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Brandon Woo

@brandonwoo.bsky.social

1.5K followers 450 following 47 posts

Cognitive scientist studying the development of the social mind. Assistant professor at UCSB. 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 (he/him) bmwoo.github.io

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Reposted by Brandon Woo

Benedek Kurdi @benedek.bsky.social · 9h

Implicit bias education has gotten a bad rap recently (and for some very good reasons), but in this paper (newly out in PIBSS) I argue that it could have value if done differently: doi.org/10.1177/2372... (Still also available as a preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...)

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 10h

A huge thanks to my coauthors: Anushka Laha, Amelia Chen, and Carly Wolf. They've each been studying early social evaluation in the lab, and it's been a lot of fun to think about these methods with them. They’re all applying for graduate school soon, so look out for their applications!

A picture of the authorship team and our fellow lab members

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 10h

The larger body of evidence therefore suggests that early social evaluation is a real phenomenon. But we note that within each paradigm, only a few groups have studied each kind of social behavior (e.g., imitation), and the field would benefit from more independent replication attempts.

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 10h

We review evidence that infants and toddlers evaluate a wide range of social behaviors, beyond helping and hindering, and that there are multiple ways to study early social evaluation, beyond preferential reaching methods.

Examples of social behaviors that infants and toddlers evaluate: physical harm, resource distribution, acts of comforting, imitation, and acts of dominance

Examples of measures used to study early social evaluation: preferential reaching, preferential looking, resource giving or removal, tablet-based methods, and eyetracking

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 10h

Classic work has found that infants reach for helpers over hinderers, but recent work has failed to replicate these findings (see work by Lucca, Yuen, and @jkileyhamlin.bsky.social, and by @laurasn.bsky.social). What do these failed replications mean for the study of early social evaluation?

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 10h

Exciting news: My lab has published our first paper! Here, we review the literature on early social evaluation, and we make recommendations about how to best study social evaluation in infants and toddlers.

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

The Study of Early Social Evaluation: Contextualizing Failures to Replicate and Looking Forward

Abstract. In classic research, Hamlin et al. (2007) found that infants preferentially reach to agents who help others over agents who hinder others. These early findings provided evidence that infants...

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 4d

Parents of 0- to 12-year-olds, come do science with us!

We run short, game-like studies with kids. We offer in-person and online options, flexible scheduling (weekdays & weekends), and sessions that are fun for children and easy for caregivers.

Moral Minds Lab - CHILDatabase Signup

Reposted by Brandon Woo

International Congress of Infant Studies @infantstudies.bsky.social · 12h

Calling all ICIS members! Make a difference this summer by becoming a mentor for the Founding Generation Summer Fellowship. Share your expertise, inspire budding researchers, and help shape the future of #InfantResearch. Sign up here:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Rebecca Peretz-Lange @rebeccaperetzlange.bsky.social · 1d

TEN DAYS left to submit your work to the Origins of the Social Mind Preconference at #SPSP2026! 👶🐒🌍

This year, our morning timeslot is compatible with a variety of fantastic afternoon preconferences (e.g., Social Cognition, Gender, Economic Inequality). See you there!

spsp.org/events/annua...

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Robert Hawkins @rdhawkins.bsky.social · 2d

just finished steve levinson's new book! it's a beautifully articulated argument for social interaction as the evolutionary niche which made language possible, rather than the other way around. progress in linguistics depends on a stronger science of interaction.

www.cambridge.org/core/books/i...

The Interaction Engine

Cambridge Core - Semantics and Pragmatics - The Interaction Engine

www.cambridge.org

Reposted by Brandon Woo

bergelsonlab @bergelsonlab.bsky.social · 6d

now says "No upcoming due dates
Program 23-500 is currently waiting for a new publication"; in prior yrs, would've been due 11/5. Can't ask NSF POs right now... if any1 got info on this before the shutdown happy to hear it! @jaeyoungson.bsky.social i saw you had a similar q, tagging you in too. #NSF

mark brandt @mjbsp.bsky.social · Aug 19

The Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at NSF are no more?

But hopefully I misunderstand?

www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

screenshot of SBE fellowship webpage with words "archive" circled in red.

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Nils Reimer @reimtime.bsky.social · 5d

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Zoe Liberman @zoeliberman.bsky.social · 5d

Please also feel free to register for our virtual open house if you are looking for a #phd in #devpsych #devscience #PsychSciSky I'll be there for the faculty meet and greet part

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Julian Jara-Ettinger @julianje.bsky.social · 5d

Our paper in annual review of dev psych is out! It's a big-picture look at the development of social cognition from a computational perspective: compdevlab.yale.edu/docs/2025/an...

compdevlab.yale.edu

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 5d

This is a big one! A 4-year writing project over many timezones, arguing for a reimagining of the influential "core knowledge" thesis.

