Sami Yousif
@sami_r_yousif
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Asst Prof. at @UNC , see . Former @PennMindCORE Fellow, PhD from @Yale . I study how we perceive and represent space.
Joined August 2012
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After 2220 days, today is technically my final day as a graduate student.
So here's a short, meaningless, cliche thread of advice I'd have for younger students (and/or a younger version of myself).
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I'm starting a lab! This summer I'll join both the cognitive and developmental areas in the Psychology department at UNC Chapel Hill. I'm excited for and humbled by the opportunity. Here's a sneak peak at the lab:
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After leaving his lab of my own volition, a former adviser started making extreme claims about me out of nowhere in a seemingly retaliatory way. I spent four years trying to have those claims and his conduct investigated, largely unsuccessfully. Read more:
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Some professional news: In July 2022, I will begin a
@PennMindCORE
fellowship
@Penn
.
I'm thankful to the many folks I've had the pleasure of working with during my time at Yale and excited to be around a new group of fantastic colleagues at Penn!
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Another pandemic birthday, but this one was special for a different reason. I defended my dissertation!
Thanks to so many people who made this possible.
A year ago, I thought it was neat that I’d be one of few people to have a pandemic birthday. Today, I’m thinking it’s neat that I’ll be one of few people who gets *two*. (Hope I’m right this time!)
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The culmination of my graduate work is now published!
In it, I ask whether spatial representations reduce to a single format, or whether the mind redundantly represents the same information in multiple formats.
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Our paper on spatial representation is now available in
@PsychScience
! In this paper, we show how we can recover the *format* of spatial representations from small errors that observers make in simple localization tasks. Check it out!
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Excited to share a new paper
@SciReports
() -- one that has been in the works a *long* time. Here we build on our prior work () to question long-standing assumptions about how we 'see' number (and related qualities, like density).
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Two months ago, a story came out about abuse I experienced at Yale. In response, my abuser began publicly defaming me. Yale quickly investigated and, last week, responded to the situation.
See my final statement:
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Because of the unusual nature of the claims made about me, I wanted to briefly respond. Here is a brief letter, co-signed by Frank Keil and Richard Aslin:
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There is general consensus that space influences memory, but different ideas about *how*. In new paper (w/
@monicarosenb
), we discuss some of those ideas, and offer some evidence that constrains them. We argue that 'spatial structure' improves memory. 1/7
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5. Always try to find the most generous version of someone's idea. If they ask a bad question or make a bad suggestion, try to find the version of it that is most interesting/exciting, reframe it, and address that one.
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Honored to receive our department's dissertation award, mostly for two reasons:
(1) I get to share it with my friend
@ClaraColombatto
whose work I have always admired, and who played a huge part in welcoming me to grad school and teaching me all of the things.
Yale Psychology Graduate Student Awards recognize Clara Colombatto, Sami Yousif, Xanni Brown, and Zachary Silver
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10. Be kind. There are so many opportunities to go out of your way for others to give them thorough feedback, or to give feedback in a kind way, or to help out in some concrete way. Kindness almost always pays for itself. And it if doesn’t, who cares?
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I've been working on a huge project on *number adaptation* with Sam Clarke and Liz Brannon. We've just posted a version of our CogSci paper.
Our stance: Despite dozens of papers documenting it, we aren't sure that number adaptation is real. Read more:
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4. The 24-hour rule: For any success or failure, spend 24 hours celebrating/dwelling/etc. But then move on. Learn what you will learn from it, and move on. Ruminating over successes is just as pointless as ruminating over failures.
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New paper with the wonderful (but twitterless) Qi Lin. We ask a simple question: can an image be memorable based purely on its *visual* content (vs. semantic content)? We think the answer is 'yes'. But how do we know?
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We have written a few papers on area perception, proposing that perceived area is roughly equal to Length + Width (as opposed to L*W). In this short piece (
@TrendsCognSci
) we summarize this work and explain its consequences for quantity perception broadly:
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Controversial opinion, maybe: Computational models, while sometimes useful, often offer a false sense of understanding.
Elegant explanations are rare in psych/cognitive science, but I’m not sure the trend towards computational techniques is improving how we explain.
And the best way to specify exactly what you mean is through a computational model or through mathematics."
