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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · 22h

I appreciate the kind words. I think that will be someone else's book. My next serious book will be about consciousness.

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · 23h

2023 version

Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · 23h

Tomorrow I am teaching Searle's Chinese room in my consciousness class and to add a bit of irony, I have this AI teach it. In the first comment, I have the 2023 version. Pretty amazing how far AI video has come.

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · Aug 17

Scientists may have found the genetic mutation that led humans to have bigger brains. If it can be modulated that would have huge consequences for the future. www.science.org/doi/full/10....

An ancient enhancer rapidly evolving in the human lineage promotes neural development and cognitive flexibility

HAR123 is a conserved enhancer rapidly evolving in the human lineage that exerts neural functions.

www.science.org

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · Aug 1

Pretty awesome for all of UCLA's Jewish faculty to wake up today to find out all of our grants have been suspended because Trump is fighting anti-Semitism - an issue near and dear to his heart.

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · Jul 22

You get about 100 million breaths. So does every other animal big or small. Don't waste them. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

www.nature.com

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · Jul 22

Tell me you have no prefrontal cortex without telling me you have no prefrontal cortex

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · Jul 10

Favorite new TikTok channel. I could teach a whole class on this www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8hAY4d5/

Best memories start at BARBERCHOPS

TikTok video by Barberchops

www.tiktok.com

Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · Jun 27

Smart piece on AI and college degrees: "students cheating with ChatGPT aren't lazy—they're rational actors in an irrational system They're using 21st-century tools to game 19th-century assessments for 11th-century credentials. The real scandal is that we're still pretending the old game matters."

What Good Is a College Degree When AI Knows Everything? Grab the Job Skills That Matter in an AI World

We live in a hyper-inflating knowledge economy, and everything we think we knew about jobs and college is eroding. So what do we do? This post lays out a path forward for an AI future...

natesnewsletter.substack.com

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · Jun 20

This is where all the social psych folks are these days, right? Does anyone know if Zimbardo got the idea for the Stanford Prison Experiment from the Third Wave Experiment that took place in Palo Alto (where Stanford is) 4 years before. Never seen a connection. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thi...

The Third Wave (experiment) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · Jun 3

Is someone you love applying to college in the next 3 years? The lessons I learned in my new substack post including: the statistics you can find are mostly meaningless (Lesson 6) and early decision (ED) is mostly a scam (Lesson 12). Here is the link: open.substack.com/pub/matthewl...

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 28

This is pretty brilliant on multiple levels

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 21

Wisdom of the crowd takes 5 time world chess champion to a draw www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/s...

Magnus Carlsen held to draw by 143,000 opponents in largest ever online chess game after 46 days of competing | CNN

Magnus Carlsen is vastly successful against just one opponent. And even when he came up against many more, the Norwegian showed he can hold his own.

www.cnn.com

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 21

Mental health interventions in the classroom do not help and sometimes makes things worse www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Mental-health lessons in schools sound like a great idea. The trouble is, they don’t work | Lucy Foulkes

All-class therapy sessions don’t help, and may even make matters worse. The evidence shows we need different solutions, says Dr Lucy Foulkes, an academic psychologist at Oxford University

www.theguardian.com

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 19

Integrating with other NCC models (Fig 2): RPT handles unstructured sensory experience → CEEing stitches them into coherence pre-reflective experiences → GNWT/HOT broadcast select bits for reflection & report. 8/8

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 19

That pattern fits my CEEing model: gestalt cortex fuses raw input with memories, motives & expectations, yielding coherent effortless experiences that feel “given,” not constructed—like invisible AR glasses painting meaning onto the world. 7/8

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 19

Meta-analysis of differential synchrony studies (Fig 1) highlights Gestalt cortex & posterior medial cortex, where sensory inputs meet personal context. 6/8

Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 19

Neural synchrony measures how two brains’ signals rise/fall together while they watch the same story. Regular synchrony shows shared experience; differential synchrony zooms in on where groups diverge, isolating their unique p-interpretations. 5/8

Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 19

Subjective experience also integrative: moments blend across time, space, & meaning. Your brain weaves memories, motives, & context together with sensory input, so the now already carries bits of then and next. 4/8

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 19

Subjectivity is idiosyncratic: what seems like plain fact to me may be “interpretation” to you. Hidden, effortless p-interpretations flow beneath the surface; deliberate r-interpretations float above. 3/8

Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 19

Most neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) work asks “did you see the flash?”—great for stimulus detection, terrible for capturing what the moment felt like. My new TiCS piece focuses on the stream of consciousness itself & why people see things differently. Link bit.ly/4doNZhT

Synchrony and subjective experience: the neural correlates of the stream of consciousness

Human subjectivity, our first-person conscious experience of the world, is among the deepest scientific mysteries. This opinion article lays out an approach to examining the neural correlates of subje...

bit.ly

Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 19

Excited to share my new TiCS paper, currently free to download. After 40 years since I was first obsessed with consciousness, I finally wrote a paper directly about it. A thread on the paper's plot line below. 1/8

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 13

Cool new "marshmallow" self-control study. It's about interpersonal emotion regulation. gizmodo.com/new-twist-on...

New Twist on Famous Marshmallow Test: What Happens When You Add a Second Kid?

New research gives the famous marshmallow test a makeover, showing that having support from a buddy makes children more likely to resist temptation and wait for a bigger reward.

gizmodo.com

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 12

Maybe we shouldn’t be so doom and gloom about students using ChatGPT for learning. This is consistent with my own experience. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The effect of ChatGPT on students’ learning performance, learning perception, and higher-order thinking: insights from a meta-analysis - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - The effect of ChatGPT on students’ learning performance, learning perception, and higher-order thinking: insights from a meta-analysis

www.nature.com

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Matthew Lieberman @socialbrain.bsky.social · May 11

Awesome work from @mollycrockett and co on the limits of the limits of introspective accuracy

x.com/that_adammor...

x.com

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