Dan Mirea's Avatar

Dan Mirea

@danmirea

PhD candidate at Princeton Psych. Studying mental health, technology, reinforcement learning, language. He/they πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆπŸ‡·πŸ‡΄

250
Followers
285
Following
24
Posts
07.10.2023
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Dan Mirea @danmirea

Preview
Laboratory Coordinator - 138788 Laboratory Coordinator - 138788 | Careers at UC San Diego

I'm hiring a new lab manager for my lab @ UCSD! For more info on the lab, check out our website: lillab.ucsd.edu

Target start date is June 1 (flexible) and application deadline is March 26. Please share with anyone you think might be a good fit!

Apply here: employment.ucsd.edu/laboratory-c...

12.03.2026 22:46 πŸ‘ 33 πŸ” 30 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 4
Preview
Rutgers-Princeton Center for Computational Cognitive Neuropsychiatry Visit the post for more.

The Rutgers-Princeton Center for Computational Cognitive NeuroPsychiatry (ccnp.princeton.edu) is looking for a new clinical research coordinator! This is a long-term (at least 2 years, more is preferred) position for someone with a BA or MA who is interested in... /1

23.02.2026 02:03 πŸ‘ 22 πŸ” 18 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

Very happy to see our ice-fishing paper on the cover of @science.org this week! πŸŽ£πŸŽ‰

We tracked large groups of Finnish competitive ice-fishers to study how social foragers use social information when searching for resources. 🐟

Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... (contact me for open access)

30.01.2026 12:36 πŸ‘ 94 πŸ” 42 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 2
Post image

🚨 New preprint 🚨

We present the decisions-from-experience database (DfE-DB), including data from 168 studies.

The data are currently shared with the original authors and made public upon publication.

πŸ”— Database: github.com/dwulff/dfe-db
πŸ”— Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

19.12.2025 10:56 πŸ‘ 23 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
Honorific Fellows celebrated by Princeton Graduate School amidst 125th Anniversary Thirty-two exceptional graduate students who received named or endowed fellowships for this academic year were recently feted by the Princeton Graduate School.Β The honorific fellowships support advanc...

Congrats to PNI + affiliated trainees named 2025 Honorific Fellows by the @princeton.edu Graduate School!

πŸ‘ Victor Geadah
πŸ‘ Isaac Christian
πŸ‘ @danmirea.bsky.social

gradschool.princeton.edu/news/2025/ho...

18.12.2025 17:55 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Interpretation Issues With the Patient Health Questionnaire Instructions This survey study assesses whether responses to the Patient Health Questionnaire reflect symptom frequency and severity.

1/n Out today in @jamapsychiatry.com: Interpretation Issues With the Patient Health Questionnaire Instructions. We find troubling variability in whether people think they should respond based on the frequency of the Sx or the frequency of being bothered by the Sx.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

17.12.2025 17:11 πŸ‘ 66 πŸ” 26 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 5

Our paper on the β˜€οΈ "summer slide" πŸ› is out now @pnas.org!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Summer slide is a replicable phenomenon across diverse datasets that's more than "forgetting" school material in vacation months, but effects of socioeconomic inequality are ➑️ 7x bigger! ⬅️
#PsychSciSky #DevPsy
πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡

16.12.2025 17:56 πŸ‘ 124 πŸ” 51 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 6

Excited to see this out!

20.11.2025 17:06 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

We have a new preprint: osf.io/preprints/so...

What have we learned about social media - the constantly moving target of empirical research - over the past decade?

30.10.2025 10:53 πŸ‘ 84 πŸ” 39 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 4

Super happy to see this review out! We ask why people are so reluctant to abandon goals and how this commitment could be understood computationally. Work with Jill O'Reilly & @yaelniv.bsky.social

29.10.2025 15:56 πŸ‘ 49 πŸ” 19 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
Interactive Cognition Lab | USC Interactive Cognition Lab at USC, led by principal investigator, Dr. Nina Rouhani.

I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated πŸ™ rouhanilab.com

24.10.2025 16:57 πŸ‘ 92 πŸ” 79 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 2
Preview
Neurocomputational basis of learning when choices simultaneously affect both oneself and others Nature Communications - When learning to make choices that simultaneously affect the self and others, asymmetric encoding of information guides future social behaviors across mutually beneficial,...

