Trends in Cognitive Sciences

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@lauragwilliams.bsky.socialReposted by @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

delighted to share my review article, out now in Trends in Cognitive Sciences! i have been thinking a lot about dynamics lately. this article outlines three key principles - persistence, parallelism, and time-stamped encoding - that support human speech comprehension 🧠✨🌀

@quiltydunn.bsky.socialReposted by @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social

New paper, co-authored with Justin Wood, in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social: The Nativist-Empiricist Debate Is Broken We argue that radical nativism and radical empiricism are compatible and, in some cases, both plausibly true. So something is wrong. 🧵 Author share link here, valid til Oct 31:

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Online Now: The Umwelt Representation Hypothesis: rethinking Universality

dlvr.itThe Umwelt Representation Hypothesis: rethinking UniversalityRecent studies reveal striking representational alignment between artificial neural networks (ANNs) and biological brains, leading to proposals that all sufficiently capable systems converge on universal representations of reality. We argue that this claim of Universality is premature. We introduce the Umwelt Representation Hypothesis, which proposes that alignment arises not from convergence toward a single global optimum but from overlap in the ecological constraints under which systems develop. We review empirical evidence showing that representational differences between species, individuals, and ANNs are systematic and adaptive, which is difficult to reconcile with Universality. Finally, we reframe ANN model comparison as a method for mapping clusters of alignment in the ecological constraint space rather than as a search for a single optimal world model.
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Online Now: Bayesian efficient coding as a theory of perception: progress, controversies, and prospects

dlvr.itBayesian efficient coding as a theory of perception: progress, controversies, and prospectsBayesian efficient coding unifies two foundational theories of sensory processing: efficient coding and Bayesian inference. Central to this account is the idea that natural environmental statistics shape both how sensory information is encoded and how it is perceptually interpreted. By unifying these principles, the framework accounts for counterintuitive perceptual biases and establishes lawful relationships between environmental statistics, bias, and discrimination thresholds. In this article, we review behavioural and neural evidence for this theory in perception and cognition, as well as how short- and long-term adaptation to the environment may be expressed within the framework. We further review theoretical developments that extend the original framework, focusing on how response biases can be decomposed into encoding- and decoding-related components. A decade after its introduction, Bayesian efficient coding continues to evolve as a powerful theory, with recent extensions addressing early limitations and opening new directions for investigating perception and cognition.
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Online Now: Perceptual multistability: a multifaceted window into brain dysfunctions

dlvr.itPerceptual multistability: a multifaceted window into brain dysfunctionsPerceptual multistability, observed across species and sensory modalities, offers valuable insights into numerous cognitive functions and dysfunctions. For instance, differences in temporal dynamics and information integration during percept formation often distinguish clinical from nonclinical populations. Computational psychiatry can elucidate these variations through two primary approaches: (i) Bayesian modeling, which treats perception as an unconscious inference, and (ii) an active, information-seeking perspective (e.g., reinforcement learning), which frames perceptual switches as internal actions. Our synthesis aims to leverage multistability to bridge these computational psychiatry subfields, linking human and animal studies as well as connecting behavior to underlying neural mechanisms. Perceptual multistability emerges as a promising noninvasive tool for clinical applications, facilitating translational research and enhancing our mechanistic understanding of cognitive processes and their impairments.