Jonathan Phillips
Cognitive scientist / philosopher working on modality and high level cognition.
Cognitive science at Dartmouth
phillab.host.dartmouth.edu
Photo credit: Justin Khoo
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsApplications still open until February 4! Important note for US applicants: We do consider applicants with only a bachelor's degree and some research experience! You don't need a masters. #CogSci #PsychSciSky
- Looking for a funded Ph.D. in #CogSci in an interdisciplinary, research-first program? Apply to CEU! cognitivescience.ceu.edu/admission Deadline February 4, 2026. Please share with any interested students! #PsychSciSky #DevPsych #CogPsych
- Reposted by Jonathan Phillips📣 #CogSci2026 submissions now OPEN! 🔍 Review the submission guidelines ⬇️ Download the required templates 📅 Make note of key deadline dates cognitivesciencesociety.org/submissions/
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsExcited 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...
- By age 4, children understand lexical causatives to refer to direct causes and periphrastic causatives to indirect causes in causal chains. Understanding causation by absence develops later in older children. @tobigerstenberg.bsky.social
- 🚨Super excited that Dartmouth's Society of Fellows is hiring a postdoc with the Program in Cognitive Science 🚨 Specialization in computational and empirical approaches to artificial and natural intelligence, including perception, representation, and complex planning: apply.interfolio.com/176946
- Please share widely - we would love a broad range of applicants!
- Just a quick reminder that applications for our new cross-lab PhD training model in cognitive science at Dartmouth are due Dec. 1. We're quite excited about this new approach, so please reach out if you have any questions!!
- We're excited to announce that Cognitive Science at Dartmouth is recruiting PhD students to work collaboratively with me, Steven Frankland, and Fred Callaway. Come study the principles and mechanisms that enable us to understand, plan, and act in the world! Info: sites.dartmouth.edu/cogscigrad/
- Reposted by Jonathan Phillips🧠 New paper alert! Can people infer others’ values not from what they choose, but simply from what comes to mind? Across four studies, we show they can—drawing on an intuitive theory of how options are generated. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106238 👇
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsNew article w/ M Pabla & @orifriedman.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... When children claim an unexpected event is impossible they also claim it's never happened, even for immoral events, suggesting their judgments reflect beliefs about what could happen & not merely what should.
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsIn case you don't know already, the journal Open Mind has a Bluesky account that automatically posts new papers: @openmindjournal.bsky.social The journal is diamond open access (free to read, free to publish) thanks to the support of MIT Press, Harvard Library, & MIT Library.
- We're excited to announce that Cognitive Science at Dartmouth is recruiting PhD students to work collaboratively with me, Steven Frankland, and Fred Callaway. Come study the principles and mechanisms that enable us to understand, plan, and act in the world! Info: sites.dartmouth.edu/cogscigrad/
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsHappy to announce that my lab @ Yale Psychology (actcompthink.org) will be accepting PhD applications this year (for start in Fall '26)! Come for the fun experiments on human learning, memory, & skilled behavior, stay for the best 🍕 in the US. Please reach out if you have any questions!
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsIf you’ll be at #CogSci2025, consider (or at least consider considering) attending our @cogscisociety.bsky.social workshop on meta reasoning 🤔🤨🧐 We’ll be discussing problem selection through various lenses represented by a great lineup of speakers!
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsA key takeaway from 20+ years of computational RL is: model-free=automatic, model-based=deliberate. My new paper w/ @benedek.bsky.social challenges this view, suggesting that MB algos are more ubiquitous, & automatic processing more sophisticated, than currently thought: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- In the second most important election happening today, I'm on the slate for potential new members of the governing board for the Cognitive Science Society! If you're a member, check your email for a link to vote and #DontRankCuomo
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsJOB! 3yr funded post-doc in Theory of Mind inspired by the knowledge first epistemology of Williamson, and the work of @jsphillips.bsky.social. Looking at knowledge and ignorance processing in adults with me and Richard O'Connor at the Uni of Hull. Please re-post. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNE794/p...
- Reposted by Jonathan Phillipsbit of good news: approved technical staff position! link below. please be in touch if this matches your skills & interests! drive.google.com/file/d/16J2J... (hr listing posted harvard-internal now; external soon, per guidelines), happy for ?s & plan on quick turnaround! #CogSciSky #PsychSciSky 🐦🐦
- Reposted by Jonathan Phillips🏔️ Brad is lost in the wilderness—but doesn’t know there’s a town nearby. Was he forced to stay put? In our #CogSci2025 paper, we show that judgments of what’s possible—and whether someone had to act—depend on what agents know. 📰 osf.io/preprints/ps... w/ Matt Mandelkern & @jsphillips.bsky.social
- Couldn't be more thrilled that Fred is coming to join us!! Dartmouth Cognitive Science is quickly growing into a group of amazing colleagues that I feel lucky to have around and think with!
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsNow out in JPSP ‼️ "Inference from social evaluation" with Zach Davis, Kelsey Allen, @maxkw.bsky.social, and @julianje.bsky.social 📃 (paper): psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... 📜 (preprint): osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsAre humans the only species that communicates when a collaborator is missing information? In @pnas.org, Luke Townrow and I show that our closest relatives, bonobos, can track when a partner is knowledgeable or ignorant, and tailor communication accordingly www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- In a new paper, we demonstrate the perception of possibilities but show that the processes underlying this phenomenon occur before the information reaches high-level cognition. The representation of these possibilities is distinctly perceptual(!) and separate from cognition. osf.io/preprints/ps...
