Alex Shackman
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ajshackman.bsky.social
Alex Shackman
@ajshackman.bsky.social
2.1K followers 670 following 1.3K posts
Laboratory for Affective & Translational Neuroscience, University of Maryland | shackmanlab.org | affective neuroscience | "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.”
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Reposted by Alex Shackman
profsimonfisher.bsky.social
Interacting processes operating on vastly different timescales (from milliseconds to millennia) shape emergence & properties of human language(s). Roles of biology & culture, & the complex interplay between them, can be empirically investigated in humans, nonhuman animals & computational models. 8/n
Processes of language use operate at the shortest timescale, as individuals comprehend and produce utterances in ongoing conversation. Learning to form these utterances (learning sounds, words, and rules) happens over a lifetime of exposure to the language of the community. Zooming out further, the structure of a specific language emerges and changes through cultural evolution, as knowledge of language is passed from one generation to the next. Lastly, the cognitive and anatomical machinery that allows humans to learn and use language has been subject to genetic evolution over the course of human evolution. The processes of biological and cultural evolution interact to produce a dual-inheritance system. Features of languages are inherited culturally, and the mechanisms that support such cultural inheritance are themselves inherited genetically. These processes may interact in complex and interesting ways, studied using mathematical and computational models that include all three timescales: individual learning and use, cultural evolution, and biological evolution. Reproduction of Figure 1A from "What enables human language? A biocultural framework" by Inbal Arnon and colleagues, published in Science (volume 390, article eadq8303).
November 23, 2025 at 11:54 AM
ajshackman.bsky.social
Yup, I show it every Fall in class to underscore what a badass he was. Next up, the Monday after Thanksgiving.
November 22, 2025 at 7:46 PM
ajshackman.bsky.social
SANS & SAS
November 21, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Alex Shackman
gangchen6.bsky.social
And the next step? Full voxel-level modeling.

Recent numerical advances cracked the scalability barrier. Voxel-level hierarchical modeling is now feasible, revealing just how punishing traditional multiple-comparison adjustments really are.
arxiv.org/abs/2511.12825
SIMBA: Scalable Image Modeling using a Bayesian Approach, A Consistent Framework for Including Spatial Dependencies in fMRI Studies
Bayesian spatial modeling provides a flexible framework for whole-brain fMRI analysis by explicitly incorporating spatial dependencies, overcoming the limitations of traditional massive univariate app...
arxiv.org
November 18, 2025 at 10:13 PM