Evan Russek
@evanrussek.bsky.social
210 followers 260 following 9 posts
Postdoc at Princeton studying the cognitive science of decision-making. https://www.evanrussek.com/
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evanrussek.bsky.social
Thrilled to announce that I'll be starting in January 2026 as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York.

The lab will study the thought processes that underlie our decision-making.
evanrussek.bsky.social
Does depression involve altered evaluation of multi-step plans?

In our new preprint, we find that individuals with higher apathy-anhedonia report more pessimism about whether a plan will succeed, but in fact make better decisions that are more reflective of accurate multi-step evaluations.
elliottwimmer.bsky.social
🧵 New paper! We studied depression symptoms and goal-directed decisions under uncertainty

@shiyiliang.bsky.social, with @evanrussek.bsky.social & @robbrutledge.bsky.social

Surprisingly, we found that apathy–anhedonia was linked to enhanced goal-directed behavior. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
evanrussek.bsky.social
3. Individual differences in decision-making and mental-health

4. Social decision-making
evanrussek.bsky.social
1. Testing complex models of planning using massive online game datasets (e.g., chess, Go)

2. Understanding how cognitive maps are shaped to enable adaptive planning
evanrussek.bsky.social
I will likely be able to recruit a PhD student in the upcoming cycle. Please get in touch if you're interested in any of the following areas:
evanrussek.bsky.social
Thrilled to announce that I'll be starting in January 2026 as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York.

The lab will study the thought processes that underlie our decision-making.
Reposted by Evan Russek
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
Reposted by Evan Russek
paulbsharp.bsky.social
🚨New preprint! WHEN should we plan toward a goal? Most research focuses on how and where to plan, but the timing of planning initiation has been overlooked. We show humans leverage a cognitive map - called model-based meta-control - to learn when to deploy a plan.
🧵(1/15)
osf.io/preprints/ps...
evanrussek.bsky.social
We have an amazing group of speakers spanning psychology and AI research, all focused on using Chess or other multi-player games to gain insights on human and AI decision-making, and how they can inform each other.
Reposted by Evan Russek
arikahn.bsky.social
I'm thrilled to announce that I will start as an Assistant Professor in Psychology & Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona in Jan 2026! My lab will investigate human planning and decision making through a combination of computational models, behavior, and fMRI (1/2)
Reposted by Evan Russek
fredcallaway.bsky.social
Despite the world being on fire, I can't help but be thrilled to announce that I'll be starting as an Assistant Professor in the Cognitive Science Program at Dartmouth in Fall '26. I'll be recruiting grad students this upcoming cycle—get in touch if you're interested!
Reposted by Evan Russek
elliottwimmer.bsky.social
We are excited to post a new preprint with Shiyi Liang @shiyiliang.bsky.social:

'Reinforcement learning is positively associated with anhedonia symptoms' osf.io/preprints/ps...
(a bit late here – a version was online back in December)

@mpc-comppsych.bsky.social
OSF
osf.io
evanrussek.bsky.social
So sorry for your loss, Laurence.
Reposted by Evan Russek
mcxfrank.bsky.social
AI models are fascinating, impressive, and sometimes problematic. But what can they tell us about the human mind?

In a new review paper, @noahdgoodman.bsky.social and I discuss how modern AI can be used for cognitive modeling: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Figure 1. A schematic depiction of a model-mechanism mapping between a human learning system (left side) and a cognitive model (right side). Candidate model mechanism mappings are pictured as mapping between representations but also can be in terms of input data, architecture, or learning objective. Figure 2. Data efficiency in human learning. (left) Order of magnitude of LLM vs. human training data, plotted by human age. Ranges are approximated from Frank (2023a). (right) A schematic depiction of evaluation scaling curves for human learners vs. models plotted by training data
quantity. Paper abstract
Reposted by Evan Russek
mattnour.bsky.social
❗RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES❗

We're hiring for an ambitious @wellcometrust.bsky.social project exploring brain mechanisms of planning/inference in psychosis 🧠

Tackled at multiple scales: from single neurons to human behaviour/fMRI and neural networks.

Opportunities for 1 post-doc 1 clinical fellow 👀
drrickadams.bsky.social
💥 Some POST DOC JOB news 👀... I'm very happy to say that @melgaby.bsky.social, @mattnour.bsky.social, @mariaeckstein.bsky.social and I have been awarded funding from @wellcometrust.bsky.social to look at how planning 📝and mental models of the world 🌍 are affected by psychosis...
Reposted by Evan Russek
thecharleywu.bsky.social
🚨 Finally out! My new @annualreviews.bsky.social in Psychology paper:
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
We unpack why psych theories of generalization keep cycling from rigid rule-based models to flexible similarity-based ones, then culminating in Bayesian hybrids. Let's break it down 👉 🧵
Reposted by Evan Russek
raziasahi.bsky.social
📣 Absolutely elated to announce that in 2026, I’ll be joining Rutgers-Newark as TT Assistant Professor in the Dept of Psychology! Can’t wait to join this incredible community! 🤩 I’ve got some fun projects ahead as I wrap up my postdoc, but soon I’ll start recruiting at all levels so stay tuned. 1/3
Reposted by Evan Russek
marcelbinz.bsky.social
We are currently building the largest, cross-domain data set of human behavior as part of an open collaborative project. Contributions of any form are welcome, but especially experiments with meta-data from developmental, cross-cultural, or clinical studies.

More details: github.com/marcelbinz/P...
GitHub - marcelbinz/Psych-201
Contribute to marcelbinz/Psych-201 development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
Reposted by Evan Russek
cocoscilab.bsky.social
The new AI Lab at Princeton has positions for AI Postdoctoral Research Fellows for three research initiatives: AI for Accelerating Invention, Natural and Artificial Minds, and Princeton Language and Intelligence. Deadline is 12/31. More information here: ai.princeton.edu/ai-lab/emplo...
Employment Opportunities
Find and learn more about our open positions.Join our team
ai.princeton.edu
Reposted by Evan Russek
xallysie.bsky.social
Hello!!👋 I'm Sally Xie. Excited to share that in a few weeks, I'll be starting as an Assistant Professor @SFU Psych! 🏞️ @sfufass.bsky.social

I'm recruiting a lab manager & my first grad student. If you're interested in social cognition/perception & transformative experiences, check out socosci.com🦉!
socosci
Xie Lab for Social Cognitive Science
socosci.com
Reposted by Evan Russek
candemircan.bsky.social
Alignment is more than comparing similarity judgments! How well do pretrained neural networks align with humans in few-shot learning settings? Come check our poster #3904 at #NeurIPS on Wednesday to find out