Nancy Kanwisher
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Nancy Kanwisher
@nancykanwisher.bsky.social
2.9K followers 440 following 440 posts

Scientist, mentor, activist, explorer.

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Nancy Gail Kanwisher FBA is the Walter A Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a researcher at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. She studies the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying human visual perception and cognition. .. more

Neuroscience 75%
Computer science 12%
Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher, Christina Pagel

rbreich.bsky.social
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 11h
Under Trump, the NIH is giving fewer grants to fewer scientists. The grants awarded are smaller and scientists have less time to spend them.

Projects in cancer, diabetes, aging, neurological disorder, and more are going unfunded.

“Make America Healthy Again.”
The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine
A quiet policy change means the government is making fewer bets on long-term science.
www.nytimes.com

Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 1d
A renewed Democratic Party must be rooted in a moral vision that is all too absent in the world. Sometimes, to win, you must show that there are principles for which you are prepared to lose."
Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 1d
If you believe a 19-year-old Jewish college student chanting “Free Palestine” is more dangerous than the vice president of the United States implying that Germans should embrace the far-right party Alternative for Germany, then you’re drawing the wrong lessons from history.
..
Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 1d
Of course, there is antisemitism amid Israel’s critics that must be condemned, but the charge is now applied so broadly that it is being debased. This normalizes vile conspiracy theories about Jews by lumping them together with legitimate critiques of Israeli policy.
...
Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 1d
Thank you Ben Rhodes for this important column:
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/o...
Some exerpts:
"If you believe a Palestinian child is equal in dignity and worth to an Israeli or American child, it is no longer possible to support this Israeli government while hiding behind platitudes about peace.
...
www.nytimes.com

Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 2d
UNACCEPTABLE: S college kid in Boston boards a DOMESTIC flight to Texas see her family for Thanksgiving, is surrounded at Logan airport by ICE agents and abruptly deported to Honduras. This insanity must stop.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/u...
College Student Is Deported During Trip Home for Thanksgiving
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Stephen M. Walt, Kori Schake, Marc Lynch , and 13 more

rgoodlaw.bsky.social
Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 3d
Former US military lawyers speak out:

"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."

Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes

1/2
• If the U.S. military operation to interdict and destroy suspected narcotraFicking vessels is a “non-international armed conflict,” as the Trump Administration suggests, orders to “kill everybody,” which can reasonably be regarded as an order to give “no quarter,” and to “double-tap” a target in order to kill survivors, are clearly illegal under international law. In short, they are war crimes. • If the U.S. military operation is not an armed conflict of any kind, these orders to kill helpless civilians clinging to the wreckage of a vessel our military destroyed would subject everyone from SECDEF down to the individual who pulled the trigger to prosecution under U.S. law for murder. Highlighted sentence at the end of the document reads: Again, the bottom line is that, since orders to kill survivors of an attack at sea are “patently illegal,” anyone who issues or follows such orders can and should be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Nancy Kanwisher

taliajane.bsky.social
talia jane ❤️‍🔥 @taliajane.bsky.social · 3d
600 ICE agents were supposed to be deployed to Canal Street. Hundreds of New Yorkers gathered instead.

Quick summary by me:
Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 6d
Tom, I am looking for something lightweight (for wilderness trips) that keeps its charge for days/weeks that will work well for both books and pdfs. If i can highlight pdfs in the e-reader and then export those highlighted files to my Mac after, that would be awesome. If you find such let me know.
Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 6d
What a privilege and a delight to work with @coltoncasto.bsky.social @ev_fedorenko and @neuranna
on this new speculative piece on What it means to understand language, nicely summarized in this
Tweeprint from @coltoncasto.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2511.19757

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher, Greg Linden, Elisa Freschi

coltoncasto.bsky.social
Colton Casto @coltoncasto.bsky.social · 6d
What does it mean to understand language? We argue that the brain’s core language system is limited, and that *deeply* understanding language requires EXPORTING info to other brain regions.
w/ @neuranna.bsky.social @evfedorenko.bsky.social @nancykanwisher.bsky.social
arxiv.org/abs/2511.19757
1/n🧵👇
What does it mean to understand language?
Language understanding entails not just extracting the surface-level meaning of the linguistic input, but constructing rich mental models of the situation it describes. Here we propose that because pr...
arxiv.org

Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 6d
Know hope:
www.politico.com/news/2025/11...
Appeals court upholds $1M penalty against Trump in lawsuit against Hillary Clinton
The judges ruled that the president’s arguments “were indeed frivolous.”
www.politico.com

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher

tparsi.bsky.social
Trita Parsi @tparsi.bsky.social · 6d
This is the face of an American child. Israel has jailed him for 9 months without a charge. Without a protest from the US gov. Without a scandal in Western media.

Of course, this would've been front-page news daily had another country done this to an American child.

www.bbc.com/news/article...
Palestinian-US teen held by Israel for nine months without charge due in court
Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, from Florida, was detained by Israeli soldiers while on holiday in the occupied West Bank.
www.bbc.com

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher

tomerullman.bsky.social
Tomer Ullman @tomerullman.bsky.social · 7d
whenever a new video-generation model comes out I check if it can create centaurs from the prompt 'half-man, half-horse'.

The answer is almost always 'no'.

This is Veo 3.1's response to "a half-man, half-horse creature running along the beach"
Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 8d
Applications due December 1st!
Come work with us!
Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 8d
Join the We Ain't Buying it campaign, don't shop at Trump enablers Target, Home Depot, or Amazon 11/27 - 12/1.

indivisible.org/campaign/we-...

