Check out our latest episode with Anna Ivanova, PhD (aka Anna Ivanova). It was awesome talking to her about language vs. computer code comprehension, grad school, family histories, and much more.

All great Qs!

Although I think I disagree with takes in 7 and 8 - the peer review process for our (free) Neurons, Behavior, Data analysis, and Theory piece improved the article, increased my confidence as an author, and added credibility to the work when it was “published”.

Sam Gershman Anna Ivanova There are a number of nonlinear methods in RF estimation with interpretable features (not deep nets) that aren't mentioned in the review -- maybe fmri community isn't aware of them? Response is some nonlinear function of projection onto a low-D subspace of features. 1/

If you're going to #ccneuro22 , stop by Leyla Isik's poster presenting our work!

Many thanks to CogCompNeuro GAC organizers for support with this project (@meganakpeters the viking (Gunnar Blohm))

In many of those cases, the key property of the mapping you want to consider is not just the presence of nonlinearities but rather model *complexity*

In short, if you plan to train an encoding/decoding model of the brain, you should determine which properties of your mapping are essential to your research question. Does it need to be simple? Biologically plausible? Explainable in terms of neuro/psych terms?

When a friend you made at a conference beats you to publication

Feeling a bit bummed out by all the racism I have to deal with on this site.

It feels so excessive given I mostly tweet about math and statistics not politics.

So many people on here can’t see past my skin color.

They make up wild statements about me and question my humanity.

Psych/Neuro Postgrads: Interested in a fully-funded 3 month research visit to my lab? Interested in undertaking a behavioural or neuroimaging study in semantic cognition/language? Get in touch and I'll share details.

Great summary of a cool project <3
Saima Malik-Moraleda Ev (like in 'evidence', not Eve) Fedorenko 🇺🇦
nature.com/articles/s4159…

Please RT! Saima Malik-Moraleda and I are looking for speakers of conlangs (Esperanto/Klingon/HighValyrian/Dothraki) who might be up for coming to Boston in Nov 2022 (expenses paid/subsidized) to take part in an fMRI study. If interested, please fill out this form: mit.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_aa…

Rereading Tom Lubbock's beautiful sad testimony about language fading away as a result of a brain tumor. Such valuable insights into the relationship between different aspects of language & the link between language and thought. Thankful.
theguardian.com/books/2010/nov…

LPT models' talent for mimicry is what makes them both so impressive, and potentially harmful. They can mimic the best and the worst of what we share online, and they do so without intrinsic values, goals, beliefs, or communicative intent. 6/14

Very happy to share this! Check out the paper for all the pieces of evidence supporting neural selectivity for food and a further discussion on what food selectivity might tell us about why we have the neural selectivities we do!

We wrote a thing! Kyle Mahowald and I explain why it's all too easy to infer meaning behind AI-generated text - even when there is none.

With contributions from Nancy Kanwisher Ev (like in 'evidence', not Eve) Fedorenko 🇺🇦 CoCoSci MIT and I.A.B !

theconversation.com/googles-powerf…

The Conversation U.S.