πŸ“’ Thrilled to share our paper is out now in @natcomms.nature.com

Shared computations underlie how we acquire actions that are mutually beneficial, instrumentally harmful (benefits self at the expense of others), altruistic (benefit others at the expense of self), or mutually costly

🧡 rdcu.be/eL8mZ

22.10.2025 16:42 πŸ‘ 49 πŸ” 31 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
Post image

1/ To explore or to exploit? I’m excited to share my new preprint with @tobiasuhauser.bsky.social and @micahgallen.com, correlating variations in cortical microstructures with individual differences in exploration-exploitation behaviours, using a gamified task! 🧡 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

15.10.2025 11:57 πŸ‘ 24 πŸ” 11 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
Leveling up fun: learning progress, expectations, and success influence enjoyment in video games Scientific Reports - Leveling up fun: learning progress, expectations, and success influence enjoyment in video games

What influences whether people have fun with a task?

Our paper β€œLeveling up fun: learning progress, expectations and success influence enjoyment in video games” with @thecharleywu.bsky.social and @ericschulz.bsky.social now in Scientific Reports!

rdcu.be/eI069

Paper summary below 1/4

02.10.2025 09:31 πŸ‘ 58 πŸ” 16 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Abstract and results summary

Abstract and results summary

🚨 New preprint 🚨

Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions.

Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased!

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Thread 🧡

01.10.2025 15:16 πŸ‘ 172 πŸ” 88 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 15

I strongly believe modeling behavior will be critical for understanding mental health well enough to develop new interventions, but the gap between task-based and naturalistic behavior is MASSIVE. Some great ideas here for bridging that gap!

30.09.2025 15:28 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Such an important topic: computational psychiatry at the nexus of lab-based understanding (eg of reinforcement learning and mood) and measures of real-world behavior and mental health conditions.

(Scroll to the bottom for a link open to all).

29.09.2025 20:33 πŸ‘ 14 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

πŸ“’ My lab at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine is considering graduate student applications this fall

We welcome applicants interested in using computational modeling & fMRI to study social connection

πŸ—“οΈ Deadline: December 1, 2025
πŸ”— Learn more: sinclaboratory.com/apply

#comppsychiatry #socialneuro

22.09.2025 18:17 πŸ‘ 18 πŸ” 16 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1

Thank you so much for sharing!!

29.09.2025 20:47 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Fantastic paper by @danmirea.bsky.social ! πŸ‘‡

26.09.2025 16:55 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Inspiring work by @danmirea.bsky.social!

26.09.2025 18:40 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Cognitive modeling of real-world behavior for understanding mental health A core strength of computational psychiatry is its focus on theory-driven research, in which cognitive processes are precisely quantified using comput…

Read the full paper using this free access link here:

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

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Some to-dos for the field:
- identify amenable types of real-world data
- integrate them into data-collection pipelines alongside lab-based tasks
- assess links to mental health
- assess lab-based versus real-world convergent validity of parameters
- expand models to accommodate real-world data

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

…and challenges of this approach:
⚠️ Noisy data
⚠️ Analytical complexity
⚠️ Data collection burden
⚠️ Ethical considerations

It remains to be seen whether real-world data can better computational psychiatry.

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

Finally, we explore opportunities:
πŸ‘ Testing the generalizability of in-lab computational psychiatry findings to every-day life
πŸ‘ Incorporating linguistic behavior into cognitive models using LLMs (see figure)

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

We also provide a (non-exhaustive) taxonomy of cognitive processes paired with modeling frameworks and types of real-world data that could be used to probe them:

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

We review recent studies that probe cognition using real-world behavior, primarily in a reinforcement learning framework.

Some of these have uncovered novel links to mental health (e.g. linking depression to blunted reactivity to positive prediction errors, or higher sensitivity to social rewards)

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

By real-world data we mean any data that reflect a person’s every-day behavior. We distinguish 3 types:
- experience sampling data (active, self-report)
- passive sensing data (e.g. geolocation, physiology, social proximity)
- digital-behavior data (e.g. social media, texting, phone/app navigation)

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Computational psychiatry often relies on behavior in cognitive tasks, which are simpler, less engaging and often less social than real-world environments.

By contrast, real-world data have intrinsic ecological validity and allow the continuous assessment of cognition and its variation over time.

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image

🚨Out now in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social 🚨

We explore the use of cognitive theories/models with real-world data for understanding mental health.

We review emerging studies and discuss challenges and opportunities of this approach.

With @yaelniv.bsky.social and @eriknook.bsky.social

Thread ⬇️

29.09.2025 15:04 πŸ‘ 95 πŸ” 32 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 4