Bella Fascendini
@bellafascendini.bsky.social
150 followers 180 following 17 posts
PhD student @velezcolab.bsky.social Princeton🐯 Previously @stanford_vpnl 🧠| @USCMIDLA | Co-Host of @StanfordPsyPod | Loves cats🐱 https://bellafascendini.github.io/
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bellafascendini.bsky.social
Honored to contribute a Journal Club piece to @natrevpsychol.nature.com!

I explore Robert White's seminal "competence motivation" framework (1959) and why it remains relevant over 60 years later—from why toddlers insist on doing things themselves to designing intrinsically motivated AI. 🤖
natrevpsychol.nature.com
‘Motivation reconsidered’ reconsidered

Journal Club by Bella Fascendini

go.nature.com/3IwYftH
Reposted by Bella Fascendini
rachitdubey.bsky.social
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!
bellafascendini.bsky.social
One of the most brilliant scientists in CogSci + one of the best institutions to study CogSci. 💫 Apply!!
bonan.bsky.social
My Lab at the University of Edinburgh🇬🇧 has funded PhD positions for this cycle!

We study the computational principles of how people learn, reason, and communicate.

It's a new lab, and you will be playing a big role in shaping its culture and foundations.

Spread the words!
bellafascendini.bsky.social
Excited to present at @CogSci2025 tomorrow at 1pm in Salon 6! Looking forward to presenting alongside incredible cognitive scientists @cvales.bsky.social, @elainewang.bsky.social, and @junyi.bsky.social
velezcolab.bsky.social
The CoLab is headed to #CogSci2025!! 🥳 Here's where to find us!
A lineup showing upcoming talks and posters for the CoLab at CogSci 2025. 

Wednesday
Natalia Vélez: Understanding structural diversity in human collaboration
Metareasoning Workshop, Pacific H, 10:30-11:10am

Thursday
Huang Ham: Collaborative encoding of visual working memory
P1-H-244

Friday
Bonan Zhao (new PI!): Discovering hidden laws in innovation by recombination
P2-Z-231

Elizabeth Mieczkowski: A normative account of specialization: How task and environment shape role differentiation in collaboration
P2-M-133

Bella Fascendini: Are two-year-olds intrinsically motivated to explore their own competence?
Learning & Development 2, Salon 6, 1-2:30pm

Saturday
Renée Creppy (first-timer!): Children’s expectations of dominant and prestigious leaders
P3-C-40

Natalia Vélez: Thinking in teams
Invited Symposium: New Theoretical Directions in Cognitive Science
Salon 7, 2:15-3:45pm
bellafascendini.bsky.social
Come check out my lab mate Ham Huang’s cool work and cape! 😎
cogscisociety.bsky.social
Because nothing says “ready to present” like literally wearing your findings at #CogSci2025

Ham Huang leveled up from poster session to superhero mode! 🦸
A smiling researcher at CogSci 2025 stands indoors wearing their scientific poster draped like a cape, with charts, graphs, and text visible on the fabric. The background shows a spacious conference hall with people walking and blurred architectural details. A research poster draped like a cape, showing charts, graphs, and text about collaborative memory and decision-making. The poster includes colorful data plots, grid diagrams, and sections labeled “Introduction,” “Results,” “Model Benchmark,” and “Conclusions.” The bottom includes the researcher’s contact information and social links
bellafascendini.bsky.social
Come say hi! 👋
velezcolab.bsky.social
The CoLab is headed to #CogSci2025!! 🥳 Here's where to find us!
A lineup showing upcoming talks and posters for the CoLab at CogSci 2025. 

Wednesday
Natalia Vélez: Understanding structural diversity in human collaboration
Metareasoning Workshop, Pacific H, 10:30-11:10am

Thursday
Huang Ham: Collaborative encoding of visual working memory
P1-H-244

Friday
Bonan Zhao (new PI!): Discovering hidden laws in innovation by recombination
P2-Z-231

Elizabeth Mieczkowski: A normative account of specialization: How task and environment shape role differentiation in collaboration
P2-M-133

Bella Fascendini: Are two-year-olds intrinsically motivated to explore their own competence?
Learning & Development 2, Salon 6, 1-2:30pm

Saturday
Renée Creppy (first-timer!): Children’s expectations of dominant and prestigious leaders
P3-C-40

