Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Andrew Lampinen @lampinen.bsky.social · 16d

Why does AI sometimes fail to generalize, and what might help? In a new paper (arxiv.org/abs/2509.16189), we highlight the latent learning gap — which unifies findings from language modeling to agent navigation — and suggest that episodic memory complements parametric learning to bridge it. Thread:

Latent learning: episodic memory complements parametric learning by enabling flexible reuse of experiences

When do machine learning systems fail to generalize, and what mechanisms could improve their generalization? Here, we draw inspiration from cognitive science to argue that one weakness of machine lear...

arxiv.org

1 10 44

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Kris Jensen @kristorpjensen.bsky.social · 14d

I’m super excited to finally put my recent work with @behrenstimb.bsky.social on bioRxiv, where we develop a new mechanistic theory of how PFC structures adaptive behaviour using attractor dynamics in space and time!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

9 85 200

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Sam McDougle @actlab.bsky.social · Sep 8

New preprint from the lab! 🧠
Led by Juliana Trach, w/ Sophia Ou

Using fMRI, we discovered evidence for time-sensitive reward prediction errors (RPEs) in the human cerebellum.

Builds on, and extends, recent work in both rodents and NHPs

2 20 45

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Sreejan Kumar @sreejan.bsky.social · Sep 6

I'm excited to share that my new postdoctoral position is going so well that I submitted a new paper at the end of my first week! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... A thread below

Sensory Compression as a Unifying Principle for Action Chunking and Time Coding in the Brain

The brain seamlessly transforms sensory information into precisely-timed movements, enabling us to type familiar words, play musical instruments, or perform complex motor routines with millisecond pre...

www.biorxiv.org

2 11 55

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Mariam Aly @mariamaly.bsky.social · Aug 9

Successful prediction of the future enhances encoding of the present.

I am so delighted that this work found a wonderful home at Open Mind. The peer review journey was a rollercoaster but it *greatly* improved the paper.

direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

2 22 77

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Evan Russek @evanrussek.bsky.social · Aug 6

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.

7 5 55

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Akram Bakkour @akrambakkour.bsky.social · Jul 31

Very happy to see this work with Euan Prentis posted! If you’re going to CCN next week, go check out Euan’s poster on this work!

bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · Jul 31

Overcoming distortion in multidimensional predictive representation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.29.667463v1

1 5 10

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Cody Dong @codydong.bsky.social · Jul 26

My first, first author paper, comparing the properties of memory-augmented large language models and human episodic memory, out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social!

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lV174sIRv...

Here’s a quick 🧵(1/n)

authors.elsevier.com

3 19 66

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Anna Schapiro @annaschapiro.bsky.social · Jul 16

Super excited to share this one!! Meta-learning sparsity and learning rate gives rise to brain-like gradients of complementary learning systems. So complementary learning systems emerge organically through behavior optimization, and it's not just two of them!!

Zhenglong Zhou @neurozz.bsky.social · Jul 16

Excited to share a new preprint w/ @annaschapiro.bsky.social! Why are there gradients of plasticity and sparsity along the neocortex–hippocampus hierarchy? We show that brain-like organization of these properties emerges in ANNs that meta-learn layer-wise plasticity and sparsity. bit.ly/4kB1yg5

A gradient of complementary learning systems emerges through meta-learning

Long-term learning and memory in the primate brain rely on a series of hierarchically organized subsystems extending from early sensory neocortical areas to the hippocampus. The components differ in t...

bit.ly

1 25 84

Jonathan Nicholas @jonathannicholas.bsky.social · Jul 5

the paper looks cool, excited to dig in!

1

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Marcelo Mattar @marcelomattar.bsky.social · Jul 2

Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Discovering cognitive strategies with tiny recurrent neural networks - Nature

Modelling biological decision-making with tiny recurrent neural networks enables more accurate predictions of animal choices than classical cognitive models and offers insights into the underlying cog...

doi.org

9 140 330

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Nico Schuck @nicoschuck.bsky.social · Jun 6

One way to tackle a new task is to reuse solutions from the past. Check out Sam Hall-McMaster's latest finding that strategy reuse is accompanied by neural reactivation of prior solutions @plosbiology.org

Collab w/ M Tomov & @gershbrain.bsky.social

#neuroskyence
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Neural evidence that humans reuse strategies to solve new tasks

Humans can apply solutions used in past problems to new problems. In this study, the authors reveal the neural correlates of this process, known as generalization, and show that humans apply past poli...

journals.plos.org

1 19 73

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Charley Wu | hiring PhDs/Postdocs @thecharleywu.bsky.social · Jun 6

