Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
@thecharleywu.bsky.social
Prof. of Computational Cognitive Science at TU Darmstadt & PI of the Human and Machine Cognition lab at the University of Tübingen | hmc-lab.com
Pinned
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution
posted on October 16, 2025
We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual for a ful...
hmc-lab.com
Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur...
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Pop-up AI defacing your article critical of AI captures a lot of what it feels like to work in this space.
@lmesseri.bsky.social
@lmesseri.bsky.social
November 7, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Pop-up AI defacing your article critical of AI captures a lot of what it feels like to work in this space.
@lmesseri.bsky.social
@lmesseri.bsky.social
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
🎤 The lineup is here!
We are delighted to introduce the keynote speakers for Culture Conference 2026 (26–27 Feb, Utrecht) - to be revealed over the coming days.
Explore the growing list on our website: culture-conference.com/keynote-spea...
🧵And meet them below...
We are delighted to introduce the keynote speakers for Culture Conference 2026 (26–27 Feb, Utrecht) - to be revealed over the coming days.
Explore the growing list on our website: culture-conference.com/keynote-spea...
🧵And meet them below...
November 6, 2025 at 1:01 PM
🎤 The lineup is here!
We are delighted to introduce the keynote speakers for Culture Conference 2026 (26–27 Feb, Utrecht) - to be revealed over the coming days.
Explore the growing list on our website: culture-conference.com/keynote-spea...
🧵And meet them below...
We are delighted to introduce the keynote speakers for Culture Conference 2026 (26–27 Feb, Utrecht) - to be revealed over the coming days.
Explore the growing list on our website: culture-conference.com/keynote-spea...
🧵And meet them below...
Just 1 week to apply! 4 year @erc.europa.eu funded PhD position working in an interdisciplinary team to study #culturalEvolution as a process of reuse, recombination, and creative re-engineering of past solutions. Details 👉 hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur... 🙏Please share!
November 5, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Just 1 week to apply! 4 year @erc.europa.eu funded PhD position working in an interdisciplinary team to study #culturalEvolution as a process of reuse, recombination, and creative re-engineering of past solutions. Details 👉 hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur... 🙏Please share!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵
Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs
The selective revision of beliefs in light of new evidence has been considered one of the hallmarks of human-level rationality. However, tests of this ability in other species are lacking. We examined...
www.science.org
October 30, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
great job by @luiantaverra.bsky.social and @fabianrenz.bsky.social writing up this overview of methods and issues in measuring brain plasticity non-invasively in humans!
📘🧠💥@fabianrenz.bsky.social , @nicoschuck.bsky.social & I thought about methods to measure brain plasticity and wrote an overview of exciting new methods and developments!
Read our chapter, out now in The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Enhancement and Brain Plasticity academic.oup.com/edited-volum...
Read our chapter, out now in The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Enhancement and Brain Plasticity academic.oup.com/edited-volum...
Validate User
academic.oup.com
October 28, 2025 at 8:51 PM
great job by @luiantaverra.bsky.social and @fabianrenz.bsky.social writing up this overview of methods and issues in measuring brain plasticity non-invasively in humans!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Maybe the thing that gives me a pulse-pounding throbbing headache is when I think of how techbros sold ChatGPT to universities as ‘revolutionizing’ higher education and our institutions just forked over money without even asking for actual evidence
When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same.
Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow.
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow.
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Experimental evidence of the effects of large language models versus web search on depth of learning
Abstract. The effects of using large language models (LLMs) versus traditional web search on depth of learning are explored. A theory is proposed that when
academic.oup.com
October 28, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Maybe the thing that gives me a pulse-pounding throbbing headache is when I think of how techbros sold ChatGPT to universities as ‘revolutionizing’ higher education and our institutions just forked over money without even asking for actual evidence
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
📣 Apply now for the 🌵CaCTüS 3-month fully funded internship in Germany in 2026!
Work on ML, theor. neuroscience, computational psychiatry, behavioral experiments or data analysis at a top institution in Tübingen. For students facing barriers in higher education. 👉 cactus-internship.tuebingen.mpg.de
Work on ML, theor. neuroscience, computational psychiatry, behavioral experiments or data analysis at a top institution in Tübingen. For students facing barriers in higher education. 👉 cactus-internship.tuebingen.mpg.de
October 21, 2025 at 8:23 AM
📣 Apply now for the 🌵CaCTüS 3-month fully funded internship in Germany in 2026!
Work on ML, theor. neuroscience, computational psychiatry, behavioral experiments or data analysis at a top institution in Tübingen. For students facing barriers in higher education. 👉 cactus-internship.tuebingen.mpg.de
Work on ML, theor. neuroscience, computational psychiatry, behavioral experiments or data analysis at a top institution in Tübingen. For students facing barriers in higher education. 👉 cactus-internship.tuebingen.mpg.de
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be joining the faculty at @umassamherst.bsky.social next year as an assistant professor in Psychological & Brain Sciences! 🥳
a cartoon of homer simpson says whoo-hoo in front of a stone wall
ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson says whoo-hoo in front of a stone wall
media.tenor.com
October 27, 2025 at 2:36 PM
I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be joining the faculty at @umassamherst.bsky.social next year as an assistant professor in Psychological & Brain Sciences! 🥳
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
My lab is looking for a Senior Scientist (= PostDoc with option of permanency)!
