeng Gao, & Nima Mesgarani: We use LLMs to generate VERY interpretable embeddings where each dimension corresponds to a scientific theory, & then use these embeddings to predict fMRI and ECoG. It WORKS!
Evaluating scientific theories as predictive models in language neuroscience https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.12.669958v1
August 18, 2025 at 6:34 PM
New paper with @rjantonello.bsky.social @csinva.bsky.social, Suna Guo, Gavin Mischler, Jianfeng Gao, & Nima Mesgarani: We use LLMs to generate VERY interpretable embeddings where each dimension corresponds to a scientific theory, & then use these embeddings to predict fMRI and ECoG. It WORKS!
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
LLM finds it FAR easier to distinguish b/w DO & PO constructions when the lexical & info structure of instances conform more closely w/ the respective constructions (left 👇). Where's pure syntax? LLM seems to say "🤷♀️" (right) @SRakshit
adele.scholar.princeton.edu/sites/g/file...
adele.scholar.princeton.edu/sites/g/file...
August 18, 2025 at 7:12 PM
LLM finds it FAR easier to distinguish b/w DO & PO constructions when the lexical & info structure of instances conform more closely w/ the respective constructions (left 👇). Where's pure syntax? LLM seems to say "🤷♀️" (right) @SRakshit
adele.scholar.princeton.edu/sites/g/file...
adele.scholar.princeton.edu/sites/g/file...
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
If you missed us at #cogsci2025, my lab presented 3 new studies showing how efficient (lossy) compression shapes individual learners, bilinguals, and action abstractions in language, further demonstrating the extraordinary applicability of this principle to human cognition! 🧵
1/n
1/n
August 9, 2025 at 1:46 PM
If you missed us at #cogsci2025, my lab presented 3 new studies showing how efficient (lossy) compression shapes individual learners, bilinguals, and action abstractions in language, further demonstrating the extraordinary applicability of this principle to human cognition! 🧵
1/n
1/n
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
(1)💡NEW PUBLICATION💡
Word and construction probabilities explain the acceptability of certain long-distance dependency structures
Work with Curtis Chen and Ted Gibson
Link to paper: tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
In memory of Curtis Chen.
Word and construction probabilities explain the acceptability of certain long-distance dependency structures
Work with Curtis Chen and Ted Gibson
Link to paper: tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
In memory of Curtis Chen.
tedlab.mit.edu
August 5, 2025 at 1:26 PM
(1)💡NEW PUBLICATION💡
Word and construction probabilities explain the acceptability of certain long-distance dependency structures
Work with Curtis Chen and Ted Gibson
Link to paper: tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
In memory of Curtis Chen.
Word and construction probabilities explain the acceptability of certain long-distance dependency structures
Work with Curtis Chen and Ted Gibson
Link to paper: tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
In memory of Curtis Chen.
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
1/7 If you're at CogSci 2025, I'd love to see you at my talk on Friday 1pm PDT in Nob Hill A! I'll be talking about our work towards an implemented computational model of noisy-channel comprehension (with @postylem.bsky.social, Ted Gibson, and @rplevy.bsky.social).
July 31, 2025 at 5:56 PM
1/7 If you're at CogSci 2025, I'd love to see you at my talk on Friday 1pm PDT in Nob Hill A! I'll be talking about our work towards an implemented computational model of noisy-channel comprehension (with @postylem.bsky.social, Ted Gibson, and @rplevy.bsky.social).
Looking forward to seeing everyone at #CogSci2025 this week! Come check out what we’ve been working on in the LInC Lab, along with our fantastic collaborators!
Paper 🔗 in 🧵👇
Paper 🔗 in 🧵👇
July 30, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Looking forward to seeing everyone at #CogSci2025 this week! Come check out what we’ve been working on in the LInC Lab, along with our fantastic collaborators!
Paper 🔗 in 🧵👇
Paper 🔗 in 🧵👇
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
Some happy science news (a small light in times of darkness). New paper out with @luciewolters.bsky.social and Mits Ota: : Skewed distributions facilitate infants’ word segmentation. sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Skewed distributions facilitate infants' word segmentation
Infants can use statistical patterns to segment continuous speech into words, a crucial task in language acquisition. Experimental studies typically i…
sciencedirect.com
July 10, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Some happy science news (a small light in times of darkness). New paper out with @luciewolters.bsky.social and Mits Ota: : Skewed distributions facilitate infants’ word segmentation. sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Thrilled to see this work published — and even more thrilled to have been part of such a great collaborative team!
