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Ryan Lei

@ryanlei.bsky.social

3.9K followers 310 following 250 posts

Associate Professor of Psychology at Haverford College. Interested in social cognitive development.

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Aug 15

New paper accepted at JEP:G with @sakierahudson.bsky.social, Brandon Kinsler, & former students Ian Davis and Alissa Vandenbark!

Come for the opening Aladdin quote, stay for a developmental perspective on SDO!

osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 2d

Every developmental psychologist Is like “but my lecture slides!”

Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 3d

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.

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 5d

Has anyone else found it much more difficult to update preprints on OSF?

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 5d

Yea! I’ll DM you

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 6d

Asking for me lol. I want to know.

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 6d

So, if you have new lines of work that are not exactly your "main line" that you're known for, how might you get opportunities to give talks about it and get feedback (besides publishing and hoping people see it, which can be slow)?

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 9d

I use this comic from XKCD, which i think communicates age vs. cohort effects pretty intuitively:

xkcd.com/2080/

Cohort and Age Effects

xkcd.com

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 17d

agreed on all counts!

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 17d

Lots of chatter about how AI is harmful/bad when used for writing, but i'm curious what people's thoughts are on using it for coding.

I have to admit I find it useful for generating functions (broadly speaking), and code for data cleaning I might not know how to do.

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 19d

Y'know, this girl from Mean Girls was supposed to be a joke, but at least she had VISION. Knew the world sucked but still had hope.

a woman in a red shirt is talking about a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy

ALT: a woman in a red shirt is talking about a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy

media.tenor.com

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 20d

Two blocked field goals?! And one to win the game? Lets goooooo #GoBirds

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 20d

Maybe this will help folks realize that...everything is political. Choosing to not track hunger is a political choice.

Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 21d

Trump administration cancels annual hunger survey

The government has been measuring food insecurity since the mid-1990s, but now says the report has become ‘overly politicized’

Exclusive | Trump Administration Cancels Annual Hunger Survey

The government has been measuring food insecurity since the mid-1990s, but now says the report has become “overly politicized.”

www.wsj.com

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 27d

this is a genuine question (and might be me putting foot in mouth)-- what value does the AAUP add? All i ever see are "statements of concern", etc. there is no sense of collective bargaining, organizing, or anything that labor unions typically do. But perhaps I am just not seeing it?

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 29d

I seem to be Very Online (tm) today lol

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 29d

this is false advertising. it has been TWENTY TWO MINUTES

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 29d

Agreed that the considerations are different if you're focused on science/training vs organizational structure/power dynamics.

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Sep 12

unsolicited hot take of the day: Psych depts would benefit from de-siloing. As someone who sits at the intersection of two subfields, it's maddening when people misunderstand, mis-conceptualize, or just miss entirely (pun intended) what and how other areas think of similar topics.

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Sep 11

it's insane to me how depts hire based on what's trending/vibes

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Sep 11

Does this mean you get to stack sabbaticals??

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Reposted by Ryan Lei

Calvin Lai @calvinklai.bsky.social · Sep 9

🚨We're hiring!🚨 The Dept of Psychology at Rutgers is hiring an Assistant Professor in Social Psychology. Review of applications begin on Oct 18. Details here: jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/259...

I'm chairing the search committee and am happy to field questions about the position. 🧵

Assistant Professor in Social Psychology, Tenure-Track

The Department of Psychology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ, plans to hire a tenure-track Assistant Professor in SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, with a start date of September 1, 2026. We seek a candidate...

jobs.rutgers.edu

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Reposted by Ryan Lei

Larisa Heiphetz Solomon @drlarisa.bsky.social · Sep 8

My lab is hiring a lab manager! Application deadline = 11/1, start date sometime between June & September 2026 (to be arranged with finalist). Please spread the word & apply here: opportunities.columbia.edu/jobs/a3f80f7....
#AcademicSky #PhdSky #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc #psychjobs

Research Staff Assistant - Morningside, New York, United States

Job Type: Support Staff - Non-Union Regular/Temporary: Regular Hours Per Week: 35 Salary Range: $41,000- $41,000 The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of fa...

opportunities.columbia.edu

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Sep 3

Dunno if this is accounted for in the data you've scraped but are the jobs categorized by type of institution? if not, perhaps "college" vs. "university" is a sufficient first-pass (though I know there are exceptions like Dartmouth).

Asking because it seems like prop. more SLAC jobs this yr?

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Sep 2

Had a stressful dream about the first day of class, so happy new academic year I guess?

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Aug 29

I'm seeing quite a few developmental jobs at SLACs. I'm happy to chat with anyone who's thinking of applying (or if your students are applying). Doing dev work at a SLAC can be super rewarding but also brings a number of unique challenges.

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Aug 29

This is really fascinating work! I've been thinking about this from a developmental lens and was assuming ID --> solidarity, but cool to see data supporting that!

Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · Aug 28

We switched our location to NJ- you can get them across the river lol

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