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3. If at all possible, work with multiple advisers. It is so important, as a grad student, to realize how wildly people disagree about the basic aspects of this job. Seeing that firsthand can, paradoxically, help you find your own path.
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1. Take advice from people who understand you, and who you understand. There's a lot of bad advice out there, so you have to learn *who* to listen to first and foremost (i.e., take this thread with a grain of salt).
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2. For most people, work-life balance doesn't mean working rigid, pre-specified hours. It means working when you want to. Working on weekends/evenings is awesome -- if you are choosing it for yourself.
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Soon to be published in JEP:G, our first paper about the perception and cognition of *topological relations*. What we show here is that people readily distinguish (and remember, and match) items based on their topological relations. See examples below!
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My first solo-author paper has been accepted at PoPS.
It addresses a general question at the heart of my dissertation: What is the *format* of spatial representations? I also consider a slightly more specific question: Must things have *one* format -- or could they have many?
Redundancy and reducibility in the formats of spatial representations
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Sam Clarke and I (w/ co-author Liz Brannon) have spent our summer talking to anyone who will listen about number adaptation. Today, we're releasing a preprint of our (massive!) paper on the topic, in which we question whether this is a real phenomenon:
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The Yale Cognition and Development Lab has several presentations at
#CogSci2021
. Check them out!
@njoybetz
@_EDRichardson
@mandymichelle4
@SehrangJoo
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9. Never pursue anything just to show that someone else is wrong. Pursue things because they will advance the science.
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Every year in graduate school, I’ve managed to make time for a Fall trip to Vermont. This year was my sixth (and final) such trip. It was lovely!
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Congratulations to my friend
@chazfirestone
!
Behind the scenes, Chaz has been a huge part of my career over the years. I wouldn’t be here without him.
@JohnsHopkins
is lucky to have him!
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After years of climbing, I finally finished what I initially considered an ‘impossible’ grade for me (V4). This took about ~50 attempts over ~2 months.
Thanks to
@flora_xy_zhang
for randomly suggesting we record this attempt in particular.
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This is one of the many reasons why it’s so hard to speak out against poor behavior in academia. However ridiculous this lawsuit may seem, those involved are still forced to spend money defending themselves against it.
For many, this possibility is a strong deterrent.
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Our paper taking a critical look at *number adaptation* has been accepted at Cognition!
But that's not all: Cognition has also agreed to publish a short back and forth with folks who disagree with us, so stay tuned for that in the near future!
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Do we represent remembered locations in vision and in action using the same coordinate system(s)? In a new paper with Alex Forrence and
@smickdougle
, we say yes: there may be a common format for location representations across modalities.
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New paper with
@sarah_hy_lee
,
@brynnesherman
, and Anna Papafragou, in which we explore how people's mental timelines are shaped by event structure -- using popular TV shows to examine shared memories across months and even *years*!
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This week, for the first time in my life, I had to say goodbye to a loved one. My grandmother passed away on Saturday. I found out at 4:45am, three hours before our flight to see her. This morning, I spoke at her funeral. She was the happiest person I knew.
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6. Peer review can/should be a positive experience. Don't fall prey to negativity about this. There are some bad reviewers, but mostly people are trying to be helpful. Always see the positives in this. I've never had a set of reviews I didn't learn from.
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Had to cancel
@VSSMtg
trip at the last moment, so sharing our poster here.
With
@smickdougle
, we ask whether spatial representation is supported by a common format in multiple modalities (perception, action) and across those modalities. Happy to chat if there are questions!
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Sophomore year, I found myself briefly homeless, jobless, and without financial support. I told my graduate student advisor
@vayzenberg90
I couldn’t show up to (unpaid) RA job because I needed to find housing. He worked with
@LourencoLab
to pay me for my work.
I paid for my ug to take the GRE. He was living out of his car.
My PI found out. She reimbursed me. She promised him full part time wage every week as long as he did *something.* She paid for his grad school apps. He’s a world-class PhD student now.
It’s not hard to be decent.
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7. Engage with people! If you're unsure what an editor wants, engage in conversation. Someone signs a thoughtful, critical review? Reach out, thank them. Someone writes a cool paper you like? Let them know.
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One month ago today, I got married. At the last minute, we had the thought to set up a static camera, allowing us to make this neat time-lapse of the event.
