Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
@thecharleywu.bsky.social
Prof. of Computational Cognitive Science at TU Darmstadt & PI of the Human and Machine Cognition lab at the University of Tübingen | hmc-lab.com
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Christmas came early this year! Very happy to see our paper out in Science Advances. Led by @lfoswaldo.bsky.social, we ran a unique collective field-experiment on Reddit, to better understand who is participating in online debates and why.
Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
And more below 👇
Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
And more below 👇
December 10, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Christmas came early this year! Very happy to see our paper out in Science Advances. Led by @lfoswaldo.bsky.social, we ran a unique collective field-experiment on Reddit, to better understand who is participating in online debates and why.
Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
And more below 👇
Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
And more below 👇
Go work with Kou! Autocorrect kept trying to replace his name with "Joy", which is pretty appropriate because he's a joy to work with and a fantastic mentor to his students!
We are hiring a new Ph. D. student on neuroimaging and/or computational modeling on motivation and emotion. Tübingen is a great place to pursue work on these topics!!
uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/...
uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/...
PhD Position on computational modelling and neuroscience (m/f/d)
uni-tuebingen.de
December 11, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Go work with Kou! Autocorrect kept trying to replace his name with "Joy", which is pretty appropriate because he's a joy to work with and a fantastic mentor to his students!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
📣 Calling all parents and 5-11-year olds in München! We have a VR game for you at TUM, check out our flyer below if you are interested 🥽👾
🗓️ A few dates are still available in our calendar for December, and we will add more from January on. Save our flyer if you would like to visit us in early 2026!
🗓️ A few dates are still available in our calendar for December, and we will add more from January on. Save our flyer if you would like to visit us in early 2026!
Jetzt seid ihr mal gefragt: ein Aufruf für Münchner*innen - gerne bitte weiterleiten! Meine Kollegin sucht gerade 5- bis 11-jährige Kinder als Teilnehmende für eine neue Studie (mit Virtual Reality!), findet bei uns im Labor an der TUM statt. Mehr Infos hier auf dem Flyer:
December 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM
📣 Calling all parents and 5-11-year olds in München! We have a VR game for you at TUM, check out our flyer below if you are interested 🥽👾
🗓️ A few dates are still available in our calendar for December, and we will add more from January on. Save our flyer if you would like to visit us in early 2026!
🗓️ A few dates are still available in our calendar for December, and we will add more from January on. Save our flyer if you would like to visit us in early 2026!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Officially out! In this review, Aaron Chuey and I discuss how existing work on ToM mostly focused on a single individual’s mental states (e.g., what Sally thinks). Extending ToM, we argue for ToMS—an understanding of how multiple individuals communicate and influence each others’ minds. t.ly/u4rtb
Theory of Minds: Early Understanding of Interacting Minds
The idea that we understand others’ actions in terms of their underlying mental states has shaped decades of developmental research on social cognition. Existing work, however, has primarily focused o...
www.annualreviews.org
December 10, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Officially out! In this review, Aaron Chuey and I discuss how existing work on ToM mostly focused on a single individual’s mental states (e.g., what Sally thinks). Extending ToM, we argue for ToMS—an understanding of how multiple individuals communicate and influence each others’ minds. t.ly/u4rtb
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.”
Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life.
Common sense.
Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.
Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life.
Common sense.
Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.
Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change.
Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 11, 2025 at 1:22 AM
“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.”
Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life.
Common sense.
Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.
Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life.
Common sense.
Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
if you need more frameworks for fighting this good fight, @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I have you covered: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research - Nature
The proliferation of artificial intelligence tools in scientific research risks creating illusions of understanding, where scientists believe they understand more about the world than they actual...
www.nature.com
December 8, 2025 at 8:19 PM
if you need more frameworks for fighting this good fight, @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I have you covered: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Excited to announce our symposium on how AI and humans shape each other
“Humans and Artificial Minds: Mutual Influences”
9 Jan at ENS Paris.
Talks by @smfleming.bsky.social, Valeria Giardino, Silvia Tulli, @thecharleywu.bsky.social, Laurence Devillers & @summerfieldlab.bsky.social .
Program ↓
“Humans and Artificial Minds: Mutual Influences”
9 Jan at ENS Paris.
Talks by @smfleming.bsky.social, Valeria Giardino, Silvia Tulli, @thecharleywu.bsky.social, Laurence Devillers & @summerfieldlab.bsky.social .
Program ↓
December 10, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Excited to announce our symposium on how AI and humans shape each other
“Humans and Artificial Minds: Mutual Influences”
9 Jan at ENS Paris.
Talks by @smfleming.bsky.social, Valeria Giardino, Silvia Tulli, @thecharleywu.bsky.social, Laurence Devillers & @summerfieldlab.bsky.social .
