Strange Liu
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strandy208.bsky.social
Strange Liu
@strandy208.bsky.social
UCL Msci Neuroscience , research about the neural substrate of consciousness, Emergence in LLM and economic decision-making (neuroeconomics). Self-taught tennis player and snowboarder!
Reposted by Strange Liu
🚨 We’re hiring: Associate Professor/Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience

🧠 Lead pioneering imaging-informed cognitive neuroscience research
🌍 Open to international applicants | Visa sponsorship available
📍 Permanent, full-time, on-site
🔗 Apply now: www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...
August 11, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
𝖡𝗋𝗂𝖾𝖿 𝗋𝖾𝗏𝗂𝖾𝗐 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝖣𝖺𝗇 𝖡𝗎𝗌𝗁, 𝗈𝖿 𝗇𝖾𝗎𝗋𝖺𝗅 𝗌𝖾𝗊𝗎𝖾𝗇𝖼𝖾𝗌 𝗂𝗇 𝖿𝗅𝗒𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖻𝖺𝗍𝗌 (𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐚 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐬!) 𝗂𝗇 𝗍𝗐𝗈 𝗋𝖾𝖼𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗉𝖺𝗉𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝖻𝗒 𝖠𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗅𝗈 𝖥𝗈𝗋𝗅𝗂, 𝖶𝗎𝖽𝗂 𝖥𝖺𝗇, 𝖪𝖾𝗏𝗂𝗇 𝖰𝗂 & 𝖬𝗂𝖼𝗁𝖺𝖾𝗅 𝖸𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗌𝖾𝗏, 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖻𝗒 𝖳𝖺𝗆𝗂𝗋 𝖤𝗅𝗂𝖺𝗏, 𝖲𝗁𝗂𝗋 𝖬𝖺𝗂𝗆𝗈𝗇, 𝖠𝗒𝖾𝗅𝖾𝗍 𝖲𝖺𝗋𝖾𝗅, 𝖲𝗁𝖺𝗄𝖾𝖽 𝖯𝖺𝗅𝗀𝗂, 𝖫𝗂𝗈𝗋𝖺 𝖫𝖺𝗌 & 𝖭𝖺𝖼𝗁𝗎𝗆 𝖴𝗅𝖺𝗇𝗈𝗏𝗌𝗄𝗒: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lpaB3QW8S...
September 24, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Why don’t neural networks learn all at once, but instead progress from simple to complex solutions? And what does “simple” even mean across different neural network architectures?

Sharing our new paper @iclr_conf led by Yedi Zhang with Peter Latham

arxiv.org/abs/2512.20607
February 3, 2026 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
📢 Applications open on 19 Jan for the 7-week #Mathematics #SummerSchool in London. You will develop the maths skills and intuition necessary to enter the #TheoreticalNeuroscience / #MachineLearning field.

Find out more & register for the information webinar 👉 www.ucl.ac.uk/life-science...
January 15, 2026 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Our experiences have countless details, and it can be hard to know which matter.

How can we behave effectively in the future when, right now, we don't know what we'll need?

Out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com , @marcelomattar.bsky.social and I find that people solve this by using episodic memory.
Episodic memory facilitates flexible decision-making via access to detailed events - Nature Human Behaviour
Nicholas and Mattar found that people use episodic memory to make decisions when it is unclear what will be needed in the future. These findings reveal how the rich representational capacity of episod...
www.nature.com
January 23, 2026 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
this is a rollicking great read

it's a story of a bunch of tenured idealists who believed that they were building a university dedicated to free speech and free inquiry, but then lost control of their project to... the right-wing megadonors who funded the university
www.politico.com/news/magazin...
They Wanted a University Without Cancel Culture. Then Dissenters Were Ousted.
Inside the civil war at the anti-woke university backed by Bari Weiss.
www.politico.com
January 16, 2026 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Our analog theory of consciousness is now included in the Landscape of Consciousness.
Miller's Brain Waves’ Analog Organization of Cortex
loc.closertotruth.com/theory/mille...
#neuroscience
Explore consciousness theories and implications
A global hub for theories of consciousness—authenticated by leading theorists, designed for professional consciousness communities, and open to all
loc.closertotruth.com
January 18, 2026 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
New work from @liushuze.bsky.social and @yangxiang.bsky.social

osf.io/preprints/ps...

People violate Occam's razor when selecting between predictive models. This is surprising given past research (including my own) showing a preference for simplicity.
OSF
osf.io
January 17, 2026 at 12:34 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Excited that this is now out in @nathumbehav.nature.com 🎉

David Rose (davdrose.github.io) led this project on how children's understanding of causal language develops.