Thanks to everyone who made this day special, and to my wonderful wife
@brynnesherman
:)
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8. Hang out with peers a lot. It is good to talk about both work stuff (ideas, etc.) and non-work stuff. Most people only do one or the other with any given friend, in my experience. But they complement each other.
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Most people are probably familiar with the classic 'oblique effect'. But there are actually many distinct effects related to perception in oblique regions of space.
In a new preprint,
@smickdougle
and I consider whether all of these may be related in some deeper way.
Oblique biases: An instance of domain- and modality-general spatial representation
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The Developing Minds Lab at the University of Pennsylvania is seeking a full-time research assistant to start by January 2023 (or sooner). If you are interested, you can find more information here (), or you can reach out to me with questions!
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CogSci folks: check out
@SehrangJoo
's poster (P-1-56) at 11:20am EST. Her work asks a big question: what do we mean when we ask 'Why'? This word is *semantically* ambiguous (could refer to 'how' or 'purpose' question), but is it *pragmatically* ambiguous? Shorter answer: no.
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(2) I am following in the footsteps of many other wonderful colleagues and friends,
@chazfirestone
,
@ahbailey04
,
@CameronTEllis
,
@DEMelnikoff
, and Alex Shaw, who I have always looked up to and have played a huge role in my intellectual development in various ways.
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I'll be talking about this work on number adaptation in the poster session today at
#CogSci2023
.
If you have thoughts, please stop by to discuss!
Sam Clarke and I (w/ co-author Liz Brannon) have spent our summer talking to anyone who will listen about number adaptation. Today, we're releasing a preprint of our (massive!) paper on the topic, in which we question whether this is a real phenomenon:
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I have released into the wild my longest ongoing project in grad school (Dev work is hard!). We asked a simple question: How do children perceive cumulative area? Turns out the answer isn't as simple as the question.
Do children estimate area using an 'Additive-Area Heuristic'?
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Tomorrow at CogSci (11:20am EDT), I will be presenting what is methodologically the coolest work I've ever done. I show that we can 'decode' -- just from tiny errors ppl make in a localization task -- what landmark ppl used to place an object in space.
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With little sleep,
@brynnesherman
and I got the first flight we could out of Brussels. Feeling grateful that we will be able to make it home on short notice.
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Working on this paper with
@tristansyates
and
@brynnesherman
has been a highlight of the past year. This was a passion project for all three of us.
Still, we think we've only scratched the surface of the different notions of 'events' that need to be unpacked here.
Events! Everyone knows what they are…. Right? After several late-night conversations on this question, we (
@brynnesherman
@sami_r_yousif
) decided it was worth a broader discussion
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Our paper on number adaptation is finally published! At least one critical commentary and our reply should be coming in the next few months, so stay tuned.
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New paper! With
@smickdougle
, we argue that many different effects related to the oblique regions of space may be a consequence of one single underlying distortion (which we call "oblique warping").
You can see the full paper here:
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Mathematically, there are an infinite number of 'formats' with which we can represent space, though we typically think of two primary ones: Cartesian vs. polar coordinates. But how does the *mind* represent space? To find out, check out new preprint (in press at Psych science).⬇️
The shape of space: Evidence for spontaneous but flexible use of polar coordinates in visuospatial representations
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I was told that I probably have coronavirus -- but I can't know for sure, because they don't have tests. I keep imagining what it would be like if my grandmother, who spent the last year beating cancer, had this virus. It would be devastating. 1/n
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This is essential.
Independent conflict resolution is the one of the most important protections students have against abuse. I encourage all Yale students to continue to push for such an office to be established.
UNIVERSITY | The University, which is the only Ivy League school without a University-wide independent office dedicated to conflict resolution for students, faculty and staff, has a history of pushing back on the proposal.
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We all throw around the word 'why' a lot. But I'll bet you haven't thought explicitly about what this word actually means! Several years in the making, we are releasing this preprint into the wild -- in which we explain (most) of what you need to know about the word 'why'.
Consider the question: “Why is the sky blue?”. What is it really asking? Check out our preprint (w
@sami_r_yousif
& Frank Keil) where we discuss how people actually understand “Why?“—and how this matters for the philosophy and psychology of explanation.
