banner
neilbramley.bsky.social
Neil Bramley
@neilbramley.bsky.social
200 followers 140 following 6 posts
Cognitive Psychology Reader (Assoc. Prof) at Edinburgh Uni - Into causal cognition, active learning, compositionality & generalisation
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by Neil Bramley
spiantado.bsky.social
steven t. piantadosi @spiantado.bsky.social · 18d
"basic cognitive processes underlying explanatory reasoning give rise to a systematic inherence bias among practicing scientists—a tendency to explain phenomena in terms of their inherent properties rather than external factors"
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
2 9 25
Reposted by Neil Bramley
louisbarclay.bsky.social
Louis Barclay @louisbarclay.bsky.social · 27d
Q. Who aligns the aligners?
A. alignmentalignment.ai

Today I’m humbled to announce an epoch-defining event: the launch of the 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.
Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers
We align the aligners
alignmentalignment.ai
29 120 410
neilbramley.bsky.social
Neil Bramley @neilbramley.bsky.social · Aug 17
❤️
bonan.bsky.social
Bonan Zhao (赵博囡) @bonan.bsky.social · Aug 17
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!
4
neilbramley.bsky.social
Neil Bramley @neilbramley.bsky.social · Jun 24
Just out in Cognitive Psychology
Lossy encoding of distributions in judgment under uncertainty
By @tadegquillien.bsky.social , me & Chris Lucas

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

We find people's 'best guesses' sneakily encode distribution information that guesser & others can reconstruct later
Lossy encoding of distributions in judgment under uncertainty
People often make judgments about uncertain facts and events, for example ‘Germany will win the world cup’. Judgment under uncertainty is often studie…
www.sciencedirect.com
7 30
neilbramley.bsky.social
Neil Bramley @neilbramley.bsky.social · May 23
Sounds a little like Ely et al’s operationalisation of suspense www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Expectations about future learning influence moment-to-moment feelings of suspense
Suspense is a cognitive and affective state that is often experienced in the anticipation of information and contributes to the enjoyment and consumption of entertainment such as movies or sports. ...
www.tandfonline.com
1
Reposted by Neil Bramley
emiecz.bsky.social
Elizabeth Mieczkowski @emiecz.bsky.social · Mar 26
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
2 14 40
Reposted by Neil Bramley
jonhue.bsky.social
Jonas Hübotter @jonhue.bsky.social · Feb 11
I'm very excited to share notes on Probabilistic AI that I have been writing with @arkrause.bsky.social 🥳

arxiv.org/pdf/2502.05244

These notes aim to give a graduate-level introduction to probabilistic ML + sequential decision-making.
I'm super glad to be able to share them with all of you now!
3 25 120
Reposted by Neil Bramley
laurennross.bsky.social
Lauren Ross @laurennross.bsky.social · Jan 21
New book "Explanation in Biology" with Cambridge University Press is out & open access!

Covers (1) causal explanation & (2) non-causal/mathematical explanation in life sciences--bio, neuro, etc 🌿🧬🧠

Introduction to philosophical work on scientific explanation!

www.cambridge.org/core/element...
11 100 280
Reposted by Neil Bramley
maximederex.bsky.social
Maxime Derex @maximederex.bsky.social · Jan 29
New paper in #ProcB with @alexmesoudi.com, @jfbonnefon.bsky.social, @rmcelreath.bsky.social and Rob Boyd.

We investigate how social learning shapes the way we explore and show that it can even preserve useless theories! 🧵👇
1 47 110
Reposted by Neil Bramley
toddgureckis.bsky.social
todd gureckis @toddgureckis.bsky.social · Jan 21
Our paper on if you can incentivize rule induction in humans with money is finally out (answer is: it appears to be a very weak/0-ish effect in contrast to the huge effect of financial incentives on rote, repetitive tasks). credit to pamop, ben newell & dan bartels psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org
7 16
Reposted by Neil Bramley
tadegquillien.bsky.social
tadegquillien.bsky.social @tadegquillien.bsky.social · Jan 16
New preprint with @neilbramley.bsky.social and Chris Lucas:

We argue that causal judgments are supported by richer mental representations than traditionally assumed, and that this hypothesis can help solve some puzzles about causation.

osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
1 3
Reposted by Neil Bramley
cogscisociety.bsky.social
Cognitive Science Society @cogscisociety.bsky.social · Dec 4
We're on the lookout for passionate minds to join us as reviewers for #CogSci2025. This is your chance to be among the first to check out groundbreaking research while playing a crucial role in shaping the future of #CogSci

Visit cognitivesciencesociety.org/submissions/ and fill out the form!
Graphic inviting individuals to become reviewers for CogSci 2025, with the text 'Become a Reviewer for CogSci 2025 and help shape the future of Cognitive Science' in bold and bright green letters. The background is teal, featuring a stack of paper and a magnifying glass with an eye symbol, representing review and analysis.
13 18
Reposted by Neil Bramley
drbarner.bsky.social
David Barner @drbarner.bsky.social · Nov 25
CogSci2025 poster has landed, in both “wow the future looks bright for CogSci” mode, and also “our theories will make you think and possibly write poetry mode”. @neilbramley.bsky.social @carenwalker.bsky.social @cogscisociety.bsky.social
13 41
neilbramley.bsky.social
Neil Bramley @neilbramley.bsky.social · Oct 5
...and propose that stochastic program induction algorithms (MCMC & adaptor grammars) help explain how cognition innovates & help anticipate core cognitive phenomena inc. order effects, anchoring, confirmation bias & probability matching.
neilbramley.bsky.social
Neil Bramley @neilbramley.bsky.social · Oct 5
We suggest that genuine conceptual innovation is blind & incremental, involving selection among random local mutations and recombinations of (parts of) a cognizer's current world model. We relate this idea to Universal Darwinism...
1
neilbramley.bsky.social
Neil Bramley @neilbramley.bsky.social · Oct 5
"Local search and the evolution of world models" (psyarxiv.com/e9p8k/). New paper forthcoming in TopiCS with Bonan Zhao, Tadeg Quillien & Chris Lucas
psyarxiv.com
1 1