- The key idea (developed with Camden Parker and @violastoermer.bsky.social) was to use amodal completion as a case where the visual system can represent multiple possibilities (possible shapes) and then ask whether this representation is differentially disrupted by perceptual load or cognitive load.
- We find that the visual system's representation of multiple possibilities is selectively disrupted by perceptual load, but not cognitive load, demonstrating that the key processes underlying the perception of possibilities occur before the information reaches high-level cognition!
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View full threadOr this, hopefully now working, OSF link: osf.io/preprints/ps...
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsAre you interested in research experience before applying to PhD programs? Or just want to learn more about cognitive science? Consider joining my lab as a lab manager (joint w/the Griffiths Lab). We will begin reviewing applications one week from today: cognition.princeton.edu/news/2025/op...
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsOur new paper with Max Taylor-Davies introduces a resource-rational model of Theory of Mind. The model can explain many of the successes and failures of mindreading in human adults and children, and non-human primates. 🧵
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsFor anybody interested in this sort of thing, I think this is a valuable resource. A graph of articles in the SEP (standord encyclopaedia of philosophy), showing connections; it can help explore the field. www.visualizingsep.com#/domain/epis... #Philosophy #philsky #SEP #graph #catalogue
- In a new preprint (doi.org/10.31234/osf...) a huge range of data+methods shows that people can evaluate what others know without first evaluating what they think/believe. Representations of knowledge seem to be an independent and conceptually primitive way of representing others' minds. 🧵 below!
- We first find simply that people are faster to accurately evaluate whether or not someone knows something than whether or not they think that same thing, indicating that they seem to be evaluating others' knowledge without first evaluating what they believe:
- We then replicated this finding and showed that it extended to participants with Autism. For both, know < think, and this relationship is unrelated to AQ 10 scores. The pattern that knowledge evaluations are simpler and independent from belief is preserved across differences in neurotypicality!
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View full threadThis is joint work with Bryan Gonzalez, Pauline Amary, James Dungan, Brent Strickland, @xphilosopher.bsky.social, and @fierycushman.bsky.social. A huge amount of credit goes out to them!
- Reposted by Jonathan Phillips🚨 Now accepting commentary proposals!! 🚨Thrilled to share that our paper --- "Resource-rational contractualism: A triple theory of moral cognition" --- was accepted for publication at Behavioral and Brain Sciences and is open for commentary!
- Reposted by Jonathan Phillips🔊 New paper just accepted in JPSP 🥳 In "Inference from social evaluation", we explore how people use social evaluations, such as judgments of blame or praise, to figure out what happened. 📜 osf.io/preprints/ps... 📎 github.com/cicl-stanfor... 1/6
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsDeadline extended! Submit your abstracts by Friday, January 31 at 11:59 PM Eastern.
- Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2025 (June 19-21, 2025 at Cornell) is going to be 🔥🔥🔥 and the submission portal is now live! Submit abstracts of 750 words+1 figure by Jan 24, 2025 at 11:59pm EST easychair.org/my/conferenc....
- Reposted by Jonathan Phillipspsyarxiv.com/y3dzn preprint from the time i spent at @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social 💜 - we were puzzled by past findings suggesting that children learn about the structure of the world, but don't use this knowledge to flexibly guide their decision-making as much as adults do.
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsFor the Dartmouth PBS graduate student visiting day this year, we introduced a new format based on the "Hot Ones" talk show: faculty and current graduate students ate nuggets with a series of increasing spicy hot sauces as they answered questions from prospective grad students! 🌶️🔥🥵
- do people have a favorite ai for reading text out loud? I hit my limit for staring at screens way too easily, but would still love to be able to read papers while woodworking, cooking, driving, etc.
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsThree ManyBabies projects - big collaborative replications of infancy phenomena - wrapped up this year. The first paper came out this fall. I thought I'd take this chance to comment on what I make of the non-replication result. 🧵 bsky.app/profile/laur...
- The Manybabies4 paper is out! Infants' Social Evaluation of Helpers and Hinderers: A Large-Scale, Multi-Lab, Coordinated Replication Study onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... 1000 babies tested in 37 labs; "Overall, 49.34% of infants preferred Helpers over Hinderers in the social condition"
- My favorite conference ❤️
- Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2025 (June 19-21, 2025 at Cornell) is going to be 🔥🔥🔥 and the submission portal is now live! Submit abstracts of 750 words+1 figure by Jan 24, 2025 at 11:59pm EST easychair.org/my/conferenc....
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsSociety for Philosophy and Psychology 2025 (June 19-21, 2025 at Cornell) is going to be 🔥🔥🔥 and the submission portal is now live! Submit abstracts of 750 words+1 figure by Jan 24, 2025 at 11:59pm EST easychair.org/my/conferenc....
- Reposted by Jonathan Phillips(1/5) Very excited to announce the publication of Bayesian Models of Cognition: Reverse Engineering the Mind. More than a decade in the making, it's a big (600+ pages) beautiful book covering both the basics and recent work: mitpress.mit.edu/978026204941...
- Reposted by Jonathan PhillipsI’m recruiting PhD students to join the Computational Minds and Machines Lab at the University of Washington in Seattle! Join us to work at the intersection of computational cognitive science and AI with a broad focus on social intelligence. (Please reshare!)
- 🚨 Steven Frankland and I are recruiting jointly-advised graduate students to work on high-level cognition! They will be part of the Cognitive Science Program at Dartmouth and earn their Ph.D. in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Deadline: Dec 1: pbs.dartmouth.edu/graduate-pro...
