Sam Nastase
@samnastase.bsky.social
assistant professor of psychology at USC丨he/him丨semiprofessional dungeon master
Pinned
Sam Nastase
@samnastase.bsky.social
· Oct 1
I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.
Reposted by Sam Nastase
🧠 New year, new preprint!
Why does motor learning involve multiple brain regions? We propose that the cortico-cerebellar system learns a "map" of actions where similar movements are nearby, while basal ganglia do RL in this simplified space.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Why does motor learning involve multiple brain regions? We propose that the cortico-cerebellar system learns a "map" of actions where similar movements are nearby, while basal ganglia do RL in this simplified space.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
January 5, 2026 at 12:54 PM
🧠 New year, new preprint!
Why does motor learning involve multiple brain regions? We propose that the cortico-cerebellar system learns a "map" of actions where similar movements are nearby, while basal ganglia do RL in this simplified space.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Why does motor learning involve multiple brain regions? We propose that the cortico-cerebellar system learns a "map" of actions where similar movements are nearby, while basal ganglia do RL in this simplified space.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by Sam Nastase
⭕️ At least 40 people, including civilians & members of the Venezuelan military, were killed in the attack, according to preliminary assessments, a senior Venezuelan official reportedly told the New York Times.
US forces deployed more than 150 aircraft to eliminate air defenses, clearing the...
US forces deployed more than 150 aircraft to eliminate air defenses, clearing the...
January 4, 2026 at 2:11 AM
⭕️ At least 40 people, including civilians & members of the Venezuelan military, were killed in the attack, according to preliminary assessments, a senior Venezuelan official reportedly told the New York Times.
US forces deployed more than 150 aircraft to eliminate air defenses, clearing the...
US forces deployed more than 150 aircraft to eliminate air defenses, clearing the...
Reposted by Sam Nastase
Remember that the US *does not care* about the people of Venezuela. It is not about "narcotrafficking", or "democracy", or whatever propaganda they have going. It is *explicitly* about US control over oil, capital accumulation, and geopolitical power.
January 3, 2026 at 2:11 PM
Remember that the US *does not care* about the people of Venezuela. It is not about "narcotrafficking", or "democracy", or whatever propaganda they have going. It is *explicitly* about US control over oil, capital accumulation, and geopolitical power.
Reposted by Sam Nastase
A couple years (!) in the making: we’re releasing a new corpus of embodied, collaborative problem solving dialogues. We paid 36 people to play Portal 2’s co-op mode and collected their speech + game recordings.
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2512.03381
Website: berkeley-nlp.github.io/portal-dialo...
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Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2512.03381
Website: berkeley-nlp.github.io/portal-dialo...
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December 5, 2025 at 6:54 PM
A couple years (!) in the making: we’re releasing a new corpus of embodied, collaborative problem solving dialogues. We paid 36 people to play Portal 2’s co-op mode and collected their speech + game recordings.
Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2512.03381
Website: berkeley-nlp.github.io/portal-dialo...
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Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2512.03381
Website: berkeley-nlp.github.io/portal-dialo...
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Reposted by Sam Nastase
New preprint w/ Malin Styrnal & @martinhebart.bsky.social
Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
December 4, 2025 at 6:53 PM
New preprint w/ Malin Styrnal & @martinhebart.bsky.social
Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Have you ever computed noise ceilings to understand how well a model performs? We wrote a clarifying note on a subtle and common misapplication that can make models appear quite a lot better than they are.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Sam Nastase
Investigating individual-specific topographic organization has traditionally been a resource-intensive and time-consuming process. But what if we could map visual cortex organization in thousands of brains? Here we offer the community with a toolbox that can do just that! tinyurl.com/deepretinotopy
December 1, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Investigating individual-specific topographic organization has traditionally been a resource-intensive and time-consuming process. But what if we could map visual cortex organization in thousands of brains? Here we offer the community with a toolbox that can do just that! tinyurl.com/deepretinotopy
Reposted by Sam Nastase
📢 @samnastase.bsky.social and colleagues show that aligning ECoG data into a shared space improves how well LLMs predict brain activity during language comprehension. www.nature.com/articles/s43... #compneuro #Neuroscience #ArtificialIntelligence
🔓 rdcu.be/eQzYm
🔓 rdcu.be/eQzYm
Aligning brains into a shared space improves their alignment with large language models - Nature Computational Science
Aligning electrocorticography data into a shared space improves how large language models predict brain activity during language comprehension, enhancing encoding accuracy, cross-participant generaliz...
www.nature.com
November 18, 2025 at 3:29 PM
📢 @samnastase.bsky.social and colleagues show that aligning ECoG data into a shared space improves how well LLMs predict brain activity during language comprehension. www.nature.com/articles/s43... #compneuro #Neuroscience #ArtificialIntelligence
🔓 rdcu.be/eQzYm
🔓 rdcu.be/eQzYm
Reposted by Sam Nastase
🚨New Preprint!