Program ↓
“Humans and Artificial Minds: Mutual Influences”
9 Jan at ENS Paris.
Talks by @smfleming.bsky.social, Valeria Giardino, Silvia Tulli, @thecharleywu.bsky.social, Laurence Devillers & @summerfieldlab.bsky.social .
Program ↓
Are you unable to continue your research in the USA due to political pressure? 14 Postdoc fellowships (2 years) are available for relocating to Germany
Please spread the news:
14 PostDoctoral Fellowships in the Early Career Rescue Fellowship Programme in Freiburg, Konstanz and Tübingen.
Contact me, if you want to work with us in Tübingen.
stellen.uni-konstanz.de/en/jobpostin...
14 PostDoctoral Fellowships in the Early Career Rescue Fellowship Programme in Freiburg, Konstanz and Tübingen.
Contact me, if you want to work with us in Tübingen.
stellen.uni-konstanz.de/en/jobpostin...
14 Postdoctoral Fellowships - Early Career Rescue Fellowship Programme
stellen.uni-konstanz.de
December 8, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Are you unable to continue your research in the USA due to political pressure? 14 Postdoc fellowships (2 years) are available for relocating to Germany
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Are you a UK national/resident and identify as Black, Asian, or a minoritised ethnic community? You can apply for a PhD with me and colleagues at Swansea as part of our NERC CROCUS doctoral training programme... and we develop the topic together. Please get in touch if eligible and interested!
December 5, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Are you a UK national/resident and identify as Black, Asian, or a minoritised ethnic community? You can apply for a PhD with me and colleagues at Swansea as part of our NERC CROCUS doctoral training programme... and we develop the topic together. Please get in touch if eligible and interested!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Excited that this is now out in @nathumbehav.nature.com 🎉
David Rose (davdrose.github.io) led this project on how children's understanding of causal language develops.
📃 (preprint): osf.io/preprints/ps...
📎: github.com/davdrose/cau...
David Rose (davdrose.github.io) led this project on how children's understanding of causal language develops.
📃 (preprint): osf.io/preprints/ps...
📎: github.com/davdrose/cau...
December 5, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Excited that this is now out in @nathumbehav.nature.com 🎉
David Rose (davdrose.github.io) led this project on how children's understanding of causal language develops.
📃 (preprint): osf.io/preprints/ps...
📎: github.com/davdrose/cau...
David Rose (davdrose.github.io) led this project on how children's understanding of causal language develops.
📃 (preprint): osf.io/preprints/ps...
📎: github.com/davdrose/cau...
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Our poster, “When Causal Dynamics Matter: Adapting Causal Strategies through Meta-Aware Interventions” will be presented during the second poster session of today, #2513 at #NeurIPS2025 .
Looking forward to the discussions!
Looking forward to the discussions!
December 5, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Our poster, “When Causal Dynamics Matter: Adapting Causal Strategies through Meta-Aware Interventions” will be presented during the second poster session of today, #2513 at #NeurIPS2025 .
Looking forward to the discussions!
Looking forward to the discussions!
🚨 Just one week left to apply! W2 Tenure-track or W3 Tenured professor for Ethical and Safe AI. 🤖 🙏 Please share widely!
🚀 Join @tuda.bsky.social and @hessianai.bsky.social as Professor for Ethical & Safe AI to advance the algorithmic foundations of ethical and safe AI and to shape “Reasonable AI."
Apply now and make an impact where AI meets society.
👉 buff.ly/bIvq7Mb
Apply now and make an impact where AI meets society.
👉 buff.ly/bIvq7Mb
December 4, 2025 at 11:22 AM
🚨 Just one week left to apply! W2 Tenure-track or W3 Tenured professor for Ethical and Safe AI. 🤖 🙏 Please share widely!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Tobias Niehues @tobnie.bsky.social is presenting our work with @dominikstrb.bsky.social 'Amortized Bayesian decision-making for inferring decision-making parameters from behavior' at the Amortized ProbML Workshop and the @ellis.eu UnConference. Please come by our poster!
December 4, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Tobias Niehues @tobnie.bsky.social is presenting our work with @dominikstrb.bsky.social 'Amortized Bayesian decision-making for inferring decision-making parameters from behavior' at the Amortized ProbML Workshop and the @ellis.eu UnConference. Please come by our poster!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
I am pleased to announce that from Jan 1 2026 I take over as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biological Theory. My first act, with the support of the editorial team, is to bring the journal to BlueSky from X.
Please follow us @biologicaltheory.bsky.social. We will be posting about all our articles.