📃 (preprint): osf.io/preprints/ps...
📎: github.com/davdrose/cau...
December 5, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Wrote about Deepak Chopra’s new AI model, AI guru slop, and how none of this is really shocking because we already turned spirituality into a commodity.

houseofmirrors.substack.com/p/this-was-i...
This Was Inevitable
AI gurus are not shocking, we already commodified spirituality
houseofmirrors.substack.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
"Intuitions of mathematical curves in young children's drawings"
In this new paper from the lab, Lorenzo Ciccione, Marie Lubineau, Theo Morfoisse and I show that 5 and 6 year olds already possess intuitions of linearity, curvature, period and compositionality.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 1, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
📣 BIG NEWS EVERYONE. I am so excited to announce…

🎉 I’m moving to University College London @ucl.ac.uk to join the Experimental Psychology department in @uclpals.bsky.social! 🎉

The big move happens in spring/summer. So I’m already exploring recruiting staff & students at UCL for fall 2026!
October 13, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Entertaining and wide-ranging panel discussion on consciousness at the @crick.ac.uk hosted by @profbriancox.bsky.social and featuring me, @anilseth.bsky.social @kathaschmack.bsky.social and @cosmicskeptic.bsky.social

Check it out, let us know what you think!

www.lnk.to/AQOSConsciou...
What is consciousness?
Professor Brian Cox and an expert panel explore the elusive science of consciousness – what it is, how it arises, whether it can be observed in the brain, and the most compelling theories explaining i...
www.lnk.to
November 26, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Happy to share our new and groundbreaking study on the relationship between conscious awareness and the sense of bodily self! With @brainself.bsky.social at @ki.se and out today in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Conscious awareness, sensory integration, and evidence accumulation in bodily self-perception | PNAS
Conscious awareness refers to the subjective experience of perceiving, thinking, and feeling and the ability to report these experiences. These per...
www.pnas.org
December 4, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
A huge thankyou to @alexaroblesgil.bsky.social for covering our research in the Marshall Islands for the @nytimes.com !

In the photo Ken Daniels (an expert indigenous sailor) is looking towards the horizon whilst wearing an fNIRS system.

Analysis underway!

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/s...
A Voyage Into the Art of Finding One’s Way at Sea
www.nytimes.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
My paper is out!
Computational modeling of error patterns during reward-based learning show evidence that habit learning (value free!) supplements working memory in 7 human data sets.
rdcu.be/eQjLN
A habit and working memory model as an alternative account of human reward-based learning
Nature Human Behaviour - In this study, Collins proposes an alternative dual-process (working memory and habit) model of reinforcement learning in humans.
rdcu.be
November 17, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
super excited that the first paper from my PhD is now out! we develop a "philosophical toolkit" for computational cognitive modeling & use it to conceptually re-analyze a long-standing debate about evidence accumulation models of decision making 🧠📈 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Reasoning Goals and Representational Decisions in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience: Lessons From the Drift Diffusion Model
The appropriate form of the drift diffusion model depends on how one wishes to reason about their target with the model. If the goal is to parsimoniously explain the speed-accuracy tradeoff, the appr...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
May 20, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
#SfN25 attendees - make sure to head to the posters when you get to the meeting on Saturday afternoon (V7-V11: Gretchen, Megan, Margaret, Louisa, Bella) and Sunday morning (KK17: Micaela) to hear about our work. We're printing the posters now and they look rad.
November 11, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Shoutout to @bshev.bsky.social for presenting his amazing research titled "Distinct food attribute representations emerge across binge-type eating disorders" at the 2025 Society for Neuroeconomics meeting this past weekend! 🧠💡 #SNE2025
@lauraaberner.bsky.social @kiante.bsky.social
October 8, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Buffett 2003: “In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it’s a weighing machine”

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Column | How CEOs turn hype into capital
There have been times where hype has been a key ingredient in a CEO’s ability to sell a story that mattered to the company’s actual operations.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
📢 Thrilled to share our paper is out now in @natcomms.nature.com

Shared computations underlie how we acquire actions that are mutually beneficial, instrumentally harmful (benefits self at the expense of others), altruistic (benefit others at the expense of self), or mutually costly

🧵 rdcu.be/eL8mZ
Neurocomputational basis of learning when choices simultaneously affect both oneself and others
Nature Communications - When learning to make choices that simultaneously affect the self and others, asymmetric encoding of information guides future social behaviors across mutually beneficial,...
rdcu.be
October 22, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
Hello #neuroeconomists and decision (neuro)scientists - did I miss you in this starterpack? Just reply to this post or DM if you'd like to be added!

go.bsky.app/1K9Suh
November 23, 2024 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
For those heading to #SfN25, come check out our posters on Saturday Afternoon! The lab is growing & expanding in several new directions & collabs #neuroeconomics 🧠🐭🧠 @sinaibrain.bsky.social @sinaiccp.bsky.social @sfn.org @socforneuroecon.bsky.social @bwfund.bsky.social @animalsocaging.bsky.social
October 29, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
New work to appear @ TACL!

Language models (LMs) are remarkably good at generating novel well-formed sentences, leading to claims that they have mastered grammar.

Yet they often assign higher probability to ungrammatical strings than to grammatical strings.

How can both things be true? 🧵👇
November 10, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Reposted by Strange Liu
A new paper from the lab, using 7T fMRI and MEG to shed light on how we read, specifically how the visual system encodes strings of letters and moves from retinotopic to ordinal neural codes.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
October 22, 2025 at 2:40 PM