How can we model natural scene representations in visual cortex? A solution is in active vision: predict the features of the next glimpse! arxiv.org/abs/2511.12715
+ @adriendoerig.bsky.social , @alexanderkroner.bsky.social , @carmenamme.bsky.social , @timkietzmann.bsky.social
🧵 1/14
How can we model natural scene representations in visual cortex? A solution is in active vision: predict the features of the next glimpse! arxiv.org/abs/2511.12715
+ @adriendoerig.bsky.social , @alexanderkroner.bsky.social , @carmenamme.bsky.social , @timkietzmann.bsky.social
🧵 1/14
Predicting upcoming visual features during eye movements yields scene representations aligned with human visual cortex
Scenes are complex, yet structured collections of parts, including objects and surfaces, that exhibit spatial and semantic relations to one another. An effective visual system therefore needs unified ...
arxiv.org
November 18, 2025 at 12:37 PM
🚨New Preprint!
How can we model natural scene representations in visual cortex? A solution is in active vision: predict the features of the next glimpse! arxiv.org/abs/2511.12715
+ @adriendoerig.bsky.social , @alexanderkroner.bsky.social , @carmenamme.bsky.social , @timkietzmann.bsky.social
🧵 1/14
How can we model natural scene representations in visual cortex? A solution is in active vision: predict the features of the next glimpse! arxiv.org/abs/2511.12715
+ @adriendoerig.bsky.social , @alexanderkroner.bsky.social , @carmenamme.bsky.social , @timkietzmann.bsky.social
🧵 1/14
Reposted by Sam Nastase
🤖📈 How do LLMs use their depth?
Akshat Gupta led a fun project to find out! We leverage TunedLens (~linear decoding of tokens) to explore how LLMs' internal representations change from layer to layer.
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2510.18871
1/
Akshat Gupta led a fun project to find out! We leverage TunedLens (~linear decoding of tokens) to explore how LLMs' internal representations change from layer to layer.
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2510.18871
1/
October 23, 2025 at 4:17 PM
🤖📈 How do LLMs use their depth?
Akshat Gupta led a fun project to find out! We leverage TunedLens (~linear decoding of tokens) to explore how LLMs' internal representations change from layer to layer.
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2510.18871
1/
Akshat Gupta led a fun project to find out! We leverage TunedLens (~linear decoding of tokens) to explore how LLMs' internal representations change from layer to layer.
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2510.18871
1/
Reposted by Sam Nastase
I’m excited to share my recent preprint on a neural network model of free recall that learns multiple memory strategies including the memory palace!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 21, 2025 at 3:36 AM
I’m excited to share my recent preprint on a neural network model of free recall that learns multiple memory strategies including the memory palace!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Sam Nastase
Excited to share our work making an "allostasis-first" case that brain function is most productively framed in terms of its core regulatory function. We also introduce some new ideas in the context of metabolism and cognitive function in Alzheimer's.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
October 14, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Excited to share our work making an "allostasis-first" case that brain function is most productively framed in terms of its core regulatory function. We also introduce some new ideas in the context of metabolism and cognitive function in Alzheimer's.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
Reposted by Sam Nastase
Proudly published with @andreaeyleen.bsky.social:
A metatheory of classical and modern connectionism. doi.org/10.1037/rev0...
We touch on what has been up with connectionism as a framework for computational modelling — & for everything it seems these days with AI and LLMs — pre-2010 vs post.
1/n
A metatheory of classical and modern connectionism. doi.org/10.1037/rev0...
We touch on what has been up with connectionism as a framework for computational modelling — & for everything it seems these days with AI and LLMs — pre-2010 vs post.
1/n
October 17, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Proudly published with @andreaeyleen.bsky.social:
A metatheory of classical and modern connectionism. doi.org/10.1037/rev0...
