Samuel Recht's Avatar

Samuel Recht

@sam.re

Cognitive scientist @ Oxford. Studying attention, metacognition and curiosity / learning. https://sam.re

1,070
Followers
200
Following
17
Posts
24.02.2024
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Samuel Recht @sam.re

Trying to imagine the looks on the faces of the people I worked with at Google in 2018 if you’d told them that in 7 years their flagship product would be sending users to commit terrorism at airports

and that no one will do anything about it

05.03.2026 00:54 πŸ‘ 73 πŸ” 22 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
A crowdsourced megastudy of 12 digital single-session interventions for depression in US adults Nature Human Behaviour - An online experiment compared 12 brief online interventions for depression. Most improved mental health immediately, but these gains decreased over time, with only two...

Our crowdsourced megastudy comparing a diverse set of 12 single-session interventions for depression is out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com!

Read the full paper here: rdcu.be/e6pzz (no paywall)

We also published a brief non-academic piece about the study today: theconversation.com/free-10-minu...

02.03.2026 15:41 πŸ‘ 39 πŸ” 18 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3
Job Opening Annonce d'ouverture de poste

We are looking for a new colleague!πŸ§ πŸ‡¨πŸ‡­πŸ¦©
A new post doc position is available in our lab - check the link for more details!

www.unige.ch/fapse/womcog...

02.03.2026 11:21 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2
Preview
Signatures proposed to index perceptual effects emerge in a purely cognitive task - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review A central question in many studies on perception and consciousness is whether the effects of a given manipulation are perceptual or cognitive. Typically, studies seek to find evidence that the raw sen...

New paper from the lab in which we test whether DDM and confidence distributions can be used to distinguish between perceptual and decisional effects. We show that putative signatures of perceptual effects emerge in a purely cognitive task.

link.springer.com/article/10.3...

03.03.2026 14:30 πŸ‘ 30 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
The inferred value of unchosen options spreads to related items in memory Counterfactual thinking β€” considering what could have come of choosing the other path β€” can facilitate inference. Previous studies have demonstrated t…

πŸ“’New paper out today in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social!

Does the value of an unchosen option β€” inferred through counterfactual reasoning β€” spread to related items in memory, similar to how the value of a chosen option β€” acquired through direct experience β€” does?

In short, yes!

28.02.2026 19:11 πŸ‘ 59 πŸ” 25 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

🚨New pre-print🚨

osf.io/preprints/ps...

What if the relationship between smartphone use and mental health depends not just on specific harmful or beneficial activities, but also on how users transition between activities?

24.02.2026 13:39 πŸ‘ 51 πŸ” 20 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 3
Preview
Experimental evidence of the effects of large language models versus web search on depth of learning Abstract. The effects of using large language models (LLMs) versus traditional web search on depth of learning are explored. A theory is proposed that when

When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same.

Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow.

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

28.10.2025 15:14 πŸ‘ 1342 πŸ” 617 πŸ’¬ 20 πŸ“Œ 44
OSF

Interested in cognitive maps? Wondering how you should best train your participants? Luckily for you, we have investigated just that! Very excited to share a preprint from my PhD in which we show how initial training curriculum affects the cognitive maps we form

osf.io/preprints/ps...

[1/6]

16.02.2026 11:28 πŸ‘ 29 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

a while back i threatened to share this. finally online

for detection tasks we often systematically estimates sensitivity wrong. we need to control for unequal variance in models, but we often don't coz it needs extra data

now there's a virtually 'free' way to do it

www.cell.com/iscience/pdf...

13.02.2026 03:39 πŸ‘ 38 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
Rhythmic sampling of multiple decision alternatives in the human brain - Nature Communications How humans process competing information when making multi-alternative decisions remains unclear. Here, the authors show that the brain resolves the trade-off between β€œevaluating within” and β€œcomparin...