📢 now out @natrevpsychol.nature.com In a new perspective w/ @davidnagy.bsky.social & @gergoorban.bsky.social, we reconcile a glaring problem in applying rate-distortion theory as a framework for human memory, integrating empirical findings across a host of human memory research 🧵👇

Nature Reviews Psychology @natrevpsychol.nature.com · Jun 5

Adaptive compression as a unifying framework for episodic and semantic memory

Perspective by David G. Nagy (@davidnagy.bsky.social), Gergő Orbán & Charley M. Wu (@thecharleywu.bsky.social)

Web: go.nature.com/3ZkmRLb
PDF: rdcu.be/epAQ0

1 15 53

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Qihong (Q) Lu @qlu.bsky.social · May 8

I’m thrilled to announce that I will start as a presidential assistant professor in Neuroscience at the City U of Hong Kong in Jan 2026!
I have RA, PhD, and postdoc positions available! Come work with me on neural network models + experiments on human memory!
RT appreciated!
(1/5)

14 39 130

Jonathan Nicholas @jonathannicholas.bsky.social · May 7

work with fred! can’t recommend more highly

Fred Callaway @fredcallaway.bsky.social · May 7

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!

5

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

mpc-comppsych.bsky.social @mpc-comppsych.bsky.social · Apr 24

🚨Today's Computational Psychiatry seminar at the MPC is given by Dr. Jonathan Nicholas @jonathannicholas.bsky.social
Episodic memory facilitates flexible decision making via access to individual events and their details.
2pm London UK time. DM @yanivabir.bsky.social to join.

2 4

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Katie Insel @katieinsel.bsky.social · Apr 23

Come see our lab's first poster at #SANS2025!!

Megan Spurney will present exciting new results revealing that rewards boost working memory accuracy for kids and teens, but less so for adults.

Friday 4/25 @ 4:15
Poster P2-A-13
Investigating Age-Related Flexibility in Cognitive Effort Allocation

4 28

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Apr 9

The precision of hippocampal representations predicts incremental value-learning across the adult lifespan https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.08.647815v1

4 5

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Sreejan Kumar @sreejan.bsky.social · Mar 26

See me at #COSYNE2025 poster session 2 if you want to learn more about this emerging work!

1 1 4

Jonathan Nicholas @jonathannicholas.bsky.social · Mar 14

thanks, anna!

Jonathan Nicholas @jonathannicholas.bsky.social · Mar 14

These results suggest that holding on to different details of memories can allow us to build new decision variables on-the-fly, whenever they are needed for a choice, and that perhaps one reason why we maintain detailed memories is to help us flexibly adapt to an uncertain future.

1 6

Jonathan Nicholas @jonathannicholas.bsky.social · Mar 14

i) having detailed memories allows people to flexibly access different parts of these memories for decisions,
ii) people do this more often when it is unclear what details will be important in the future,
iii) episodic memories can be used as a “backup” if irrelevant details later become relevant.

1 1 5

Jonathan Nicholas @jonathannicholas.bsky.social · Mar 14

Across four experiments and multiple replications, we tested this idea using a task that required people to encode individual events with multiple features and then to later make decisions based on these features to maximize their earnings. We found that...

1 3

Jonathan Nicholas @jonathannicholas.bsky.social · Mar 14

Why do we remember so many details of our experiences even when it is unclear if we will actually ever need them?

In a new preprint, @marcelomattar.bsky.social and I asked whether this property is adaptive, because what will be relevant in the future often (usually?!) isn’t apparent.

Episodic memory facilitates flexible decision making via access to detailed events

Our experiences contain countless details that may be important in the future, yet we rarely know which will matter and which won't. This uncertainty poses a difficult challenge for adaptive decision ...

www.biorxiv.org

2 21 70

Reposted by Jonathan Nicholas

Chris Baldassano @chrisbaldassano.bsky.social · Feb 22

Thank you to Ingrid Wickelgren and the team at Quanta for putting together this great piece, describing work by my lab and others on the neural representations of events

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · Feb 21

New neuroscience research is en route to unlocking a universal human code for recording experiences as memory. What’s their secret weapon? Airport scenes in movies.
www.quantamagazine.org/how-event-sc...

How ‘Event Scripts’ Structure Our Personal Memories | Quanta Magazine

By screening films in a brain scanner, neuroscientists discovered a rich library of neural scripts — from a trip through an airport to a marriage proposal — that form scaffolds for memories of our exp...

www.quantamagazine.org

10 32