Please follow us @biologicaltheory.bsky.social. We will be posting about all our articles.
December 3, 2025 at 11:01 AM
I am pleased to announce that from Jan 1 2026 I take over as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biological Theory. My first act, with the support of the editorial team, is to bring the journal to BlueSky from X.
Please follow us @biologicaltheory.bsky.social. We will be posting about all our articles.
Please follow us @biologicaltheory.bsky.social. We will be posting about all our articles.
Today's @tuda.bsky.social Cogsci Colloquium speaker is @daliao.bsky.social who will talk about the "Cognitive Building Blocks of Communication in Crows". For the full schedule, check out www.tu-darmstadt.de/cogsci/ccs_n...
December 3, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Today's @tuda.bsky.social Cogsci Colloquium speaker is @daliao.bsky.social who will talk about the "Cognitive Building Blocks of Communication in Crows". For the full schedule, check out www.tu-darmstadt.de/cogsci/ccs_n...
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Curious why we sometimes see minds where there are none? 🧠 Join us to uncover the foundations of attributed agency.
Fully funded PhD for next year as part of DRIVE-Health, working with me, Adam Hampshire & @stefansarkadi.bsky.social
Deadline: 12/1/26
Reach out for an informal chat!
Fully funded PhD for next year as part of DRIVE-Health, working with me, Adam Hampshire & @stefansarkadi.bsky.social
Deadline: 12/1/26
Reach out for an informal chat!
🚨Apply now for our #fullyfundedPhDs in #HealthDataScience at @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social Calling all #healthdatascientists, #computerscientists, #engineers, and #AI 100+ projects available ⬇️ Deadline 12 January 2026. @kingsioppn.bsky.social @kingslsm.bsky.social @kingshealth.bsky.social
Projects - Divi 5
showcase.drive-health.org.uk
December 2, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Curious why we sometimes see minds where there are none? 🧠 Join us to uncover the foundations of attributed agency.
Fully funded PhD for next year as part of DRIVE-Health, working with me, Adam Hampshire & @stefansarkadi.bsky.social
Deadline: 12/1/26
Reach out for an informal chat!
Fully funded PhD for next year as part of DRIVE-Health, working with me, Adam Hampshire & @stefansarkadi.bsky.social
Deadline: 12/1/26
Reach out for an informal chat!
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Next guest in our lecture series #caiantalks is Charley Wu (@thecharleywu.bsky.social (@tuda.bsky.social ), who will speak on "Generalization Guides Exploration Across Development, Social Contexts, and Memory" on Thursday, Dec 11.
👉Visit our website for more information: www.caian.uni-bonn.de/en
👉Visit our website for more information: www.caian.uni-bonn.de/en
November 27, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Next guest in our lecture series #caiantalks is Charley Wu (@thecharleywu.bsky.social (@tuda.bsky.social ), who will speak on "Generalization Guides Exploration Across Development, Social Contexts, and Memory" on Thursday, Dec 11.
👉Visit our website for more information: www.caian.uni-bonn.de/en
👉Visit our website for more information: www.caian.uni-bonn.de/en
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Human speech is continuous, and many meaning spaces (like color) are continuous too. Yet we use discrete words like “blue” and “green” that carve these spaces into categories.
In our new paper, we ask: How do people turn continuous spaces into structured, word-like systems for communication? (1/8)
In our new paper, we ask: How do people turn continuous spaces into structured, word-like systems for communication? (1/8)
Discrete and systematic communication in a continuous signal-meaning space
Abstract. Human spoken language uses a continuous stream of acoustic signals to communicate about continuous features of the world, by using discrete forms
academic.oup.com
November 26, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Human speech is continuous, and many meaning spaces (like color) are continuous too. Yet we use discrete words like “blue” and “green” that carve these spaces into categories.
In our new paper, we ask: How do people turn continuous spaces into structured, word-like systems for communication? (1/8)
In our new paper, we ask: How do people turn continuous spaces into structured, word-like systems for communication? (1/8)
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
🚨Friends, we’re happy to share that our book is available for pre-order! 🎉
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
November 26, 2025 at 11:38 AM
🚨Friends, we’re happy to share that our book is available for pre-order! 🎉
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
We aimed to cover all the foundations of the topic in an accessible manner for a large audience.
It could help set up a bachelor-level curriculum on the topic.