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I’ll be presenting this work (including many experiments and demos not mentioned below!) at SPP today at 1:15pm. Come check it out!
I've been working on a huge project on *number adaptation* with Sam Clarke and Liz Brannon. We've just posted a version of our CogSci paper.
Our stance: Despite dozens of papers documenting it, we aren't sure that number adaptation is real. Read more:
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In my mind, "grab coffee" roughly translates to "go on a walk and chat while maybe also holding a beverage".
(I value the walking and chatting very much, so if offering coffee is what it takes to make people get up from their desks, so be it!)
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Not gonna lie: Never thought I’d see the day my name was mentioned in a tweet alongside Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, and Aaron Rodgers 🤷🏻
The Illusion of Consensus: A Failure to Distinguish Between True & False Consensus by
@sami_r_yousif
Get enough people to repeat
#misinformation
& it can feel like a real consensus. Thx,
#JoeRogan
,
#AaronRodgers
,
#TuckerCarlson
, et al
#ScienceUpFirst
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If I could begin graduate school over again, April is exactly the kind of adviser I’d want to work with — for many different reasons.
Here’s one: She thinks deeply about a super broad range of topics. One of the most well-rounded scholars I knew at Yale.
Work with her!
#psychtwitter
please share!
I’m recruiting a PhD student at
@UofNH
to start Fall 2022. My group uses methods from soc, cog, and dev psych and computational linguistics to study questions about social groups and bias
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We've published a few papers now about how we 'see' 2D area via an 'additive heuristic' (), but our account has been met with some skepticism. New paper w/ Dick Aslin & Frank Keil directly addresses some common objections ().
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I’ve been to 20+ conferences (~7 unique ones), but first time attending SPP. Unambiguously the best ever, virtual or not.
Just have to gush for a sec about how much I loved
#SPP2021
! Really wished it was possible last year (would've been my 1st conference & an exciting cap to my undergrad work). But it was totally worth the wait, & I now have so, so many fascinating, half-legible notes to mull over
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A year ago, I thought it was neat that I’d be one of few people to have a pandemic birthday. Today, I’m thinking it’s neat that I’ll be one of few people who gets *two*. (Hope I’m right this time!)
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Sarah has revealed to the world the sad truth that I spend most of my time rambling about college football via slack message 🤷🏻
Most pandemic changes are just worse, but I love that slack means I can save things like this: a conversation that turned into career and life advice I want to keep on hand always.
(also- sorry
@sami_r_yousif
for co-opting your future tweet ideas!)
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Our paper on people's intuitive sense of topological relations is out now in JEP: General!
Soon to be published in JEP:G, our first paper about the perception and cognition of *topological relations*. What we show here is that people readily distinguish (and remember, and match) items based on their topological relations. See examples below!
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I really enjoyed this conversation with an academic hero of mine, the relentlessly optimistic Anna Papafragou.
We discuss reading poetry on the beach, academic superpowers, mentorship, the legacy of Lila Gleitman, and more!
Last week we were honored to hear from
@Penn
Linguistics Prof Anna Papafragou about her experience becoming a professor in conversation with our Fellow Sami Yousif
@sami_r_yousif
And you can hear the conversation too:
@PennCURF
@PennLinguistics
@PennSAS
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This is a really unique and awesome opportunity.
If anyone has any questions about the MindCORE Fellowship, feel free to reach out!
Our Postdoctoral Fellowship application is open!
Designed for PhDs in neuro, psych, ling, philo, comp sci or other cog sci disciplines, the 3-year fellowship
@Penn
is part of MindCORE's effort to explore human intelligence & behavior.
Apply by Dec 3:
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@CantlonLab
Your brave stance at Rochester inspired me to stand up for myself, scary as it was. Thank you.
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On this note: we've just had another paper published on a similar illusion of *volume*. In the picture below, it looks (to most people) like the green has much more cumulative volume than the blue -- but they are the same.
@ehbennette
explains why, here:
We have written a few papers on area perception, proposing that perceived area is roughly equal to Length + Width (as opposed to L*W). In this short piece (
@TrendsCognSci
) we summarize this work and explain its consequences for quantity perception broadly:
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Great news for Sarah, but even greater news for Yale, Princeton, and all the folks that will be lucky to work with Sarah! 🎉
SO excited to share that I get to join
@TaniaLombrozo
's lab as a PhD student at Princeton, fall '22!! Which *also* means I get another year at Yale w/ Frank Keil,
@xphilosopher
, & ofc
@sami_r_yousif
! Thrilled about both updates, and beyond excited & grateful for the combination.