We touch on what has been up with connectionism as a framework for computational modelling — & for everything it seems these days with AI and LLMs — pre-2010 vs post.
1/n
A metatheory of classical and modern connectionism. doi.org/10.1037/rev0...
We touch on what has been up with connectionism as a framework for computational modelling — & for everything it seems these days with AI and LLMs — pre-2010 vs post.
1/n
Reposted by Sam Nastase
thrilled to share our preprint on false memories in naturalistic recollection!
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
October 16, 2025 at 7:29 PM
thrilled to share our preprint on false memories in naturalistic recollection!
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
Distinct paths to false memory revealed in hundreds of narrative recalls
paper: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
w/ phoebehc.bsky.social (co-first) Vy A. Vo @davidpoeppel.bsky.social @toddgureckis.bsky.social
thread below 👇
Reposted by Sam Nastase
My lab at USC is recruiting!
1) research coordinator: perfect for a recent graduate looking for research experience before applying to PhD programs: usccareers.usc.edu REQ20167829
2) PhD students: see FAQs on lab website dornsife.usc.edu/hklab/faq/
1) research coordinator: perfect for a recent graduate looking for research experience before applying to PhD programs: usccareers.usc.edu REQ20167829
2) PhD students: see FAQs on lab website dornsife.usc.edu/hklab/faq/
September 28, 2025 at 9:46 PM
My lab at USC is recruiting!
1) research coordinator: perfect for a recent graduate looking for research experience before applying to PhD programs: usccareers.usc.edu REQ20167829
2) PhD students: see FAQs on lab website dornsife.usc.edu/hklab/faq/
1) research coordinator: perfect for a recent graduate looking for research experience before applying to PhD programs: usccareers.usc.edu REQ20167829
2) PhD students: see FAQs on lab website dornsife.usc.edu/hklab/faq/
Reposted by Sam Nastase
Why do brain networks vary? Do these differences shape behavior? If every 🧠 is unique, how can we detect common features of brain organization?
@rodbraga.bsky.social and I dig in, in @annualreviews.bsky.social (ahead of print):
go.illinois.edu/Gratton2025-...
#neuroskyence #psychscisky #MedSky
🧵👇
@rodbraga.bsky.social and I dig in, in @annualreviews.bsky.social (ahead of print):
go.illinois.edu/Gratton2025-...
#neuroskyence #psychscisky #MedSky
🧵👇
Dense Phenotyping of Human Brain Network Organization Using Precision fMRI
The advent of noninvasive imaging methods like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) transformed cognitive neuroscience, providing insights into large-scale brain networks and their link to cog...
go.illinois.edu
October 16, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Why do brain networks vary? Do these differences shape behavior? If every 🧠 is unique, how can we detect common features of brain organization?
@rodbraga.bsky.social and I dig in, in @annualreviews.bsky.social (ahead of print):
go.illinois.edu/Gratton2025-...
#neuroskyence #psychscisky #MedSky
🧵👇
@rodbraga.bsky.social and I dig in, in @annualreviews.bsky.social (ahead of print):
go.illinois.edu/Gratton2025-...
#neuroskyence #psychscisky #MedSky
🧵👇
Reposted by Sam Nastase
Managing emotions is not easy - we often get by with a little help. In the NEW Social Interaction and Emotion Lab at Rutgers-Newark, we’ll study how social interactions regulate emotion using experiments, naturalistic data, and multi-modal approaches. ✨ Now recruiting! ✨🙌 Learn more: raziasahi.com
October 8, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Managing emotions is not easy - we often get by with a little help. In the NEW Social Interaction and Emotion Lab at Rutgers-Newark, we’ll study how social interactions regulate emotion using experiments, naturalistic data, and multi-modal approaches. ✨ Now recruiting! ✨🙌 Learn more: raziasahi.com
Reposted by Sam Nastase
MIT Rejects the Compact!
I am so proud.
"The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief ...
I am so proud.
"The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief ...
October 10, 2025 at 1:35 PM
MIT Rejects the Compact!
I am so proud.
"The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief ...
I am so proud.
"The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief ...
Reposted by Sam Nastase
📣 New preprint from the Braga Lab! 📣
The ventral visual stream for reading converges on the transmodal language network
Congrats to Dr. Joe Salvo for this epic set of results
Big Q: What brain systems support the translation of writing to concepts and meaning?