We are looking for someone interested in doing cutting-edge computational social science + helping us with data & software engineering 🤓.
See job ad for details jobs.uni-graz.at/en/jobs/7d14...
We are looking for someone interested in doing cutting-edge computational social science + helping us with data & software engineering 🤓.
See job ad for details jobs.uni-graz.at/en/jobs/7d14...
Universität Graz
jobs.uni-graz.at
October 28, 2025 at 7:02 AM
My lab is looking for a Senior Scientist (= PostDoc with option of permanency)!
We are looking for someone interested in doing cutting-edge computational social science + helping us with data & software engineering 🤓.
See job ad for details jobs.uni-graz.at/en/jobs/7d14...
We are looking for someone interested in doing cutting-edge computational social science + helping us with data & software engineering 🤓.
See job ad for details jobs.uni-graz.at/en/jobs/7d14...
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Let’s not be naive: We need to be very aware of industry influence in computational social science! Through control of data (and experiment) access the situation is even more problematic than in other industries, which makes the data access rights under DSA article 40 particular important!
1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.
There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.
There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.
October 24, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Let’s not be naive: We need to be very aware of industry influence in computational social science! Through control of data (and experiment) access the situation is even more problematic than in other industries, which makes the data access rights under DSA article 40 particular important!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Here’s the original clip of Ronald Reagan from April 25, 1987, where he delivered a complete and total rebuke against tariffs. Trump's calling Reagan’s words here “FAKE” and “fraudulent.” They’re 100% real. And the original clip is actually far worse for Trump, as much is left out of the ad:
October 24, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Here’s the original clip of Ronald Reagan from April 25, 1987, where he delivered a complete and total rebuke against tariffs. Trump's calling Reagan’s words here “FAKE” and “fraudulent.” They’re 100% real. And the original clip is actually far worse for Trump, as much is left out of the ad:
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Harvard FAS Cuts Ph.D. Seats By More Than Half Across Next Two Admissions Cycles | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences slashed the number of Ph.D. student admissions slots for the Science division by more than 75 percent and for the Arts & Humanities division by about 60 percent for th...
www.thecrimson.com
October 21, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
- Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75%
- Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60%
- Social Sciences by 50–70%
- History by 60%
- Biology by 75%
- The German department will lose all PhD seats
- Sociology from six PhD students to zero
Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur...
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution
posted on October 16, 2025
We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual for a ful...
hmc-lab.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur...
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Very thought-provoking post by @prakhargodara.bsky.social. Is confirmation bias/positivity bias a statistical "ghost" of model specification? Specifically not including temporally decaying learning rates? The evidence suggests this is not the case and here is why (1/n)
Is confirmation bias a real cognitive flaw, or a statistical ghost created by our models? My new PNAS paper shows a startling result: fitting Q-learning models to behavior in bandit tasks detect a bias, even from the behavior of a perfectly rational Bayesian learner.
October 19, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Very thought-provoking post by @prakhargodara.bsky.social. Is confirmation bias/positivity bias a statistical "ghost" of model specification? Specifically not including temporally decaying learning rates? The evidence suggests this is not the case and here is why (1/n)
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
This is the one, folks. If you possibly, possibly can, we need you to be there. Find your peaceful gathering at nokings.org
October 17, 2025 at 2:04 PM
This is the one, folks. If you possibly, possibly can, we need you to be there. Find your peaceful gathering at nokings.org
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
🚨 New preprint: What does the research landscape of behavioral reinforcement learning look like 🌍?
We developed an LLM-powered bibliometric analysis to characterize article clusters, investigate their connections, and examine the distribution of topics across the landscape.
osf.io/6c2va_v1
We developed an LLM-powered bibliometric analysis to characterize article clusters, investigate their connections, and examine the distribution of topics across the landscape.
osf.io/6c2va_v1
OSF
osf.io
October 17, 2025 at 7:25 AM
🚨 New preprint: What does the research landscape of behavioral reinforcement learning look like 🌍?
We developed an LLM-powered bibliometric analysis to characterize article clusters, investigate their connections, and examine the distribution of topics across the landscape.
osf.io/6c2va_v1
We developed an LLM-powered bibliometric analysis to characterize article clusters, investigate their connections, and examine the distribution of topics across the landscape.
osf.io/6c2va_v1
Great to see this work finally released! Fun fact, Valerii was the winner of the #COSMOS2023 poster prize with an earlier iteration of this project
October 15, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Great to see this work finally released! Fun fact, Valerii was the winner of the #COSMOS2023 poster prize with an earlier iteration of this project
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Which processes underlie collective intelligence in naturalistic human groups?
In new work led by Valerii Chirkov, we show that payoff selectivity is key in transforming a group of individuals into an intelligent collective 🤝🧠
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY7n...
Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
In new work led by Valerii Chirkov, we show that payoff selectivity is key in transforming a group of individuals into an intelligent collective 🤝🧠
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY7n...
Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
First-Person Perspective of the Voluntary Payoff-Sharing (VP) Condition
YouTube video by Valerii Chirkov
www.youtube.com
October 15, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Which processes underlie collective intelligence in naturalistic human groups?
In new work led by Valerii Chirkov, we show that payoff selectivity is key in transforming a group of individuals into an intelligent collective 🤝🧠
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY7n...
Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
In new work led by Valerii Chirkov, we show that payoff selectivity is key in transforming a group of individuals into an intelligent collective 🤝🧠
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY7n...
Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology:
“A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.”
Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍
🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
@themanybirds.bsky.social
“A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.”
Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍
🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
@themanybirds.bsky.social
A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia
Neophobia (the aversive response to novelty) varies considerably across species and individuals, and can impact adaptability and survival. This study assesses neophobia in 1400 subjects from 136 bird ...
journals.plos.org
October 14, 2025 at 6:45 PM
🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology:
“A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.”
Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍
🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
@themanybirds.bsky.social
“A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.”
Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍
🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
@themanybirds.bsky.social
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
1st Sharp Lab preprint! 🚨 We tested how anxiety affects task generalization—not how people generalize threat stimuli, but how they reuse action-outcome structures when planning in new contexts.
Worry makes people avoid reusing actions that co-occurred w/ threat!
📄: osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵 1/12
Worry makes people avoid reusing actions that co-occurred w/ threat!
📄: osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵 1/12
October 13, 2025 at 6:30 AM
1st Sharp Lab preprint! 🚨 We tested how anxiety affects task generalization—not how people generalize threat stimuli, but how they reuse action-outcome structures when planning in new contexts.
Worry makes people avoid reusing actions that co-occurred w/ threat!
📄: osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵 1/12
Worry makes people avoid reusing actions that co-occurred w/ threat!
📄: osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵 1/12
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
New (revised) preprint with @thecharleywu.bsky.social
We rethink how to assess machine consciousness: not by code or circuitry, but by behavioral inference—as in cognitive science.
Extraordinary claims still need extraordinary evidence.
👉 osf.io/preprints/ps...
#AI #Consciousness #LLM
We rethink how to assess machine consciousness: not by code or circuitry, but by behavioral inference—as in cognitive science.
Extraordinary claims still need extraordinary evidence.
👉 osf.io/preprints/ps...
#AI #Consciousness #LLM
October 8, 2025 at 9:02 AM
New (revised) preprint with @thecharleywu.bsky.social
We rethink how to assess machine consciousness: not by code or circuitry, but by behavioral inference—as in cognitive science.
Extraordinary claims still need extraordinary evidence.
👉 osf.io/preprints/ps...
#AI #Consciousness #LLM
We rethink how to assess machine consciousness: not by code or circuitry, but by behavioral inference—as in cognitive science.
Extraordinary claims still need extraordinary evidence.
👉 osf.io/preprints/ps...
#AI #Consciousness #LLM
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
And huge thanks again both RIKEN CBS-Toyota Collaboration Center (btcc.riken.jp/en/) and @eslr.bsky.social for your generous support! And thanks a lot @tatsushi-usui.bsky.social for the stunning logo design and local organisations!
October 7, 2025 at 5:58 AM
And huge thanks again both RIKEN CBS-Toyota Collaboration Center (btcc.riken.jp/en/) and @eslr.bsky.social for your generous support! And thanks a lot @tatsushi-usui.bsky.social for the stunning logo design and local organisations!
Me and @watarutoyokawa.bsky.social want to thank everyone who attended, presented at, and helped organize #COSMOS2025! If you weren't able to make it, all teaching materials are already online and we'll be uploading videos of all talks soon cosmossummerschool.github.io/materials/
October 6, 2025 at 4:15 AM
Me and @watarutoyokawa.bsky.social want to thank everyone who attended, presented at, and helped organize #COSMOS2025! If you weren't able to make it, all teaching materials are already online and we'll be uploading videos of all talks soon cosmossummerschool.github.io/materials/
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Are you studying animal sociality?
My (now published) first PhD chapter proposes a Bayesian + causal framework to infer the factors shaping the social relationships that animals form with one another.
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
My (now published) first PhD chapter proposes a Bayesian + causal framework to infer the factors shaping the social relationships that animals form with one another.
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
A causal framework for the drivers of animal social network structure
Author summary Behavioural ecologists ask mechanistic questions about behaviour—causal questions. When studying animal societies, these questions often concern the drivers of social network structure....
journals.plos.org
September 30, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Are you studying animal sociality?
My (now published) first PhD chapter proposes a Bayesian + causal framework to infer the factors shaping the social relationships that animals form with one another.
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
My (now published) first PhD chapter proposes a Bayesian + causal framework to infer the factors shaping the social relationships that animals form with one another.
journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
⭐PhD position available!⭐
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...
Analysis of communication and collective behavior in animal groups
imprs-qbee.mpg.de
October 3, 2025 at 7:40 AM
⭐PhD position available!⭐
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...