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ari ☀️

@khoudary.bsky.social

210 followers 260 following 28 posts

phd researcher in cognitive sciences @ uc irvine. working on evidence accumulation, metacognition, memory, and philosophy of cognitive [neuro]science 🧠 they/them 🏳️‍🌈 ⚧️ 🇸🇾 https://arikhoudary.com/

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ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · May 20

super excited that the first paper from my PhD is now out! we develop a "philosophical toolkit" for computational cognitive modeling & use it to conceptually re-analyze a long-standing debate about evidence accumulation models of decision making 🧠📈 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Reasoning Goals and Representational Decisions in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience: Lessons From the Drift Diffusion Model

The appropriate form of the drift diffusion model depends on how one wishes to reason about their target with the model. If the goal is to parsimoniously explain the speed-accuracy tradeoff, the appr...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 16d

Microsoft will no longer allow Israel to use its cloud services to enable its mass surveillance of occupied Palestinians – "the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza"

Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its technology in mass surveillance of Palestinians

Exclusive: Tech firm ends military unit’s access to AI and data services after Guardian reveals secret spy project

www.theguardian.com

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ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · 15d

whaaaat’s going on at sfn??!!

ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · 21d

i always knew writing my dissertation was going to be tedious, intimidating, overwhelming, etc. but no one ever told me it was also going to be *fun* 😳

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D. J. Hicks @danhicks.bsky.social · 25d

join the protest: YES!

register for the protest: NO!

The Leshy Of Pennypack (they/it/and if you must, 'he') @theloneleshy.bsky.social · 25d

Do NOT sign up for a protest
do not make yourselves a bigger and easier target.
this is basic opsec

Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 25d

We need your help to make October 18 the biggest peaceful protest of the year. Please spread the word, register your local event as soon as you can, and start RSVPing for the local protests to help build momentum: www.nokings.org?SQF_SOURCE=i...

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Neuromatch @neuromatch.bsky.social · Aug 30

From student to 3-time TA, Shahrzad M. Esfahan’s journey shows how Neuromatch Academy opens doors to global science and community 🌍🧠✨

➡️ Read her story: www.linkedin.com/posts/neurom...

#MyNeuromatchStory #ComputationalNeuroscience #STEMEducation #Neuroscience #DeepLearning

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ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · Aug 28

thank you for writing this and making it open access!!!! these tensions have continually kept me up at night as i work on my comp cog neuro phd - i am so glad to have a collection of writing i can reference instead of my own scattered thoughts 😅

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jj skolnik @modernistwitch.myatproto.social · Aug 27

personally i do not think human rights should be up for “debate” but what do i know, i’m emotional and biased because those are my rights they’re talking about

Parker Molloy @parkermolloy.com · Aug 27

The Pod Save America bros are setting up a "debate" about trans rights featuring anti-trans ghoul Matt Yglesias, apparently! No clue who the "pro-trans" side will be repped by, but I'm really worried that they're going to just find someone to get steamrolled.

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · Aug 27

so there’s gonna potentially be a pod save america “debate” on democrats future support for trans rights in the near future

i had to back out because of scheduling conflicts, and for some reason they didn’t want my help finding a replacement

on the other side of the “debate” is…

matt yglesias

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Eitan Schechtman @eitans.bsky.social · Aug 28

New opinion piece!

@amirtal.bsky.social and I argue that "wake reactivation" is not a scientifically useful construct; It encompasses nonconscious & conscious processes w/ varying levels of elaboration & diverging consequences, leading to conflicting results

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lgli4sIRvW-LQ

authors.elsevier.com

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Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · Aug 22

How much does the environment we’re raised in change how we see the world? Wonderful piece in @sciam.bsky.social by @norabradford.bsky.social, ft. an interview with @dorsaamir.bsky.social about our work on the 'cultural byproduct hypothesis'.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/does...

Why a Classic Psychology Theory about Vision Has Fallen Apart

The downfall of a long-standing theory in psychology raises a question: How much does the environment we’re raised in change how we literally see the world?

www.scientificamerican.com

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Benjamin Paaßen @bpaassen.bsky.social · Aug 12

Therefore: Please don't use LLMs as research participants. LLMs do not simulate human psychology. (11/12)

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ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · Aug 11

seriously 😭 pls keep posting your posters & papers, especially if you work on expectations in perceptual decision making 🤲

Harrison Ritz @hritz.bsky.social · Aug 10

So much CCN fomo right now — hope everyone has fun this year!

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Jess Thompson @tsonj.bsky.social · Jul 4

Are you planning to attend #CCN2025? Do you want to reflect on how to direct your skills and aptitudes to tackle today's most pressing social problems? Make sure you come to Amsterdam a day early to attend our satellite event on Science for Social Good. Register here: forms.gle/TFRCZYX2qfwD...

CCN for social good - satellite registration

See https://anneurai.net/2025/05/05/ccn-for-social-good-2025-satellite-event/ for more information

forms.gle

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🐭 Danielle Williams 🐹 @okaydaniellle.bsky.social · Aug 9

I’m looking forward to our symposium at @ispsm.bsky.social on Sat at 5:30pm CEST. Zoom in to catch me, @kenaizawa.bsky.social, @gualtiero.bsky.social, and @francesegan.bsky.social talk about realism in Neuroscience! 🧠 🥳

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aaron bornstein @aaronbornstein.bsky.social · Aug 4

Sign a letter demanding that UC and the state of California refuse to appease the fascists any further:

tinyurl.com/ucstandup

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ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · Aug 3

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

so happy for you & excited to see all the great work to come 🤓

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Rochelle Kaper @rochellekaper.bsky.social · Aug 1

presenting today at #CogSci2025🚀
come check out my poster on how stress & state anxiety influence the representation of info needed for visual working memory & decision-making🧠!

underline.io/events/489/p...