Natalia Vélez: Thinking in teams
Invited Symposium: New Theoretical Directions in Cognitive Science
Salon 7, 2:15-3:45pm
bellafascendini.bsky.social
Congrats, @emiecz.bsky.social !! Super, super cool work! 🍞
emiecz.bsky.social
So excited our paper is now out in ‪@cognitionjournal.bsky.social‬! Huge thanks to our editor and reviewers 🧠 Their thoughtful suggestions inspired Experiments 3 & 4, including a striking inverse correlation between idleness judgments and speed-up predictions
cognitionjournal.bsky.social
“People Evaluate Idle Collaborators Based on their Impact on Task Efficiency”

📢 New paper from: Elizabeth Mieczkowski, Cameron Rouse Turner, Natalia Vélez, & Tom Griffiths

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

TL;DR: Sometimes it's acceptable not to help with group work 🧵👇
bellafascendini.bsky.social
Congrats Ham!👏
hamhuang.bsky.social
Excited to see the work during my undergrad times finally come out! Learned so much from working with Sam and Anne on this project.
bellafascendini.bsky.social
So exited to work with such a fun bunch this summer! 🙌 Welcome to the lab! 🥳
velezcolab.bsky.social
We are so excited to welcome our summer RA's to the lab! Looking forward to a productive summer💫 @bellafascendini.bsky.social @hamhuang.bsky.social @creppy-r.bsky.social
Reposted by Bella Fascendini
mekline.bsky.social
After a few days to fix some bugs, we will be holding another online Psych-DS tutorial on Wednesday, June 4, 12pm EDT.

This is an informal workshop designed to help you convert a dataset to Psych-DS - BYO or find an open dataset at osf.io/mbvk4.

Sign up here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Reposted by Bella Fascendini
alexthewitty.bsky.social
🚨CogSci preprint alert🚨
When you look at reviews, do you like to focus on positive or negative ones?
@stepalminteri.bsky.social, @thecharleywu.bsky.social and I set out to investigate how learning rate biases differ between individual and social learning in our new study.
osf.io/bcrw9_v2
🧵 below!
OSF
osf.io
Reposted by Bella Fascendini
rebeccasaxe.bsky.social
Please help: Do you know a baby, less than 12 months old, who can walk? We are trying to complete a project, 7 years in the works. And all we need are 3 infants who are less than a year old and can walk, to do a short online looking-time study.
🆘
Reposted by Bella Fascendini
dorsaamir.bsky.social
Wanted to share a handy little resource with you all (especially those in dev psych) — my lab & I made a "journal submission cheat sheet" that summarizes article types, word limits, & other requirements for the journals we typically submit to. Link below 👇🏼
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Reposted by Bella Fascendini
tanialombrozo.bsky.social
Are you interested in research experience before applying to PhD programs? Or just want to learn more about cognitive science? Consider joining my lab as a lab manager (joint w/the Griffiths Lab). We will begin reviewing applications one week from today: cognition.princeton.edu/news/2025/op...
Open Position for Lombrozo/Griffiths Lab Manager (starting Fall 2025)
The Lombrozo and Griffiths Labs at Princeton University are seeking a full-time lab manager to begin August 14, 2025, but there is some flexibility. You can apply here. Applications will be reviewed b...
cognition.princeton.edu
Reposted by Bella Fascendini
emiecz.bsky.social
We often assume that specialized roles improve performance in multi-agent systems, but when does specialization emerge based on a given task and environment? 🧵👇

⭐️ New preprint w/ Ruaridh Mon-Williams, @neilbramley.bsky.social, Chris Lucas, @natvelali.bsky.social & @cocoscilab.bsky.social
bellafascendini.bsky.social
This is so cool!!
tristansyates.bsky.social
Why do we not remember being a baby? One idea is that the hippocampus, which is essential for episodic memory in adults, is too immature to form individual memories in infancy. We tested this using awake infant fMRI, new in @science.org #ScienceResearch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Hippocampal encoding of memories in human infants
Humans lack memories for specific events from the first few years of life. We investigated the mechanistic basis of this infantile amnesia by scanning the brains of awake infants with functional magne...
www.science.org
Reposted by Bella Fascendini
dianatamir.bsky.social
📢 The Princeton Social Neuroscience Lab is hiring! 📢

We're seeking a full-time Research Specialist/Lab Manager to study naturalistic conversation, social cognition, and spontaneous thought.

More info here: psnlab.princeton.edu/join-us

Please apply and share!
Join Us
Thanks for your interest in joining our lab! At the Princeton Social Neuroscience Lab, we believe that our science is better with a diverse team. We embrace and encourage our lab members’ differences ...
psnlab.princeton.edu