Ata Karagoz

Stop by Poster E73 tomorrow to learn about:

🧠 an LLM pipeline for automated recall scoring, and

📖 how we (@atabk.bsky.social @nicholebouffard.bsky.social @zreagh.bsky.social) use it to understand whether compressed memories can be unfolded to recover details

#CNS2026

MACK LAB IS PRESENTING AT CNS 2026! YONGZHEN (DORY) XIE, LINDA HE, & MICHAEL L. MACK Mnemonic effect of category exception learning as a function of prediction error type B71, SUNDAY, 8:00 - 10:00 AM LINDA HE & MICHAEL L. MACK Exploring the effects of self-generated and induced insight on incidental memory and pupil dilation B126, SUNDAY, 8:00 - 10:00 AM JESSIE SONG, FRIDA PRINTZLAU, SAGANA VIJAYARAJAH, DANA HUANG, STEPHANIE CARDILLO, MARGARET L. SCHLICHTING, & MICHAEL L. MACK Category learning in adults but not children benefits from delayed introduction of exceptions C51, SUNDAY, 5:00 - 7:00 PM SAGANA VIJAYARAJAH, MICHAEL L. MACK, & MARGARET L. SCHLICHTING Delaying exception introduction enhances children's hippocampal engagement during category learning C54, SUNDAY, 5:00 - 7:00 PM MADELINE BLOOMBERG & MICHAEL L. MACK Novelty-driven attentional shifts during concept learning D8, MONDAY, 8:00 - 10:00 AM

🧠 The MackLab (@drmack.bsky.social) will be presenting at #CNS2026! Stop by our posters to chat about learning, insight, and hippocampus!

Excited to announce my first postdoc project at @UChicago with @WilmaBainbridge is now published in PNAS! Using computer vision and gen AI, we engineered memorable and forgettable symbols, showing memory can be optimized with data-driven visual design.

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Congratulations boss! Very well deserved!

Sad to miss #CNS26, especially when @monicarosenb.bsky.social receives the young investigator award 🎉

But for all attending, do go see postdoc extraordinaire @atabk.bsky.social's poster B121 "Tracking sampling strategies during value construction to guide novel choice" on Sunday morning.

I'm heading to CNS in Vancouver! Come check out my poster Sunday morning for some fun work (🐁?)

DM me if youll be there and want to link up!

Episodic memory encoding fluctuates at a theta rhythm of 3–10 Hz Nature Human Behaviour - Biba et al. show that episodic memory encoding fluctuates at a theta rhythm of 3–10 Hz.

I am excited to share my first paper, showing that episodic memory formation is theta rhythmic, is now published in Nature Human Behavior! Check it out here: rdcu.be/e6pzS. Thanks to my PI, Katherine Duncan, and to my collaborators for their support on this journey! Stay tuned for iEEG follow up 🧠

Episodic memory encoding fluctuates at a theta rhythm of 3–10 Hz Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 02 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02416-5Biba et al. show that episodic memory encoding fluctuates at a theta rhythm of 3–10 Hz.

Episodic memory encoding fluctuates at a theta rhythm of 3–10 Hz

🚀 Postdoc Alert! Are you passionate about social learning & cultural evolution? @dominikdeffner.bsky.social & I have a 3-year position with freedom to develop your research and work on cutting-edge multiplayer and immersive experiments. Apply by March 30! hmc-lab.com/SocialLearni... Pls share 🙏

The inferred value of unchosen options spreads to related items in memory Counterfactual thinking — considering what could have come of choosing the other path — can facilitate inference. Previous studies have demonstrated t…

📢New paper out today in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social!

Does the value of an unchosen option — inferred through counterfactual reasoning — spread to related items in memory, similar to how the value of a chosen option — acquired through direct experience — does?

In short, yes!

How do we balance external attention to the outside world and internal attention to our thoughts & memories?

We review evidence that external and internal attention can compete, unfold concurrently, or cooperate!

Loved working on this with @samversc.bsky.social & @tobiasegner.bsky.social!

What episodic memory reveals about the default mode network osf.io/preprints/ps...