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Similar for me, except the question is about why I spend so much time studying dots.
(It's a good question, to be fair.)
As a first-generation student, one of my favorite memories is when I gave my dad a tour of the baby lab my 1st semester of graduate school. He was unusually quiet, which is unlike him, only to finally say, “…so you’re going to Yale to play with puppets?”
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Check out
@SehrangJoo
's talk “No privileged link between intentionality and causation: Generalizable effects of agency in language”.
It's tomorrow in the Causation I talk session (begins at 8:30am) in Room
#103
. w/ myself,
@aprettyaday
, Frank Keil, and
@xphilosopher
.
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I met
@academiadam
when he was interviewing for graduate school, and we got to chat several times.
For that reason, it was a great honor to then appear on his podcast and talk about some of my work. He asks many really insightful questions -- definitely worth checking out!
New episode with
@sami_r_yousif
discussing his research on teleological beliefs ("why" questions regarding the purpose of things) and spatial cognition!
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Working with
@alice_liefgreen
and
@david_lagnado
was one of my most positive collaborative experiences ever. Highly recommend! (Plus, the project is neat, too.)
The product of a wonderful collaboration with
@sami_r_yousif
, Frank Keil and
@david_lagnado
is finally out in Cognition! Free open access for 50 days following the link below:
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This is what you’ll find at the end!
If you’re in Sydney for
#CogSci2023
, this walk, which
@sami_r_yousif
and I did this morning, is definitely worth checking out. Stunning views of both nature and neighborhoods throughout
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What are good examples of behavioral effects that can result from diff. mechanisms?
I am thinking of something like infant looking times. Greater looking time could reflect one of two opposing mechanisms (novelty, familiarity).
Especially interested in examples w/ human adults.
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Uh oh now we're doing twitter replications of my studies! 👀
(Thank you Jon for the thread!)
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Matthias beat us to posting about our own preprint — Amazing!
This is part of ongoing work with Sam Clarke in which we explore what perceptual adaptation is, what it isn’t, and what it tells us about the contents of perception.
We have much more to say about this—coming soon!
New paper by
@sami_r_yousif
and Sam Clarke on size adaptation: "we argue that while there is evidence to license the claim that size adaptation is genuine, size adaptation is a puzzling and poorly understood phenomenon." Available here:
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Julian makes a thoughtful, useful suggestion that
@cogsci_soc
should consider!
I'll add: I've only ever had two CSS submissions rejected. One was later published in Psych Science, the other in JEP:G.
The process is *incredibly* noisy; students should not be discouraged.
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@Sakiera_Hudson
@MikeyPasek
@aeriELLE_allen
Here's what this looks like, if anyone is curious. Every single project begins with me copy/pasting this template, and then adding to each folder as I go along.
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I also want to thank my mentor, hero, and friend, Frank Keil. Although not a co-author, he made this work possible.
He is the perfect academic. At once, the most curious person I've ever met, the most open-minded, and the most humble. We should all try to be more like Frank.
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Working with Sarah has been the most rewarding experience of my career. 3 years ago, she came to me (her TA) with a crazy idea in an area I knew little about. She's taught me so much, and I'm proud of the work we've done. Very excited to see what she will accomplish post-Yale.
Literally dozens of things I keep in a notes file, but a thing that really stuck these last few months is:
"You should believe in yourself. But if that's hard, know that I believe in you. And I know you believe in me—so trust me."
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3 yrs ago, while I was TAing for Cog Dev, Sarah said she was interested in teleology. I remember her telling me that "something about this work on teleology just doesn't make sense". So we started studying it! The first of several papers together has been officially accepted :)
My first, first-author paper is now in press at Mind & Language! Updated preprint available here: and more info below. (1/3)
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This is a great thread.
My two cents: one of the best things any university could do for its graduate students is offer third party arbitration for cases of harassment. This problem is significantly worse in academia than most realize (except for those who have confronted it).
The other thing the university won’t budge on is having third party arbitration available for cases of harassment and discrimination. Such an arrangement may be illegal under title IX, I am told.