📍P2-K-92, Salon 8
🕐 Fri Aug 1, 10:30 AM

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · Jul 29

💫 Just out! A tour de force by my colleague @olivia.science, new paper 📝:

What Does 'Human-Centred AI' Mean? 🧮 ⏰ 🧠

Keywords: AI; cognitive science; sociotechnical relationship; cognitive labour; ANN; technology; cognition; human-centred AI

Link to the paper on arXiv: lnkd.in/e9nHGkMK 1/n

Abstract:

While it seems sensible that human-centred artificial intelligence (AI) means centring “human behaviour and experience,” it cannot be any other way. AI, I argue, is usefully seen as a relationship between technology and humans where it appears that artifacts can perform, to a greater or lesser extent, human cognitive labour. This is evinced using examples that juxtapose technology with cognition, inter alia: abacus versus mental arithmetic; alarm clock versus knocker- upper; camera versus vision; and sweatshop versus tailor. Using novel definitions and analyses, sociotechnical relationships can be analysed into varying types of: displacement (harmful), enhancement (beneficial), and/or replacement (neutral) of human cognitive labour. Ultimately, all AI implicates human cognition; no mat- ter what. Obfuscation of cognition in the AI context — from clocks to artificial neural networks — results in distortion, in slowing critical engagement, pervert- ing cognitive science, and indeed in limiting our ability to truly centre humans and humanity in the engineering of AI systems. To even begin to de-fetishise AI, we must look the human-in-the-loop in the eyes.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; cognitive science; sociotechnical relationship; cognitive labour; artificial neural network; technology; cognition; human-centred AI

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Ann-Sophie Barwich @smellosopher.bsky.social · Jul 26

Accepted in the European Journal of Neuroscience:

"Wider than the Sky: An Alternative to “Mapping” the World onto the Brain"
(Barwich, A.S., Firestein, S., and M. Dietrich)

Open Access link to journal as soon as the paper is online!
Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...
#NeuroSky #PhilSky #HPS

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UC Irvine School of Social Sciences @ucisocsci.bsky.social · Jul 14

Detecting dementia earlier | With $4 million grant, UC Irvine cognitive scientist Aaron Bornstein seeks to develop inexpensive assessment of cognitive ability

@ucirvine.bsky.social @aaronbornstein.bsky.social @uofcalifornia.bsky.social

Detecting dementia earlier

With $4 million grant, UC Irvine researcher seeks to develop inexpensive assessment of cognitive ability

news.uci.edu

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Jul 8

NO. AI. FOR. WAR. CRIMES!!!

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ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · Jul 3

check out this blogpost where I share some of the behind-the-scenes motivations for this new paper w/ @meganakpeters.bsky.social & @aaronbornstein.bsky.social!

v grateful to get to share how philosophy helped me move thru the "existemic" angst that is years 3-4 of a comp cog neuro phd 🥲 🧠 🖥️

SPAN @socphilneuro.bsky.social · Jul 3

New post on THE FEEDBACK featuring a new paper by Ari Khoudary & others titled: 'Reasoning Goals and Representational Decisions in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience: Lessons From the Drift Diffusion Model' out now in the European Journal of Neuroscience!

thefeedback.blog/2025/07/02/r...

Reasoning Goals and Representational Decisions in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience: Lessons From the Drift Diffusion Model // By: Ari Khoudary, Megan A.K. Peters, and Aaron Bornstein

Reasoning Goals and Representational Decisions in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience: Lessons From the Drift Diffusion ModelBy: Ari Khoudary (UC Irvine), Megan A.K. Peters (UC Irvine), & Aaro…

thefeedback.blog

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Rosanne Rademaker @rademaker.bsky.social · Jul 2

Who doesn't like a good model of the brain? Yet, from simple regression to neural nets, some limitations keep popping up (e.g., overfitting) @mjwolff.bsky.social & I saw some cool but puzzling data, ran a quick analysis & found one such limitation: model mimicry. Now in #naturecommunications &🧵below

Model mimicry limits conclusions about neural tuning and can mistakenly imply unlikely priors

Nature Communications - Model mimicry limits conclusions about neural tuning and can mistakenly imply unlikely priors

rdcu.be

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ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · Jun 30

for context: we recently showed how the same model structure (the DDM) gives different types of explanation depending on the measurements to which it’s applied (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...)

been thinking abt how this transfers to deep learning models & would love to hear ur thoughts!!

Reasoning Goals and Representational Decisions in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience: Lessons From the Drift Diffusion Model

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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ari ☀️ @khoudary.bsky.social · Jun 30

sorry if i’m being too literal but i’m wondering if you have in mind a “both-and” relation to mechanistic/normative or a “neither/nor”?

and if the latter, do you think that all instances of neuroAI explanation fall into this third type of exp?

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Jun 25

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance

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Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature

An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.

www.nature.com

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