Are you a junior faculty member interested in spending 2-4 weeks at Princeton Psych? Please apply for our Microsabbatical program! It’s a fully funded visit for professional development and creating long-term collaborations.
psych.princeton.edu/diversity/mi...

Book cover. A silhouette of a person's head filled with colorful geometric shapes—perhaps symbolizing cognitive resources or deployment thereof. The style is attractive and modern, if generic. text: The Rational Use of Cognitive Resources Falk Lieder, Frederick Callaway, Thomas L. Griffithts

I'm excited to announce that I had my first (co-authored) book published today! "The Rational Use of Cognitive Resources" with Falk Lieder and Tom Griffiths (@cocoscilab.bsky.social ). You can read it for free! (see thread)

I am looking to hire 2-3 post-docs over the course of the next few months to work on questions related to cognitive control in humans, broadly construed. EEG, TMS, DBS, sEEG, fMRI or related methodological experience preferred.
Apply here:

jobs.uiowa.edu/jobSearch/po...

Lab website: wessellab.org

How does curriculum learning influence cognitive map formation?: https://osf.io/t6kde

Excited to share a new paper spearheaded by the wonderful @baror-shira.bsky.social:
tinyurl.com/bd8xdcum
@erc.europa.eu @nathumbehav.nature.com

We test the link between serial dependence (as an index of continuity) and event boundaries (indexing segmentation). A few key findings in the thread:

If you work at the intersection of computational neuroscience and machine learning, consider applying for this postdoc position (January 2027 start date):
academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/15868
An opportunity to work with a great group of people across Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley.

Our paper is out in @natneuro.nature.com!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We develop a geometric theory of how neural populations support generalization across many tasks.

@zuckermanbrain.bsky.social
@flatironinstitute.org
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social

1/14

💡 Our new #preprint is available online!

How do people adapt their decisions when priorities change?
In our new study, we examine how the way people represent value shapes their ability to adjust in multi-goal environments.

🔗 OSF link: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

It's a thread 🧵

Hybrid neural–cognitive models reveal how memory shapes human reward learning - Nature Human Behaviour Using artificial neural networks applied to human data, Eckstein et al. show that good models of reinforcement learning require memory components that track representations of the past.

Hybrid neural–cognitive models reveal how memory shapes human reward learning
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Creative problem-solving after experimentally provoking dreams of unsolved puzzles during REM sleep Abstract. Dreams have arguably been a source of creative insight for millennia. The specific assertion that dreams during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep pr

New publication out today from the amazing PhD dissertation of Karen Konkoly @karenkonkoly.bsky.social in Neuroscience of Consciousness @nconsc.bsky.social : Creative problem-solving after experimentally provoking dreams of unsolved puzzles during REM sleep academic.oup.com/nc/article/2...

My lab is looking to recruit 1-2 paid summer interns to do wet lab work on learning in a unicellular organism (Stentor coeruleus). You can apply here:
forms.gle/b47WpSobjFjo...

We are hiring a research specialist, to start this summer! This position would be a great fit for individuals looking to get more experience in computational and cognitive neuroscience research before applying to graduate school. #neurojobs Apply here: research-princeton.icims.com/jobs/21503/r...

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 episodic memory enables flexible decision-making.

In this Article, @jonathannicholas.bsky.social & @marcelomattar.bsky.social show that people use episodic memory to make decisions when it is unclear what will be needed in the future.

Go join a great lab with great people in a great environment with great resources!

A normative account of human temporal structure learning People rapidly recalibrate their expectations about the world in the face of surprising observations. This recalibration should depend on the temporal structure of the environment, however how people ...

A few months ago, Niloufar Razmi visited PNI and blew everyone's minds with her structure learning model. Really excited to see it out.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A unifying account of replay as context-driven memory reactivation A context-driven memory model simulates a wide range of characteristics of waking and sleeping hippocampal replay, providing a new account of how and why replay occurs.

Really thrilled that this paper led by @neurozz.bsky.social is now published in its final version in @elife.bsky.social!!

This is a memory-focused (as opposed to RL-focused) account of the detailed characteristics of forward and backward awake and sleep replay!

elifesciences.org/articles/99931