Led by @daweibai.bsky.social, we argue that much of our innate knowledge of the world is not "conceptual" in nature, but rather wired into perceptual processing. 👇

Screenshot of a paper abstract:

“Core knowledge” refers to a set of cognitive systems that underwrite early representations of the physical and social world, appear universally across cultures, and likely result from our genetic endowment. Although this framework is canonically considered as a hypothesis about early emerging conception — how we think and reason about the world — here we present an alternative view: that many such representations are inherently perceptual in nature. This “core perception” view explains an intriguing (and otherwise mysterious) aspect of core-knowledge processes and representations: that they also operate in adults, where they display key empirical signatures of perceptual processing. We first illustrate this overlap using recent work on “core physics”, the domain of core knowledge concerned with physical objects, representing properties such as persistence through time, cohesion, solidity, and causal interactions. We review evidence that adult vision incorporates exactly these representations of core physics, while also displaying empirical signatures of genuinely perceptual mechanisms, such as rapid and automatic operation on the basis of specific sensory inputs, informational encapsulation, and interaction with other perceptual processes. We further argue that the same pattern holds for other areas of core knowledge, including geometrical, numerical, and social domains. In light of this evidence, we conclude that many infant results appealing to precocious reasoning abilities are better explained by sophisticated perceptual mechanisms shared by infants and adults. Our core-perception view elevates the status of perception in accounting for the origins of conceptual knowledge, and generates a range of ready-to-test hypotheses in developmental psychology, vision science, and more.

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 6d

I forgot that Megan’s also on Bluesky: @megan-richardson.bsky.social

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 7d

Our work sheds light on how children apply their theories of the mind and of relationships to navigate the social world.

This is just the start of research that my collaborators and I are doing on mental state reasoning in close relationships. More soon!

A conceptual schematic, depicting how children apply their intuitive theories of the mind and of the relationships to reason about mental state reasoning within close relationships

The abstract for the paper: "To maintain and develop close relationships, people need to accurately represent the minds of their social partners. Although studies have characterized many aspects of children’s intuitive theory of the mind and children’s intuitive theory of relationships, it is largely unknown whether and how children think about mental state reasoning within relationships. In three experiments, we asked whether children think accurate mental state reasoning is a cue to social closeness. In Experiment 1 (n = 145), we found that 5- to 9-year-old children, but not 4-year-old children, inferred that characters who engage in affective touch (making physical contact, as though nuzzling, while moving together in synchrony) are socially closer and know about each other’s goals and desires. In Experiment 2 (n = 137), we found that 6- to 9-year-old children, but not younger children, inferred that characters who are correct about each other’s minds are socially close. Children did not think that being correct about external states of the world was evidence that a character was close to another. In Experiment 3 (n = 79), we conceptually replicated the main findings from Experiments 1 and 2, and we found that 6- to 9-year-old children did not form the same inferences concerning knowledge about observable features of individuals (e.g., an individual’s outfit); children’s inferences were specific to unobservable mental content. Thus, by 6 years of age, children integrate their intuitive theories of the mind and relationships to make sense of whether and how people are connected to each other, as well as the strength and nature of those connections."

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 7d

New paper in Open Mind, with @emmayu23.bsky.social, Megan Richardson, and @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social! We find that by 6 years of age, children think that close friends know the content of each other’s minds.

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

@openmindjournal.bsky.social

Developing Intuitions That Close Friends Know the Content of Each Other’s Minds

Abstract. To maintain and develop close relationships, people need to accurately represent the minds of their social partners. Although studies have characterized many aspects of children’s intuitive ...

Brandon Woo @brandonwoo.bsky.social · 8d

Good lab news: Welcome to Emma Yu (@emmayu23.bsky.social), our team's first graduate student! So excited to be doing science together and growing the team.

Here's a picture of some of the members of our team on a visit to the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

Lab members at a local park

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Mark Ho @markkho.bsky.social · 8d

I'm recruiting grad students!! 🎓

The CoDec Lab @ NYU (codec-lab.github.io) is looking for PhD students (Fall 2026) interested in computational approaches to social cognition & problem solving 🧠

Applications through Psych (tinyurl.com/nyucp) are due Dec 1. Reach out with Qs & please repost! 🙏

codec-lab.github.io

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Zoe Liberman @zoeliberman.bsky.social · 12d

Spread the word: I'm looking to recruit a PhD student for Fall 2026 to @ucsb.bsky.social! Reach out if you are applying this cycle and hoping to study infant and child social cognition, specifically expectations about friendship and/or groups. Bonus: live in paradise! And.. 1/3

UCSB Campus. Meadow in the foreground with Storke Tower and mountains in the distance

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Evan Westra @evanwestra.bsky.social · 12d

Very cool new RL-based approach to modeling the emergence of social norms
www.researchgate.net/publication/...

How Social Norms Emerge: The Interindividual Actor–Critic

Download Citation | How Social Norms Emerge: The Interindividual Actor–Critic | Social norms shape a vast range of human behaviors, from everyday interactions to major life choices. Yet, existing theo...

www.researchgate.net

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 15d

Ever wonder how habituation works? Here's our attempt to understand:

A stimulus-computable rational model of visual habituation in infants and adults doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

This is the thesis of two wonderful students: @anjiecao.bsky.social @galraz.bsky.social, w/ @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social

infant data from experiment 1

conceptual schema for different habituation models

title page

results from experiment 2 with adults

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Lindsey Powell @lindseypowell.bsky.social · 18d

Seems like a particularly cruel change to make without warning given the stress that reviewers often put on applicants' publication record. Presumably many strong students waited based on this apparent criterion, not because they didn't already have great ideas to propose.

Kosta Boskovic @kostaboskovic.bsky.social · 18d

Extremely disappointing decision from the NSF today to exclude second-year graduate students from eligibility for the GRFP. I and many other second-year grads purposely held off from applying in our first year to be able to do so now...

Reposted by Brandon Woo

Daniel Coppersmith @danielcoppersmith.bsky.social · 18d

I’m starting a suicide prevention research lab at UMass Amherst! I’ll be reviewing applications for our clinical psychology PhD program. Come to our virtual open house to learn more about the program and speak with faculty accepting students.
www.umass.edu/psychologica...