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Four years ago, I agreed to advise Sarah on a whim. I didn’t know what this ‘teleology’ stuff was about — but I wanted to learn how to mentor students on *their* projects.
This paper represents a huge milestone in her research program. Highly recommend for everyone!
This paper (forthcoming in Cognitive Science!) began as a proposal for Frank’s DevPsych class (w/ then-TF
@sami_r_yousif
!), turned into an actual project, & then somehow my senior essay. And now it's going to be real & out in the world!
How it started vs How it’s going
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J. Park has recently argued that our approach to studying area perception is flawed (). His paper is forthcoming in Cognition; check it out! You should also check out our reply (hopefully to be published alongside), here:
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The last few years, Frank and I have published several papers on area/size perception. Recently, we've enjoyed discussing these ideas with Joonkoo Park, who has some concerns about our approach.
Our reply to his commentary is now published in Cognition:
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And then thanks to SO many others who contributed in ways big and small!
@julia_a_leonard
@xphilosopher
@vayzenberg90
@LaurenAulet
@SehrangJoo
@flora_xy_zhang
@chazfirestone
@monicarosenb
@ClaraColombatto
@bvb373
@stefanuddenberg
@ahbailey04
@ClaraColombatto
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Sarah and I have worked on several papers together about how teleological thinking (i.e., about the purposes of things) is involved in aspects of higher-level cognition (explanation, etc). But is teleological thinking also involved in how we conceptualize categories? See below!
In my first duo-authored paper with
@sami_r_yousif
, we address the possibility that cognitive essentialism is about teleology (ie purposes) and not internal properties. Our take: There is no reason to think that essences are uniquely teleological.
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I have so much gratitude for many folks who guided me along the way, including
@LourencoLab
,
@xphilosopher
,
@smickdougle
,
@epstein_lab
, Frank Keil, Dick Aslin, Liz Brannon, and Anna Papafragou...
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I'm flying to CDS this afternoon, and I am realizing this is the first time I'll have attended an in-person conference since I became active (ish) on twitter (~3 years ago).
I guess this means I'll meet people that I've only ever known via their twitter presence. Weird.
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I’ll be presenting this work in the afternoon poster session at VSS today (Saturday).
If you have thoughts, stop by and chat!
I've been working on a huge project on *number adaptation* with Sam Clarke and Liz Brannon. We've just posted a version of our CogSci paper.
Our stance: Despite dozens of papers documenting it, we aren't sure that number adaptation is real. Read more:
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I'm biased, but this is an excellent opportunity.
If anyone is interested and has questions, feel free to reach out!
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Very excited that Sarah is presenting this work.
It represents the culmination of our joint work for the past ~4 years. Do check it out!!!
This work (w/
@sami_r_yousif
and Frank Keil) on explanation and why q’s (and children’s potential intuitive belief in God) has always been a developmental project at heart. I’m very excited to be presenting it at
#CDS2022
at 4:15 in the Attitudes and Beliefs oral papers session!
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A simple question with an intriguing (and informative) answer!
Can you tell which of these groups contains more dots? It might feel like you’re completely guessing – but in our paper out in
@jnc_mcls
, we found people actually succeed at comparisons as hard as 50 vs. 51!
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@NoraNewcombe
Can’t say enough about how life-changing Dick’s support has been. Frank Keil’s support should also be noted. Both of them were not only understanding but excellent models for how to navigate a difficult situation calmly and ethically.
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Spotify tells me I listed to 79 different genres of music this year. I thought that was pretty good until it showed me the Top 5. Maybe my music tastes aren’t as diverse as I thought…
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Visited Colorado for the first time over the holidays. What a beautiful state!
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...for many who provided support along the way:
@brynnesherman
@SehrangJoo
@flora_xy_zhang
@DorsaAmir
@chazfirestone
@vayzenberg90
@LaurenAulet
@tristansyates
@paulgyoung1
@HenryHMattingly
@NataliaICordova
@ahbailey04
@AboodyRosie
@MarleneBerke
@emilyrperkins
@AleneSherman
...
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For the next 2.5 years, that job + tutoring + other teaching allowed me to stay in school while doing the things I love. I 100% wouldn’t be here without them. Eternally grateful.
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