Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Gaia Molinaro

aaron bornstein @aaronbornstein.bsky.social · 28d

Come work with us! UC Irvine Cognitive Sciences is looking for a new Assistant Professor to join our team: recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09896

I'm not on the committee, but happy to talk if you're interested.

Assistant Professor - Cognitive Sciences

University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.ap.uci.edu

1 57 83

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Sep 9

That's a fascinating argument, thanks for bringing it to my attention, Jim!

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Sep 9

📢 New preprint!
How do humans learn from arbitrary, abstract goals? We show that, when goal spaces can be compressed, costly working-memory processes give way to internalized reward functions, enabling efficient goal-dependent reinforcement learning. @annecollins.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2509.06810

Reward function compression facilitates goal-dependent reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning agents learn from rewards, but humans can uniquely assign value to novel, abstract outcomes in a goal-dependent manner. However, this flexibility is cognitively costly, making l...

arxiv.org

2 24 59

Reposted by Gaia Molinaro

Yuko Munakata @yukomunakata.bsky.social · Sep 8

UC Davis is hiring! A tenure-track assistant professor of psychology, in human cognition or cognitive neuroscience #psychjobs recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07300

Assistant Professor of Psychology - Human Cognition or Cognitive Neuroscience

University of California, Davis is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.ucdavis.edu

3 110 170

Reposted by Gaia Molinaro

Rachit Dubey @rachitdubey.bsky.social · Sep 3

My lab at UCLA is hiring 1-2 PhD students this cycle!

Join us to work at the intersection of cognitive science and AI applied to pressing societal challenges like climate change.

More info about me: rachit-dubey.github.io

My lab: ucla-cocopol.github.io

Please help repost/spread the word!

2 20 39

Reposted by Gaia Molinaro

Rob Mok @robmok.bsky.social · Jul 18

JOB ALERT: Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Postdoc position in Osaka, Japan! Possible start in October 2025 (contact me ASAP), or from April 2026. PLEASE REPOST! #postdocjobs #neuroskyence #neuroscience #psychscisky #compneurosky #neurojobs 1/

1 76 85

Reposted by Gaia Molinaro

Seongmin Park @seongminpark.bsky.social · Jul 10

🚨 We’re hiring! The Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Virginia Tech is looking for a postdoc to join our team studying the neural + computational mechanisms of structure learning and flexible cognition: ccnvt.github.io#positions

CCN Lab

ccnvt.github.io

1 19 29

Reposted by Gaia Molinaro

Pierre-Yves Oudeyer @pyoudeyer.bsky.social · Apr 25

Generative AI is a cultural transmission technology:
it plays a growing role in generation, selection and transmission of ideas/opinions in human society 🧠🔄🌐

And yet we understand very little of this dynamics at this point 🤔❓

A step forward is our #ICLR2025 paper !👇

1 1 7

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Apr 23

Work led by Jérémy Perez with Corentin Leger @kovacgrgur.bsky.social Cédric Colas @clemmoulinfrier.bsky.social @pyoudeyer.bsky.social @maximederex.bsky.social

2

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Apr 23

Find out more here arxiv.org/abs/2407.04503 or check out our companion website sites.google.com/view/telepho...

When LLMs Play the Telephone Game: Cumulative Changes and Attractors in Iterated Cultural Transmissions

As large language models (LLMs) start interacting with each other and generating an increasing amount of text online, it becomes crucial to better understand how information is transformed as it passe...

arxiv.org

1 3

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Apr 23

What's wrong with evaluating #LLMs after a single interaction? Come find out @iclr-conf.bsky.social and learn how cultural attraction theory can help us do better. Poster #288, 10 am.

1 2 7

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Mar 12

This paper concludes a long, exciting journey, which started several years ago when I first met Moshe. It's been a fantastic ride! Thank you Moshe, Bar Ilan University, and Onward Israel for enabling it ♥️ and the editors Deniz Vatansever and Jessica Andrews-Hanna for inviting us to contribute!

5

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Mar 12

In light of its similar merits, ST deserves at least the same care, protection, and appreciation we devote to children’s play. Get access to the full article here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @elsevierconnect.bsky.social

Spontaneous thought as play: the value of fictional goals in the default mode network

Given its prevalence in our wakeful mental activity, spontaneous thought (ST) has been attributed several roles in cognition, most of which engage the…

www.sciencedirect.com

1 2 8

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Mar 12

Similarly, we propose that ST provides a cognitive platform for simulating outcomes and ideas that extend beyond immediate constraints. As long as a fictional goal provides enough structure, even unrealistic STs can contribute to our cognitive flexibility.

1 5

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Mar 12

In play, children engage in "fictional" goals. @junyi.bsky.social, @joshtenenbaum.bsky.social and Laura Schulz argued that these seemingly trivial activities enhance children's capacity to plan, innovate, and simulate complex scenarios.

1 4

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Mar 12

To answer this question, we draw an analogy between ST and children's play.

1 4

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Mar 12

The usefulness of ST is often connected to the proactive simulation of future scenarios related to our goals. But what about ST that engages in frivolous or highly unlikely situations?

1 3

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Mar 12

Spontaneous thought (ST, the relatively unrestricted thought process that accompanies much of our waking life) benefits cognition in several ways, from memory consolidation to mood enhancement. Check out work by Judith Mildner and @dianatamir.bsky.social for an awesome recent perspective on this.

1 4

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Mar 12

Have you ever gotten lost in fantasies and thought to yourself, "What a waste of time"? Well, think again! In our new piece in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Moshe Bar and I explain one reason why spontaneous thoughts, even when seemingly useless, may be key to human intelligence.

1 7 40

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Dec 11

Stop by @neuripsconf.bsky.social poster #3909 11 am - 2 pm today if you want to wish me a happy birthday, hear about goal selection in RL, or both! @pyoudeyer.bsky.social @annecollins.bsky.social

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Nov 18

I'm excited to announce that this work has been accepted at
@blog.neurips.cc.web.brid.gy 🧠🤖 We hope to spark conversations on goal selection in biological and artificial agents.

Check it out at openreview.net/forum?id=Gbq...

With Cédric Colas, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, & Anne Collins

1 1 4

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Nov 18

I'm excited to announce that this work has been accepted at
@blog.neurips.cc.web.brid.gy 🧠🤖 We hope to spark conversations on goal selection in biological and artificial agents.

Check it out at openreview.net/forum?id=Gbq...

With Cédric Colas, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, & Anne Collins

1 6 14

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Jun 17

No time to read? A 5-minute summary of this paper is now out on YouTube! youtu.be/fkPt9a5OvTs?...

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Jun 10

Thanks for flagging @ebonawitz.bsky.social! Here it is osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

1

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Jun 8

How do we decide which goals to pursue? Here, we introduce the notion of *latent learning progress* to explain human goal selection and inspire advances in the development of autotelic machines. osf.io/preprints/ps...
With Cédric Colas, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, and Anne Collins

OSF

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/5dtx3…

2 3 7

Gaia Molinaro @gaiamolinaro.bsky.social · Nov 14

The notion that goals are central to human cognition is intuitive, yet learning and decision-making researchers have often overlooked the topic. In this Trends in Cognitive Sciences review, @annecollins.bsky.social and I propose it’s time to start studying goals in their own right 🧠 t.co/He6PIpQdt9

An illustration showing a soccer ball shaping a net of neurons, trying to convey the idea that "goals" shape cognition

1 23 45