Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

René Mõttus @renemottus.bsky.social · 20d

Keynote speakers: @tuckerdrob.bsky.social @foswald.bsky.social Ellen Hamaker

Hands-on workshops by:
@tedmond.bsky.social & @ukuvainik.bsky.social (genomic analyses)
@dirkwulff.bsky.social (LLMs in personality research)

www.ecp22edinburgh.org/programme

1 3 2

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Aug 28

🚨 New preprint 🚨

What are the reasons underlying human choice in the face of risk?

Excited to share new work with Kamil Fulawka and Ralph Hertwig, establishing #LLMs as a scalable solution to uncovering the reasons behind people's choices from free text reports.

Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

1 7

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Aug 13

🚨 New article 🚨

How to measure semantic #networks of individuals reliably?

Excited to share this article, led by @aeschbach.bsky.social and with @ruimata.bsky.social. Based on simulations, we provide recommendations on designing and interpreting behavioral studies.

Article: lnkd.in/dhWiwEBU

8

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Samuel Aeschbach @aeschbach.bsky.social · Aug 12

New semantic network paper in @plosone.org with @ruimata.bsky.social at @unibas.ch and @dirkwulff.bsky.social at @arc-mpib.bsky.social!

We ran large-scale simulations to test how well common behavioral tasks measure a person's semantic network.

doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Measuring individual semantic networks: A simulation study

Accurately capturing individual differences in semantic networks is fundamental to advancing our mechanistic understanding of semantic memory. Past empirical attempts to construct individual-level sem...

doi.org

1 4 9

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Jul 23

🚨 New publication 🚨

Excited to see this published in Findings of #ACL2025, led by @zakashussain.bsky.social.

We critically evaluate claims that #LLMs are "just next token predictors" or "just machines" and call for a more measured discussion on LLM cognition.

aclanthology.org/2025.finding...

2 6

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Marcel Binz @marcelbinz.bsky.social · Jul 2

Excited to see our Centaur project out in @nature.com.
TL;DR: Centaur is a computational model that predicts and simulates human behavior for any experiment described in natural language.

6 12 42

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Frank Renkewitz @renkew.bsky.social · Jun 27

🚨 PhD position (75%, TV-L E13) at LMU Munich!
Join our DFG funded META REP project on heterogeneity & replicability in psychology.
Work on meta analysis, simulations, modeling in R/Python.
📅 Apply by July 15
🔗 shorturl.at/939tP
🔗 shorturl.at/2bRLD
👇🧵

Research Associate (m/f/x)

shorturl.at

1 8 10

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Jun 23

Happy to have concluded another iteration of our 5-day open LLMs course, together with @zakashussain.bsky.social.

If you are interested in LLMs for behavioral and social sciences, check out our...

Tutorial: doi.org/10.3758/s134...
Open materials: github.com/zak-Hussain/...

2 7

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Jun 20

🚨 New preprint 🚨

How to improve risk communication?

In this new piece, spearheaded by ‪@kevinetiede.bsky.social‬, we argue that traditional risk communication often fails to convey experiential dimensions of risk, and that experiential simulations can help fill this gap.

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

3 6

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · May 29

🚨 Postdoc position in India 🚨

Work with Kavitha Ranganathan and me to explore the potential of LLMs for improving risk communication. The position (Senior Research Fellow) includes a research stay and affiliation [email protected] at @mpib-berlin.bsky.social.

1 2 3

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · May 15

🚨 New preprint 🚨

Excited to share this work with Dorothée Bentz, where we map the landscape of contamination OCD triggers and analyze individual differences in trigger importance and relatedness.

Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

1 2

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Massimo Stella @massimost.bsky.social · Apr 30

We still have 2 slots available for contributed talks at our CounseLLMe workshop for @hhaiconference.bsky.social :

sites.google.com/unitn.it/cou...

Join us in Pisa, deadline May 6!

CounseLLMe

CounseLLMe: Investigating Human-Large Language Model conversations under the lens of cognitive science and complex systems SATELLITE WORKSHOP FOR HHAI2025 Submit Abstracts -> HERE

sites.google.com

1 1 2

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Apr 30

How to improve conceptual clarity in psychology?

Excited to share a new preprint with @ruimata.bsky.social, discussing approaches based on large language models as possible solutions.

Preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

5 14

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Center for Adaptive Rationality (MPIB, Berlin) @arc-mpib.bsky.social · Apr 10

🚨Job Alert (Deadline: Apr. 30)🚨

We're seeking a Student Research Assistant to support the ongoing research in all phases of the scientific process. See the link for more details! @dirkwulff.bsky.social, @mpib-berlin.bsky.social

www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/2016979/2025...

Student Research Assistant | Center for Adaptive Rationality

www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de

3 3

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Stefano Palminteri @stepalminteri.bsky.social · Mar 26

Extreme stances about AI and LLMs in particular (be them deflationary or inflationary) are very likely wrong, valid and certainly not good for an healthy debate. But where do they come from? We (with @giadapistilli.com) argue that common cognitive biases may play a role:

osf.io/preprints/ps...

7 12

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Ian Hussey @ianhussey.mmmdata.io · Mar 13

PNAS is explicit that “The purpose of peer review is not to demonstrate the reviewer’s proficiency in identifying flaws”

Is this your skill set? Review for us at @error.reviews instead where this explicitly is the necessary skill set.

error.reviews

www.pnas.org/reviewer

10 25

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Mar 11

How can we reduce conceptual clutter in the psychological sciences?

@ruimata.bsky.social and I propose a solution based on a fine-tuned 🤖 LLM (bit.ly/mpnet-pers) and test it for 🎭 personality psychology.

The paper is finally out in @natrevpsych.bsky.social: go.nature.com/4bEaaja

1 29 52

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Feb 28

Excited to share the materials for our course on open LLMs for science of science research @zakashussain.bsky.social and I offered at the recent meeting of @euroscisci.bsky.social at @lmumuenchen.bsky.social.

github.com/zak-Hussain/...

GitHub - Zak-Hussain/LLM4SciSci: Materials "LLMs for science of science research" training, LMU, 2025

Materials "LLMs for science of science research" training, LMU, 2025 - Zak-Hussain/LLM4SciSci

github.com

1 5 23

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Feb 21

Thanks for sharing!

1

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Feb 21

We mean that they reproduce and predict behavior well (at least compared to other models). Here is one example: arxiv.org/abs/2410.20268

We acknowledge anthropomorphism. It's just not the only problem. Anthropocentrism is one, too.

What do you mean by saying that there is no way to falsify?

Centaur: a foundation model of human cognition

Establishing a unified theory of cognition has been a major goal of psychology. While there have been previous attempts to instantiate such theories by building computational models, we currently do n...

arxiv.org

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Feb 21

I agree. I hope that taking LLM cognition seriously may help us arrive at stronger definitions that could help delineate the cognitive differences between humans and LLMs.

1

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Feb 20

Do LLMs think?

Excited to share our updated preprint critically discussing two "Justaic" stances claiming that LLMs lack cognition because they are "just" next-token predictors or "just" machines.

Led by @zakashussain.bsky.social and with @ruimata.bsky.social .

osf.io/preprints/os...

3 3 16

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Center for Adaptive Rationality (MPIB, Berlin) @arc-mpib.bsky.social · Feb 4

🚨 Applications for the 22nd Summer Institute on Bounded Rationality are now open!

🌐 Join us in Berlin @mpib-berlin.bsky.social from June 17–25, 2025 to explore "Decision Making in a Digital World".

✏️ Application deadline is March 9 - more info at 👇!!

www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/research/res...

Summer Institute

www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de

26 27

Reposted by Dirk Wulff

Eric Schulz @ericschulz.bsky.social · Jan 29

In our latest article, published in @pnas.org and led by @marcelbinz.bsky.social and Stephan Alaniz, we got together four diverse groups of scientists to reflect on how LLMs should affect science. From treating them like co-authors to using other tools instead, many interesting arguments emerged.

1 6 13

Dirk Wulff @dirkwulff.bsky.social · Jan 27

The potential of LLMs in social & behavioral science is enormous—but how can we leverage them?

Zak Hussain & I just taught a 5-day course at #GSERM Ljubljana on this. Check out our open materials (cc-by-sa) on using open LLMs with @hf.co.

github.com/Zak-Hussain/...

GitHub - Zak-Hussain/LLM4BeSci_Ljubljana2025: The course introduces the use of open-source large language models (LLMs) from the Hugging Face ecosystem for research in the behavioral and social scienc...

The course introduces the use of open-source large language models (LLMs) from the Hugging Face ecosystem for research in the behavioral and social sciences. - Zak-Hussain/LLM4BeSci_Ljubljana2025

github.com

2 7