@sumeshmk
Faculty @ Delhi University. Enjoys teaching philosophy, logic, and cognitive science. Currently working on mental representations, explanations, and the question of mind-world cognitive interrelations. Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala, etc.
1/7 π§ My journey into development begins with this work and question: how does the brain's spatial navigation system develop? We found that the neural networks for spatial navigation (tori and rings) are preconfigured and only later anchor gradually to the world with experience! π§΅
Ever wondered how the Dalmatian Dog effect works?
The human brain can quickly learn from a single experience and generalize it to related experiences β an impressive feat so far not matched by AI.
Our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com reveals how this works.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Can humans & animals really use internal maps to take shortcuts?
Tolman famously said yes - based largely on his Sunburst maze.
Our new review & meta-analysis suggests evidence is far weaker than you might think.
π§΅π doi.org/10.1111/ejn....
@uofgpsychneuro.bsky.social @ejneuroscience.bsky.social
With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
New on the Archive:
Reydon, Thomas A. C. (2025) The Scope of Evolutionary Thinking. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009619196
https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/27740/
COMPARATIVE MUSICOLOGY: Evolution, Universals, and the Science of the World's Music By Patrick E. Savage (to published by Oxford University Press in Feb 2026)
Just submitted corrected proofs for my first book!
Publication (open access) is scheduled for late Feb 2026 (but the preprint is already available if you don't want to wait: osf.io/preprints/ps...)
Another famous literary desk is on show at Christ Church. A writing desk designed by the philosopher John Locke forms part of an exhibition in the college library, open every Wednesday afternoon until 14 January.
www.chch.ox.ac.uk/news/lockes-...
logo for Philosophical logic that looks like a diamond composed of P and L
However, the real winner here is clearly Philosophical Logic. This logo is just so good.
The lines evoke 80s logic textbooks. That interlocking P and L. Diamond for possibility. Diamond for real open access.
It's a classy logo from a bygone era.
So anyway, support good design and open access.
are better-performing face recognition models more human-like? turns out: NO
in terms of how we see/treat different faces as similar/different to each other, there seems to be tradeoff: better models are LESS human-like
so they already work in some 'alien' ways...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
π§ ππ§ π€π§ π»
When we see something that's moving, our memories about it end up projected forward in time: We remember it further along than it was. In a new paper in ππ΄πΊπ€π©π°ππ°π¨πͺπ€π’π ππ€πͺπ¦π―π€π¦, out today and led by @dillonplunkett.bsky.social, we demonstrate that this happens even when there is π£π€ π’π€π©ππ€π£ π¬πππ©π¨π€ππ«ππ§.π§΅
"I dived deep in the ocean of astronomical theories, true and false, and rescued the precious sunken jewel of true knowledge by the means of the boat of my own intellect."
Quoted in The Golden Road, by William Dalrymple
In the running for greatest human accomplishment.
βOver the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces.
Part of the payoff has been invisible β in the air itself.β
Leadership, strategy, real action, common sense. #Paris
Visual adaptation is viewed as a test of whether a feature is represented by the visual system.
In a new paper, Sam Clarke and I push the limits of this test. We show spatially selective, putatively "visual" adaptation to a clearly non-visual dimension: Value!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Book Cover, The Idealized Mind.
The Idealized Mind: From Model-based Science to Cognitive Science -by Prof. Michael D. Kirchhoff, published (Aug 2025) by the MIT Press. #OpenAccess
Our new paper, βA neural compass in the human brain during naturalistic human navigationβ is out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social! First-author @zhenganglu.bsky.social led the charge, with Josh Julian and collaborator @gkaguirre.com.
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
Children build math skills on a βcognitive bridgeβ between space & number. But where does it come from? Our new study finds monkeys transfer learning and abstractions across geometry & numerosity, revealing the evolutionary roots of basic math development. π§ͺπ§
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Super excited to share that the first work from my PhD is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social
www.cell.com/current-biol...
We tackle two fundamental questions:
1) How does the brain create a cognitive map solely using auditory information?
2)How does the hippocampus represent a moving object?
New from Arnold @visnerd.bsky.social lab:
Mental rotation is often regarded as paradigmatic for #mentalimagery. But it turns out people often don't use imagery for mental rotation - & when they do it is often not useful (same viewpoint trials). #visionscience #psychscisky
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
Good video panel at MUSE Trento: evolution is complicated! www.muse.it
While I was in Rotterdam for CogSci '24, I visited the Escher Museum and fell in love with his work all over again. Now, a year later, I'm delighted by this SIGGRAPH paper led by my friend Ana!
(Say what you will about the technical details, you must admit that we came up with the ~perfect~ title.)
π¨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com!
We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This was a truly collaborative effort! π§΅β¬οΈ
Image description: figure from review titled Map and compass navigation: the mechanism and ontogeny of animal maps. The figure shows how environmental cues can vary in predictable gradients through space, generating unique cue combinations at each location. The second part of this figure shows how animals may respond to these cue combinations, either treating them as discrete cue-location associations, or as continuous gradients. These differences may lead to differences in navigational strategies and performance.
Ever wondered how animals know where they are? Or how they find where they need to be?
The answer is that they have maps and compasses built into their heads! Excited to see this new review of map-and-compass navigation led by Joe Morford out in Animal Behaviour @asab.org
doi.org/10.1016/j.an...
Are world models necessary to achieve human-level agents, or is there a model-free short-cut?
Our new #ICML2025 paper tackles this question from first principles, and finds a surprising answer, agents _are_ world modelsβ¦ π§΅
arxiv.org/abs/2506.01622
Who's that boy?
Read about Vincenzo Foppa's 'The Young Cicero Reading' π buff.ly/ojqVJQj
π· Wallace Museum
Out now in TiCS, something i've been thinking about a lot:
"Physics vs. graphics as an organizing dichotomy in cognition"
(by Balaban & me)
relevant for many people, related to imagination, intuitive physics, mental simulation, aphantasia, and more
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lBaC4sIRv...
Impressive work, now out in @cp-cell.bsky.social, by Priya Moorjani @lauritsskov.bsky.social @ekerdoncuff.bsky.social
Aparajit Ballav Dey, Sharon Kardia, Jinkook Lee & colleagues, offering the most thorough analysis yet of Indiaβs genetic diversity
π§ͺπ§¬
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Pleased to announce my new open access paper out in Developmental Psychology:
The Development of the βFirst Thing That Comes to Mindβ
with @xphilosopher.bsky.social and @ebonawitz.bsky.social
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-25569-001.html
#CogSci #PsychSciSki #DevSci
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