Cognition is not steady state.
Rhythmic sampling of multiple decision alternatives in the human brain
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience

12.02.2026 18:10 πŸ‘ 27 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Paris Brain Institute Call for Junior Group Leaders in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science | Paris Brain Institute The Paris Brain Institute is launching a Call for Junior Group Leaders, inviting outstanding early-career scientists in artificial intelligence, data science, computational neuroscience, and related f...

🧠 The Paris Brain Institute is launching a Call for Junior Group Leaders, inviting early-career scientists to establish their own independent research groups within one of Europe’s most dynamic neuroscience research centers.

πŸ‘‰ More information: parisbraininstitute.org/news/paris-b...

#Hiring #AI

11.02.2026 17:06 πŸ‘ 17 πŸ” 11 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Video thumbnail

Very happy to see "Pretending not to know reveals a capacity for model-based self-simulation", a collaboration with @chazfirestone.bsky.social and @ianbphillips.bsky.social, out in Psych. Science!

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...

🧡

10.02.2026 17:25 πŸ‘ 67 πŸ” 30 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3

If you work at the intersection of computational neuroscience and machine learning, consider applying for this postdoc position (January 2027 start date):
academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/15868
An opportunity to work with a great group of people across Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley.

10.02.2026 19:36 πŸ‘ 72 πŸ” 48 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 2
MIT Consciousness Club - Rachel Denison
MIT Consciousness Club - Rachel Denison YouTube video by MIT Consciousness Club

The recording of Rachel Denison's talk at the MIT Consciousness Club, about the effects of attention on conscious perception, is now available here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJvC....

12.01.2026 13:18 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
New study warns of risks in AI chatbots giving medical advice | The largest user study of large language models (LLMs) for assisting the general public in medical decisions has found that they present risks to people seeking medical advice due to their tendency

NEW: Oxford study warns of risks in AI chatbots giving medical advice

The study found that LLMs present risks to people seeking medical advice due to their tendency to provide inaccurate and inconsistent information.

Found out more⬇️

10.02.2026 16:46 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 3
Post image

Our paper is out in @natneuro.nature.com!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We develop a geometric theory of how neural populations support generalization across many tasks.

@zuckermanbrain.bsky.social
@flatironinstitute.org
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social

1/14

10.02.2026 15:56 πŸ‘ 273 πŸ” 100 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 1
Post image

Why did consciousness evolve at all? A superb special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org brings together experts across disciplines to explore the functions of consciousness and why it emerged in some species but not others. @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...

08.02.2026 12:47 πŸ‘ 135 πŸ” 51 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 3
Marisa Carrasco - Perception/Action Dissociations as a Window Into Consciousness
Marisa Carrasco - Perception/Action Dissociations as a Window Into Consciousness YouTube video by MIT Consciousness Club

Marisa Carrasco's talk "Perception / Action Dissociations as a Window into Consciousness" at the MIT Consciousness Club is now available online: youtu.be/7g6wodPclqs.

08.02.2026 17:34 πŸ‘ 17 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Cognitive/Computational Neuroscience If you are a current Barnard College employee, please use the internal career site to apply for this position. Job: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Cognitive/Computational Neuroscience The Barnard Visua...

🚨Job alert! I'm recruiting a postdoc! If you want to study the time course of task-driven visual perception, please reach out! #neuroskyence #VisionScience #CogSci barnard.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Facult...

07.02.2026 20:13 πŸ‘ 34 πŸ” 30 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
The Self-Evidencing Agent What is it to be a human individual, an agent? According to Jakob Hohwy, it is to β€œself-evidence,” to actively seek out sensory evidence for one&...

"The Self-Evidencing Agent" - my new book - is out now with @mitpress.bsky.social

Can be purchased, or just download the whole thing for free, via the 'Open Access' option.

I'm grateful to @anilseth.bsky.social and Karl Friston for the generous endorsements.

mitpress.mit.edu/978026255389...