Thread 🧵 ⬇️
The ventral visual stream for reading converges on the transmodal language network
Congrats to Dr. Joe Salvo for this epic set of results
Big Q: What brain systems support the translation of writing to concepts and meaning?
Thread 🧵 ⬇️
October 7, 2025 at 9:51 PM
📣 New preprint from the Braga Lab! 📣
The ventral visual stream for reading converges on the transmodal language network
Congrats to Dr. Joe Salvo for this epic set of results
Big Q: What brain systems support the translation of writing to concepts and meaning?
Thread 🧵 ⬇️
The ventral visual stream for reading converges on the transmodal language network
Congrats to Dr. Joe Salvo for this epic set of results
Big Q: What brain systems support the translation of writing to concepts and meaning?
Thread 🧵 ⬇️
I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.
October 1, 2025 at 10:39 PM
I'm recruiting PhD students to join my new lab in Fall 2026! The Shared Minds Lab at @usc.edu will combine deep learning and ecological human neuroscience to better understand how we communicate our thoughts from one brain to another.
Reposted by Sam Nastase
As our lab started to build encoding 🧠 models, we were trying to figure out best practices in the field. So @neurotaha.bsky.social
built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets!
We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it!
1/
built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets!
We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it!
1/
🚨 Paper alert:
To appear in the DBM Neurips Workshop
LITcoder: A General-Purpose Library for Building and Comparing Encoding Models
📄 arxiv: arxiv.org/abs/2509.091...
🔗 project: litcoder-brain.github.io
To appear in the DBM Neurips Workshop
LITcoder: A General-Purpose Library for Building and Comparing Encoding Models
📄 arxiv: arxiv.org/abs/2509.091...
🔗 project: litcoder-brain.github.io
September 29, 2025 at 5:33 PM
As our lab started to build encoding 🧠 models, we were trying to figure out best practices in the field. So @neurotaha.bsky.social
built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets!
We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it!
1/
built a library to easily compare design choices & model features across datasets!
We hope it will be useful to the community & plan to keep expanding it!
1/
Reposted by Sam Nastase
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Reposted by Sam Nastase
I've only read the abstract and I already know this paper is so very correct 👀
September 14, 2025 at 3:06 AM
I've only read the abstract and I already know this paper is so very correct 👀
Reposted by Sam Nastase
The psych job market may not be dead... but it is gravely injured 😬 So far it's looking like the Trump administration's attacks on higher ed/research are going to have more than 2x the impact on the job market as the covid-19 pandemic. #psychjobs #neurojobs #academicjobs
September 3, 2025 at 6:27 PM
The psych job market may not be dead... but it is gravely injured 😬 So far it's looking like the Trump administration's attacks on higher ed/research are going to have more than 2x the impact on the job market as the covid-19 pandemic. #psychjobs #neurojobs #academicjobs
Reposted by Sam Nastase
New Open dataset alert:
🧠 Introducing "Spacetop" – a massive multimodal fMRI dataset that bridges naturalistic and experimental neuroscience!
N = 101 x 6 hours each = 606 functional iso-hours combining movies, pain, faces, theory-of-mind and other cognitive tasks!
🧵below
🧠 Introducing "Spacetop" – a massive multimodal fMRI dataset that bridges naturalistic and experimental neuroscience!
N = 101 x 6 hours each = 606 functional iso-hours combining movies, pain, faces, theory-of-mind and other cognitive tasks!
🧵below
September 4, 2025 at 7:21 PM
New Open dataset alert:
🧠 Introducing "Spacetop" – a massive multimodal fMRI dataset that bridges naturalistic and experimental neuroscience!
N = 101 x 6 hours each = 606 functional iso-hours combining movies, pain, faces, theory-of-mind and other cognitive tasks!
🧵below
🧠 Introducing "Spacetop" – a massive multimodal fMRI dataset that bridges naturalistic and experimental neuroscience!
N = 101 x 6 hours each = 606 functional iso-hours combining movies, pain, faces, theory-of-mind and other cognitive tasks!
🧵below
Reposted by Sam Nastase
🚨 Just over a week left to register for the #CNSP2025 Online Workshop (details in post below)! 🚨
Link to the workshop registration form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Link to the workshop registration form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
August 22, 2025 at 10:32 AM
🚨 Just over a week left to register for the #CNSP2025 Online Workshop (details in post below)! 🚨
Link to the workshop registration form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Link to the workshop registration form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...