One key takeaway for me: Webcam eye-tracking w/ jsPsych is awesome for 4-quadrant visual world paradigm studies -- less so for displays w/ smaller ROIs.
One key takeaway for me: Webcam eye-tracking w/ jsPsych is awesome for 4-quadrant visual world paradigm studies -- less so for displays w/ smaller ROIs.
Want to know what kinds of studies webcam-based eye tracking can be used for? Here's our take on the current tech. This certainly isn't the first paper on this topic, but it provides some converging evidence about the viability of eye tracking with online methods. online.ucpress.edu/collabra/art...
What Paradigms Can Webcam Eye-Tracking Be Used For? Attempted Replications of Five Cognitive Science Experiments
Web-based data collection allows researchers to recruit large and diverse samples with fewer resources than lab-based studies require. Recent innovations have expanded the set of methodolgies that are...
online.ucpress.edu
July 8, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Thrilled to see this work published — and even more thrilled to have been part of such a great collaborative team!
One key takeaway for me: Webcam eye-tracking w/ jsPsych is awesome for 4-quadrant visual world paradigm studies -- less so for displays w/ smaller ROIs.
One key takeaway for me: Webcam eye-tracking w/ jsPsych is awesome for 4-quadrant visual world paradigm studies -- less so for displays w/ smaller ROIs.
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
New paper w/ @ryskin.bsky.social and Chen Yu: We analyzed parent-child toy play and found that cross-situational learning statistics were present in naturalistic settings!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
June 19, 2025 at 6:24 PM
New paper w/ @ryskin.bsky.social and Chen Yu: We analyzed parent-child toy play and found that cross-situational learning statistics were present in naturalistic settings!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
I'm hiring a postdoc to start this fall! Come work with me? recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07123
Post-Doctoral position - Department of Linguistics
University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!
recruit.ucdavis.edu
May 30, 2025 at 1:30 AM
I'm hiring a postdoc to start this fall! Come work with me? recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07123
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
What are the organizing dimensions of language processing?
We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
May 23, 2025 at 5:00 PM
What are the organizing dimensions of language processing?
We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
We show that voxel responses during comprehension are organized along 2 main axes: processing difficulty & meaning abstractness—revealing an interpretable, topographic representational basis for language processing shared across individuals
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
🤖🧠 Paper out in Nature Communications! 🧠🤖
Bayesian models can learn rapidly. Neural networks can handle messy, naturalistic data. How can we combine these strengths?
Our answer: Use meta-learning to distill Bayesian priors into a neural network!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1/n
Bayesian models can learn rapidly. Neural networks can handle messy, naturalistic data. How can we combine these strengths?
Our answer: Use meta-learning to distill Bayesian priors into a neural network!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1/n
May 20, 2025 at 7:04 PM
🤖🧠 Paper out in Nature Communications! 🧠🤖
Bayesian models can learn rapidly. Neural networks can handle messy, naturalistic data. How can we combine these strengths?
Our answer: Use meta-learning to distill Bayesian priors into a neural network!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1/n
Bayesian models can learn rapidly. Neural networks can handle messy, naturalistic data. How can we combine these strengths?
Our answer: Use meta-learning to distill Bayesian priors into a neural network!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1/n
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
Unfortunately, the NSF grant that supports our work has been terminated. This is a setback, but our mission has not changed. We will continue to work hard on making cognitive science a more inclusive field. Stay tuned for upcoming events.
April 21, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Unfortunately, the NSF grant that supports our work has been terminated. This is a setback, but our mission has not changed. We will continue to work hard on making cognitive science a more inclusive field. Stay tuned for upcoming events.
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
Does the mind degrade or become enriched as we grow old? To explain healthy aging effects, the evidence supports enrichment. Indeed, the evidence suggests changes in crystallized (enrichment) and fluid intelligence (slowing) share a common cause. psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org
April 17, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Does the mind degrade or become enriched as we grow old? To explain healthy aging effects, the evidence supports enrichment. Indeed, the evidence suggests changes in crystallized (enrichment) and fluid intelligence (slowing) share a common cause. psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...
Reposted by Rachel Ryskin
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...
recognition support language learning across early
childhood": osf.io/preprints/ps...
April 14, 2025 at 9:58 PM
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...
recognition support language learning across early
childhood": osf.io/preprints/ps...