07.02.2026 08:21 πŸ‘ 104 πŸ” 42 πŸ’¬ 10 πŸ“Œ 5
Preview
Using Artificial Neural Networks to Relate External Sensory Features to Internal Decisional Evidence Abstract. All theories of perceptual decision-making postulate that external sensory information is transformed into the internal evidence that is used to judge the identity of the stimulus. However, ...

How do you know how visual stimuli are represented internally for decision making? This is perhaps the central question in perceptual decision making. In a new paper, we show that one can use artificial neural networks to crack this problem. #NeuroAi #VisionScience

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

05.02.2026 15:01 πŸ‘ 24 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Ever wondered how the Dalmatian Dog effect works?

The human brain can quickly learn from a single experience and generalize it to related experiences β€” an impressive feat so far not matched by AI.

Our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com reveals how this works.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

04.02.2026 17:00 πŸ‘ 84 πŸ” 33 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 4
Post image

πŸ’₯New paper alert! Dyadic Decisions About Effort: How Caregivers Shape Young Children’s Persistence (with @reutshachnai.bsky.social)

One of my favorites! If you’re curious about what we’ve been up to in @leonardlearnlab.bsky.social, take a look!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

03.02.2026 13:49 πŸ‘ 68 πŸ” 28 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
Video thumbnail

1/7 Can infants recognise the world around them? πŸ‘ΆπŸ§  As part of the FOUNDCOG project, we scanned 134 awake infants using fMRI. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, our research reveals 2-month-old infants already possess complex visual representations in VVC that align with DNNs.

02.02.2026 16:00 πŸ‘ 155 πŸ” 70 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 8
Preview
The Association between Oscillatory Burst Features and Human Working Memory Accuracy Abstract. Oscillatory power across multiple frequency bands has been associated with distinct working memory (WM) processes. Recent research has shown that previous observations based on averaged powe...

Working memory is an interplay between different rhythms. It is not steady state like we used to think back in the 20th century.
The Association between Oscillatory Burst Features and Human Working Memory Accuracy
doi.org/10.1162/JOCN...
#neuroscience

31.01.2026 19:34 πŸ‘ 16 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Have you ever wanted to study individual differences in attention only to be frustrated by prohibitive low reliability?

If so, what a coincidence!

Let me introduce you to the first study from the newly formed Sheffield PandA lab:

Using RSVPs to measure the speed of attention: rdcu.be/e0t0A

1/

26.01.2026 12:08 πŸ‘ 33 πŸ” 12 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
Neural activations and representations during episodic versus semantic memory retrieval - Nature Human Behaviour In this Stage 2 Registered Report, Tibon et al. showed using fMRI that neural activity associated with successful memory retrieval did not differ between semantic and episodic memory, using a task wit...

Finally: the fantastic #registeredreport from bsky-less Roni Tibon is out: www.nature.com/articles/s41... showing less difference between #episodic vs. #semantic #memory than one might have thought.

Proud to have contributed a tiny part to this great paper.

27.01.2026 11:44 πŸ‘ 17 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Are you sure there’s no mosquito in the room?
With @matanmazor.bsky.social, Chichi DΓ©zier, @nfaivre.bsky.social & Louise Goupil, we study how we combine multiple sensory sources to be confident in presence and absence: While detection rely on one modality, confidence requires both channels to align!

26.01.2026 06:49 πŸ‘ 14 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review Women are underrepresented in academia, especially in STEMM fields, at top institutions, and in senior positions. This study analyzes millions of biomedical and life science articles, revealing that f...

Cost of being female lead/corresponding author in biomedical sciences: "[T]he median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles than for male-authored articles" even in disciplines where women well-represented. #AcademicSky

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

21.01.2026 14:38 πŸ‘ 181 πŸ” 128 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 11

Our new paper is out in @natmed.nature.com 😱! A thread:

Can our thoughts and feelings directly affect our physical well-being? Our pre-registered, double-blind RCT investigated this by testing if modulating the brain's reward system could enhance immune responses to vaccination.

21.01.2026 17:54 πŸ‘ 31 πŸ” 15 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0