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Meltem Yucel

@drmeltemyucel.bsky.social

5.4K followers 1.7K following 280 posts

Assistant Professor @msupsychology.bsky.social • studying evolution, gossip, morality • Previously @ Duke, UVA, IMPRS LIFE • she/her • Founder: @psychresearchlist.bsky.social • Lab: @moralmindslab.bsky.social • www.meltemyucel.com

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 16d

Come join the Moral Minds Lab as a grad student at MSU! Brand-new lab equipped for child & adult testing, with motivated undergrads in a happy department. 🤩

Learn more: www.moralmindslab.com/join-our-tea...

(P.S. @tedmond.bsky.social is also taking a student!) @msupsychology.bsky.social

Family friendly waiting room for participants

Family friendly waiting room, picture shows children's play area

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 6h

#MSU #EL #ELansing #Lansing #Okemos #EastLansing

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 23h

👉 Sign up to hear about our upcoming studies: redcap.link/MoralMindsLab

👉 To learn more about us: www.moralmindslab.com/participate-...

#PsychSciSky #socialpsyc #devpsyc #AcademicSky #cogsci

Moral Minds Lab - CHILDatabase Signup

redcap.link

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 23h

Parents of 0- to 12-year-olds, come do science with us!

We run short, game-like studies with kids. We offer in-person and online options, flexible scheduling (weekdays & weekends), and sessions that are fun for children and easy for caregivers.

Moral Minds Lab - CHILDatabase Signup

redcap.link

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Reposted by Meltem Yucel

Nautilus Magazine @nautil.us · 1d

Half of this year’s #NobelPrize winners in the U.S. were immigrants. Now, the Trump administration may be threatening the country’s Nobel future—and its top rank among global science powerhouses. nautil.us/will-trumps-...

Will Trump's Immigration Policies Hurt US Nobel Chances?

This article explores the impact of the Trump administration's policies surrounding science funding and immigration on science.

nautil.us

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Reposted by Meltem Yucel

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 1d

Every developmental psychologist Is like “but my lecture slides!”

Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 2d

This is a big one! A 4-year writing project over many timezones, arguing for a reimagining of the influential "core knowledge" thesis.

Led by @daweibai.bsky.social, we argue that much of our innate knowledge of the world is not "conceptual" in nature, but rather wired into perceptual processing. 👇

Screenshot of a paper abstract:

“Core knowledge” refers to a set of cognitive systems that underwrite early representations of the physical and social world, appear universally across cultures, and likely result from our genetic endowment. Although this framework is canonically considered as a hypothesis about early emerging conception — how we think and reason about the world — here we present an alternative view: that many such representations are inherently perceptual in nature. This “core perception” view explains an intriguing (and otherwise mysterious) aspect of core-knowledge processes and representations: that they also operate in adults, where they display key empirical signatures of perceptual processing. We first illustrate this overlap using recent work on “core physics”, the domain of core knowledge concerned with physical objects, representing properties such as persistence through time, cohesion, solidity, and causal interactions. We review evidence that adult vision incorporates exactly these representations of core physics, while also displaying empirical signatures of genuinely perceptual mechanisms, such as rapid and automatic operation on the basis of specific sensory inputs, informational encapsulation, and interaction with other perceptual processes. We further argue that the same pattern holds for other areas of core knowledge, including geometrical, numerical, and social domains. In light of this evidence, we conclude that many infant results appealing to precocious reasoning abilities are better explained by sophisticated perceptual mechanisms shared by infants and adults. Our core-perception view elevates the status of perception in accounting for the origins of conceptual knowledge, and generates a range of ready-to-test hypotheses in developmental psychology, vision science, and more.

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 2d

Some days are not so fun, but today is not one of them thanks to anonymous shout outs via #PsycGoodDeedDay2025!

psychology.msu.edu/news-events/...

Shows a card that reads "Meltem Yucel deserves recognition for being an amazing mentor and person!"

Reposted by Meltem Yucel

Erin Westgate @erinwestgate.bsky.social · 29d

🚨 TT job alert! 🚨 The University of Florida is hiring an Assistant Professor in Social Psychology; open to ALL AREAS within social psych.

Review begins 10/10.

Job ad here: explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

I'm co-chair of the search committee and happy to answer questions! 🧵

Payne's Prairire, where you could watch the sunset every evening if you came to UF

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Reposted by Meltem Yucel

Abby Cassario @abbycassario.bsky.social · 4d

Has anyone ever written an LOR for a medical school app and know what committees tend to look for? I’m writing one for an absolute rockstar of an RA and want to make sure I’m highlighting the right things!

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Reposted by Meltem Yucel

Moral Minds Lab @moralmindslab.bsky.social · 8d

Did you hear the news? New interview dropped!

Meet @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social in her interview with @msupsychology.bsky.social!

Learn about her research interests, how to get involved, and the @psychresearchlist.bsky.social website.

psychology.msu.edu/news-events/...

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Reposted by Meltem Yucel

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 8d

man, academic science. you'll be plodding along editing a revision and then BAM your reviewer hits you with this citation

pubmed screenshot of the paper "Chickens prefer beautiful humans"

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you! I’ll note down the function. The general consensus seems to be getting to know the red cap admin team. So I’ll do that next week. 🙏

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

🙏 Thanks, Armen! Most of my studies will be single visit, those children can participate in different studies, depending on eligibility criteria. In this case, would we just need one project to house all contact information, participation dates etc and great subgroups for each study?

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

I'll attend their office hours next week. Thank you!!

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

🥹 Yes, please! I'll msg you!

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

These are all examples from FileMaker Pro, but I'm interested in seeing if I could achieve this level of usability with RedCap.

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

Here's another screenshot of a system I've used in the past (not RedCap). Each button represented a study, & clicking on one gave you all the kids in that age range in the database that isn't already actively being contacted.

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

Of course! Ideally, I'd like to have a way of keeping the contact information for families as well as record keeping for prior study participation (separate pages for siblings, but connected at the family level, similar to the screenshot here) that is searchable.

cont...

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 9d

Does anyone use #RedCap for child participant database management? If so, would you be willing to share screenshots etc. of what your user interface looks like or share the template, whichever is easier.

#PsychSciSky #socialpsyc #devpsyc #AcademicSky #cogsci

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 15d

Thanks, Jay! Grateful for our facilities team for fixing up the space!

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 16d

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 16d

fun!!

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 16d

And dare I say, I'm starting to like Outlook.

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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 16d

Never thought I would say this, but I really enjoy using Microsoft Teams + SharePoint. It integrates well with various non-Microsoft apps as well.

Reposted by Meltem Yucel

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 17d

8% of US adults say they have no close friends
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Chart showing a narrow majority of adults (53%) say they have between one and four close friends, while a significant share (38%) say they have five or more. Some 8% say they have no close friends.

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