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
What is the latest Black Friday boycott – and will it work?
While others scramble for deals on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, activists hope to leverage shopping behavior for societal change
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher

jswatz.bsky.social
John Schwartz @jswatz.bsky.social · 8d
For those of us who teach journalism students about ethics, we've had some astonishingly clear lessons recently, including one from a former NYT reporter. Great stuff from @sulliview.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/margaret...
Three lessons in unethical media behavior
Plus: Some moments that made me proud to be a journalist
open.substack.com

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher, Helen Tager‐Flusberg, Hugo Mercier , and 1 more

profsimonfisher.bsky.social
Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 9d
Origins of language, one of humanity’s most distinctive traits, may be best explained as a unique convergence of multiple capacities each with its own evolutionary history, involving intertwined roles of biology & culture. This framing can expand research horizons. A 🧵 on our @science.org paper.🧪1/n
What enables human language? A biocultural framework
Explaining the origins of language is a key challenge in understanding ourselves as a species. We present an empirical framework that draws on synergies across fields to facilitate robust studies of l...
www.science.org

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher, Juan Cole

stelhami.bsky.social
Shibley Telhami @stelhami.bsky.social · 10d
“America needs to secure his release NOW.” Amen!
vanhollen.senate.gov Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · 10d
Israel has held 16-year-old American, Mohammed Ibrahim, without trial, for 9 months.

He has been denied contact with family & his health is deteriorating. He says he falsely confessed to throwing a rock after being beaten.

America needs to secure his release NOW.

Reposted by Shannon Vallor, Lisa W. Fazio, Nancy Kanwisher , and 6 more

kieraevebutler.bsky.social
Kiera Butler @kieraevebutler.bsky.social · 11d
New from me: I talked to CDC staffers about the new vaccines and autism page. They said things like:

“The best way I can put it is it feels like we’re on a hijacked airplane.”

“I think people are starting to see that we can’t fulfill our mission here.”
“Embarrassing” and “horrifying”: CDC workers describe the new vaccines and autism page
"The best way I can put it is it feels like we're on a hijacked airplane."
www.motherjones.com

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher

yangtancollective.bsky.social
Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 11d
(1/2) ICoN Fellow Andrea de Varda @andreadevarda.bsky.social and Ev Fedorenko @evfedorenko.bsky.social have revealed that AI reasoning models & humans struggle with the same tough problems—and take longer on them in parallel ways.

Article 🔗 news.mit.edu/2025/cost-of...
The cost of thinking
MIT McGovern Institute researchers find a surprising parallel in the ways humans and new AI models solve complex problems.
news.mit.edu

Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 12d
WTAF?

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher, Michael Wagner, Evelyne de Leeuw , and 5 more

crow.house.gov
Rep. Jason Crow @crow.house.gov · 12d
The President of the United States just called for my arrest and execution.

In these moments, fear is contagious, but so is courage:

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher

samwang.bsky.social
Sam Wang @samwang.bsky.social · 12d
The effectiveness of a mass movement scales up out of proportion to its size. 10 people may be 100 times as effective as one; 100 people may be 10,000 times as effective.

Imagine hundreds of people on scooters, doing what Buzz Grambo (that's his name!) is doing: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Meet the veteran who chases ICE on a scooter
Clifford “Buzz” Grambo patrols the streets of Baltimore to keep his neighbors safe—and make federal agents uncomfortable.
www.motherjones.com

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher

rbreich.bsky.social
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 13d
A House panel is holding a hearing on a proposed ban on Congressional stock trading.

This ban is long overdue. Why should members of Congress be able to use privileged information to make money on the stock market, while they’re supposed to be working for you?

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher

aclu.org
ACLU @aclu.org · 14d
BREAKING: A federal judge ordered public schools in Texas to remove displays of the Ten Commandments in their classrooms.

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher, Jill A. Jacobson

joshhmcdermott.bsky.social
Josh McDermott @joshhmcdermott.bsky.social · 14d
Two weeks left to apply! MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences is seeking a tenure-track Assistant Professor, working with nonhuman animals in some way. Application deadline is Dec. 1. Full posting: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30586
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Job #AJO30586, Assistant Professor level or higher, Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US
academicjobsonline.org

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher

blobology.bsky.social
Rob Johnson @blobology.bsky.social · 15d
To study how animals understand the physical world (and the rules that govern its dynamics), @jinyao-y.bsky.social trains rats to play fetch with robots 🐀🤖🎾

To learn more, come to our poster Tuesday morning!
[Board W11] Rats learn and use intuitive physics knowledge to solve fetch tasks.
#SfN2025
Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 15d
This is an amazing opportunity: work with Vivian Paulun
‪@vivianpaulun.bsky.social‬, who has deep insights about perception, and extraordinary skills as an experimentalist and theorist.
vivianpaulun.bsky.social Vivian Paulun @vivianpaulun.bsky.social · 15d
🚨I am looking for a POSTDOC, LAB MANAGER/TECH and GRAD STUDENTS to join my new lab in beautiful Madison, WI.
We study how our brains perceive and represent the physical world around us using behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging methods.
paulunlab.psych.wisc.edu
#VisionScience #NeuroSkyence
Skyline of Madison, WI

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher, Mark J. Brandt, Markus Bräuer

vivianpaulun.bsky.social
Vivian Paulun @vivianpaulun.bsky.social · 15d
🚨I am looking for a POSTDOC, LAB MANAGER/TECH and GRAD STUDENTS to join my new lab in beautiful Madison, WI.
We study how our brains perceive and represent the physical world around us using behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging methods.
paulunlab.psych.wisc.edu
#VisionScience #NeuroSkyence
Skyline of Madison, WI