Pre-orders are very key for the fate of books: shorturl.at/Dxbif
Congrats Dr. Witt @alexthewitty.bsky.social! I'm incredibly lucky and proud to have you as the first minted PhD student in my group. Thnx to @dominikdeffner.bsky.social, Martin Butz, & Peter Dayan for serving on the committee. Here's to a bright future as a postdoc w @watarutoyokawa.bsky.social 🥂
Over the moon to announce that, as of last Friday, I’m officially #PhDone! I’d like to thank everyone who supported me along the way, including, but not limited to, my amazing supervisor @thecharleywu.bsky.social, and all members (past or present) of the HMC lab and the @velezcolab.bsky.social 🎓
November 25, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Congrats Dr. Witt @alexthewitty.bsky.social! I'm incredibly lucky and proud to have you as the first minted PhD student in my group. Thnx to @dominikdeffner.bsky.social, Martin Butz, & Peter Dayan for serving on the committee. Here's to a bright future as a postdoc w @watarutoyokawa.bsky.social 🥂
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Orangutan youngsters reach the broad diet they need to survive only if they culturally learn what to eat & where to find it
-> This is the first clear evidence for cultural dependency of any kind in apes <-
More info, and link to the paper in this thread by Elliot [the master-modeller behind this]
-> This is the first clear evidence for cultural dependency of any kind in apes <-
More info, and link to the paper in this thread by Elliot [the master-modeller behind this]
Our New Paper is out in Nature Human Behaviour: 🚨 Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials! 🦧 www.nature.com/articles/s41.... See 🧵
Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials - Nature Human Behaviour
Howard-Spink et al. develop an empirically based model of orangutan diet development, which suggests that social learning is vital for orangutans to acquire varied diets.
www.nature.com
November 24, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Orangutan youngsters reach the broad diet they need to survive only if they culturally learn what to eat & where to find it
-> This is the first clear evidence for cultural dependency of any kind in apes <-
More info, and link to the paper in this thread by Elliot [the master-modeller behind this]
-> This is the first clear evidence for cultural dependency of any kind in apes <-
More info, and link to the paper in this thread by Elliot [the master-modeller behind this]
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Happy to share this: Deep generative model insight into the organization of top-down connections. [Paper](www.nature.com/articles/s41...) @natcomms.nature.com shows native TD in hierarchical deep generative models (as opposed to dominantly FF deep discriminative models) match V2 - V1 influences.
Top-down perceptual inference shaping the activity of early visual cortex - Nature Communications
How top-down connections are shaped by hierarchical inference is explained through developing a deep-generative model. V2-like texture representation is shown to emerge through natural experiences, wh...
www.nature.com
November 17, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Happy to share this: Deep generative model insight into the organization of top-down connections. [Paper](www.nature.com/articles/s41...) @natcomms.nature.com shows native TD in hierarchical deep generative models (as opposed to dominantly FF deep discriminative models) match V2 - V1 influences.
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
Machine learning and AI tools will change how we do ecological research. But, there are major barriers to getting high-performing models.
In our latest paper, we argue a need to re-think model performance by integrating it into a hypothesis testing pipeline:
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
In our latest paper, we argue a need to re-think model performance by integrating it into a hypothesis testing pipeline:
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
November 17, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Machine learning and AI tools will change how we do ecological research. But, there are major barriers to getting high-performing models.
In our latest paper, we argue a need to re-think model performance by integrating it into a hypothesis testing pipeline:
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
In our latest paper, we argue a need to re-think model performance by integrating it into a hypothesis testing pipeline:
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
I'm very excited about this work led by @nbalamur.bsky.social Inspired by the classic "Spot the ball ⚽" task, we develop a benchmark for visual social inference. We find that human participants perform much better than vision-language models.
Try it here: v0-new-project-9b5vt6k9ugb.vercel.app
Try it here: v0-new-project-9b5vt6k9ugb.vercel.app
November 13, 2025 at 5:16 PM
I'm very excited about this work led by @nbalamur.bsky.social Inspired by the classic "Spot the ball ⚽" task, we develop a benchmark for visual social inference. We find that human participants perform much better than vision-language models.
Try it here: v0-new-project-9b5vt6k9ugb.vercel.app
Try it here: v0-new-project-9b5vt6k9ugb.vercel.app
Reposted by Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs
I'm recruiting a grad student! My lab at NYU (psych dept) studies the computational basis of moral cognition and aims to build AI systems that are aligned with human values. Now admitting a PhD student for Fall 2026. Apps due 12/1. sites.google.com/corp/site/sy...
Sydney Levine - Open Positions
Graduate Students (PhD program)
I will be accepting PhD students through the NYU psychology department for the current application cycle (for admission in Fall 2026). My lab is joint between the Co...
sites.google.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:18 AM
I'm recruiting a grad student! My lab at NYU (psych dept) studies the computational basis of moral cognition and aims to build AI systems that are aligned with human values. Now admitting a PhD student for Fall 2026. Apps due 12/1. sites.google.com/corp/site/sy...