Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · 8d

Just one day left to apply to this role! ⏱️

Come work with us developing computational models to pick apart the mechanisms underlying social cognition and threat using THC 💊 neuroimaging 🧠 and interactive behavioural paradigms 👥

Apply here -> lnkd.in/eCMy9Jf5

Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Sep 3

🧠 We're hiring a computational postdoc!

3+ years with me & @mitulamehta.bsky.social on @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded social cognition/paranoia research at the IoPPN.

Lead & develop computational work, collaborate with experimentalists on psychosis/THC data.

DM for details! lnkd.in/eCMy9Jf5

Computational postdoc ad for KCL funded by the Wellcome Trust on the NEPTUNE project

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Reposted by Joe Barnby

fkne-scholars.bsky.social @fkne-scholars.bsky.social · 20d

The #FKNE Leadership Training Course for the Starting PI is open! Don't miss the opportunity to enhance your abilities and learn to tackle challenging moments as an early group leader! Application deadline: 15 Oct. 2025
fenskavlinetwork.org/fkne-leaders...
@fens.org

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Reposted by Joe Barnby

Sepehr Razavi @srazavi.bsky.social · 27d

Next week, we have the distinct pleasure of (e-)hosting the fantastic @hayleydorfman.bsky.social at the SoCR Lab's Invited Talk Series. Dr Dorfman will presenting some of her recent work on agency-modulated reinforcement learning 🧵👇

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · 28d

🤖After a fantastic debut in 2025, the Theory of Mind in AI workshop at AAAI is back for 2026!

We invite submissions on ToM in artificial & biological intelligence—across comp sci, cog sci, comp psych, psychiatry & more.

CFP 👉 tom4ai.github.io/AAAI2026/cal...

2025 procs 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2505.03770

Call for Papers - ToM4AI Workshop@AAAI 2026

tom4ai.github.io

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Sep 5

📖 Our letter of reply to 'pseudosocial' cognition is now out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

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

Led by the talented @srazavi.bsky.social + written with @vaughanbell.bsky.social, Peter Dayan, @nicholaraihani.bsky.social, Michael Moutoussis

#NeuroPsychSky

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Sep 5

Closing date: 30/09/2025
Application link: lnkd.in/eCMy9Jf5

Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Sep 3

🧠 We're hiring a computational postdoc!

3+ years with me & @mitulamehta.bsky.social on @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded social cognition/paranoia research at the IoPPN.

Lead & develop computational work, collaborate with experimentalists on psychosis/THC data.

DM for details! lnkd.in/eCMy9Jf5

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Reposted by Joe Barnby

Sepehr Razavi @srazavi.bsky.social · Aug 13

Just a reminder that this is happening tomorrow :) Feel free to reach out to me or better yet @joebarnby.com for a link!

Sepehr Razavi @srazavi.bsky.social · Aug 8

It is such a pleasure to kick off the SoCR Lab 2025-2026 talk series with Dr. Ismail Guennouni. His work with
@maartenspeek.bsky.social
was an early and significant inspiration.

Reach out to
@joebarnby.com
or comment here for a link. Stay tuned as we will be organising monthly talks :) 🧵

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Reposted by Joe Barnby

Shawn Rhoads @shawnrhoadsphd.com · Jul 31

📢 @markkho.bsky.social & I are recruiting a joint postdoc interested in computational models of social interaction & mental health

💻 Ideal candidates have experience w/ multi-player web-based experiments & computational modeling

📅 Apps are reviewed on a rolling basis

🔗 apply.interfolio.com/165809

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Reposted by Joe Barnby

Toby Wise @tobywise.bsky.social · Jul 18

For any postdocs who are are looking to transition to independence and might be keen to join us here at @kingsioppn.bsky.social, King's Prize fellowship applications are open (deadline 27 Nov)

👇 See link for details, and feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat

www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/119505-...

King’s Prize Fellowship

www.kcl.ac.uk

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jul 14

Having severe fomo not being able to attend #cpconf2025 this year but make sure to check out @gjcooper.bsky.social’s poster #50 today on making comp modelling scalable and intuitive to use 🖐️ ! Also say hi and buy phd student @srazavi.bsky.social a beer 🍺 to celebrate his first cpc

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Reposted by Joe Barnby

Michael Browning @mikebrowning.bsky.social · Jun 30

Our new study published in TheLancetPsych! We found that pramipexole augmentation substantially reduced depressive symptoms in patients with treatment-resistant depression over 48 weeks of treatment. This is an important advance in how we treat depression! 1/6
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Pramipexole augmentation for the acute phase of treatment-resistant, unipolar depression: a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomised trial in the UK

In this trial involving participants with treatment-resistant depression, pramipexole augmentation of antidepressant treatment, at a target dose of 2·5 mg, demonstrated a reduction in symptoms relativ...

www.thelancet.com

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

Thanks Michael - that is a paper of ours but our present response is in reply to this one: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Pseudosocial cognition and paranoia

It has been argued that social processes are relevant to belief formation and maintenance and thence to persecutory delusions – the fixed false belief…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

Yeah that’s really bizarre I’m getting a 503 error when I click it too… seems to be an issue with psyarxiv generally as I can’t seem to get into the main site either. Hopefully will resolve soon

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

It’s all laid out in the response - as we’ve always said, explaining social cognitive phenomena and including the contribution of general neural processes can be completed in the same breath.

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

We also don't demand social specific processes: this is a misreading as we mention. We say that formally capturing social _phenomena_ is useful to account for a range of phenomena in the clinic. Again, if you can find where we deny the importance of lower level processes i;d be keen to see it

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

The key advantage of having formal approaches that capture social phenomena is that you can more closely bridge levels of explanation and not have to resort to correlations between lower level signal and higher level noise. We outline this here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

An analogy: why bother having a model of individual neurons if you know everything is made of atoms? Signal at one level of explanation may be best predicted by different formal approaches, that is absolutely not denying the contribution of signal at lower levels of a hierarchy.

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

In any case, I hope this response clears up any ambiguity

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

I mean again I’d be keen to see which bit you’re referring to exactly. In our own personal exchanges you also know I’ve strongly pushed back against that interpretation. It was a surprise to see your perspective given our recent conversations!

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

Thanks Phil - if you can find the part where we mention a module I’d be keen to see it myself!

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

We'd be keen to hear everyones thoughts on this -

This response was adeptly led by PhD student @srazavi.bsky.social and shaped by all of us: @vaughanbell.bsky.social, @nicholaraihani.bsky.social, Michael Moutoussis, Peter Dayan, and me.

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

Side remark: disentangling sources of uncertainty isn’t trivial, and we highlight limitations in the claimed r/ship between volatility and paranoia given the authors' typical model of choice. We point readers to work that demonstrate these issues:

journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

A simple model for learning in volatile environments

Author summary Sound principles of statistical learning dictate that uncertainty influences behavior. However, despite the success of statistically founded algorithms for learning in stable environmen...

journals.plos.org

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Joe Barnby @joebarnby.com · Jun 30

3. Heuristic and recursive mentalising properties do not need to be at odds to explain social behaviour.

Claiming so is out of step with empirical work. They are no more opposed than model-free/based theories of decision making (although even this isnt straightforward! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...)

Model-based algorithms shape automatic evaluative processing | PNAS

Computational theories of reinforcement learning suggest that two families of algorithm—model-based and model-free—tightly map onto the classic dis...

www.pnas.org

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