Mark Ho
@mark_ho_
computational cog sci • problem solving and social cognition • asst prof @NYUPsych • http://markkho.bsky.social
1/ I'm excited to share our new paper, now in @Nature! Paper: nature.com/articles/s4158… PDF: rdcu.be/cNVkp Summary 🧵: We present a new theory of problem simplification to answer an old question in cognitive science and AI: How do we represent problems when planning?
Today we open-sourced a new project for developing behavioral experiments online. It is called Smile. Announcement of v0.1.0: todd.gureckislab.org/2025/07/22/s... Smile has been used internally in my lab for several years and has substantially increased our productivity.
Thrilled to announce I’ll be joining @PurdueCS as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2026! My lab will work on AI thought partners, machines that think with people rather than instead of people – I'll be recruiting PhD students this upcoming cycle so reach out & apply if interested!
Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s41586…
How do people teach? 🍎🧑🏫 We know mentalizing is important for teaching (eg simulating a learner's mind) but that can take effort 🤔 New work led by @harootonian expands this picture by examining how people also teach with *less effortful heuristics*
🚨 New preprint alert! 🚨 Thrilled to share new research on teaching! Work supervised by @cocosci_lab, @yael_niv, and @mark_ho_. This project asks: When do people teach by mentalizing vs with heuristics? 1/3 osf.io/preprints/osf/…
🚨 New preprint alert! 🚨 Thrilled to share new research on teaching! Work supervised by @cocosci_lab, @yael_niv, and @mark_ho_. This project asks: When do people teach by mentalizing vs with heuristics? 1/3 osf.io/preprints/osf/…
Are you considering attending @cogsci_soc this year? Come to our workshop, 'Reasoning Across Minds and Machines', which features an exciting lineup of interdisciplinary research in AI and CogSci about reasoning. The workshop is W2 and visible along with the main conference.
Really excited for this workshop in August!
🖼️Reminder!! Finding the Frame will be held on August 5 at @RL_Conference at @UAlberta! See you in Edmonton 📰Submit here: openreview.net/group?id=rl-co… ⌛️Deadline: May 30 🔗More info: sites.google.com/view/findingth…
🤔 Interested in models of social interaction and computational psychiatry? 🤗 If so, @shawnrhoadsphd and I are seeking a highly motivated and talented postdoc to work on these topics! Please share widely! apply.interfolio.com/165809

🚨 @mark_ho_ & I are recruiting a joint postdoc interested in computational models of social interaction & computational psychiatry 💻 Ideal candidates have experience with multi-player web-based experiments & computational cognitive modeling 🔗 apply.interfolio.com/165809
🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.
Joint work with Sophia Sanborn (@naturecomputes), @mark_ho_, Fred Callaway (@callfredaway), @nathanieldaw, & Tom Griffiths (@cocosci_lab). More details are available in the preprint announcement. x.com/_cgcorrea/stat…
Human behavior is hierarchically structured. But what determines *which* hierarchies people use? In a preprint, we run an experiment where people create programs that correspond to hierarchies, finding that people prefer structures with more reuse. arxiv.org/abs/2311.18644 1/7
Shout out to my incredible co-authors: Sophia Sanborn (@naturecomputes), @mark_ho_, Fred Callaway (@callfredaway), @nathanieldaw, & Tom Griffiths (@cocosci_lab).
Thrilled that this is now out in Cognition! Really cool (and fun!) project on hierarchical planning led by the amazing @_cgcorrea 🥳
My paper on hierarchical plans is out in Cognition!🎉 tldr: We ask participants to generate hierarchical plans in a programming game. People prefer to reuse beyond what standard accounts predict, which we formalize as induction of a grammar over actions. authors.elsevier.com/a/1kBQr2Hx2xLNA
(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/9780262049412/…
.@katie_m_collins et al. advance a new Perspective of how we can build systems that complement our limitations and can be considered thought partners. @sucholutsky @umangsbhatt @_k_a_c_h_ @MinaLee__ @xuanalogue @mark_ho_ @vmansinghka @adrian_weller [9/13] nature.com/articles/s4156…
This month is the one-year anniversary of the publication of my book, "Code to Joy". I'm happy to announce it's also the month of the release of the audiobook version of the book, which I narrate. Enjoy! @mitpress amazon.com/dp/B0DKG4KPWY
What does it take to build AI systems that meet our expectations and complement our limitations? Our Perspective on thought partners which engage deeply with computational cognitive science is now out in @NatureHumBehav ! nature.com/articles/s4156…
📢 PhD position in human, ape, or dog cognition @JohnsHopkins - please RT! We study how animals think, & what makes the human mind unique Deadline: Dec 1 Learn more here: social-cognitive-origins.com And here: social-cognitive-origins.com/join-our-team.… And in QT'd thread
🚨 PhD position(s) in human, nohuman primate, and dog cognition! I am thrilled to be recruiting one or more PhD students to join the new Comparative Social Cognition research group, launching next summer at @JohnsHopkins @JHUArtsSciences. 1/
🤖🧠NOW OUT IN PNAS🧠🤖 Language models show many surprising behaviors. E.g., they can count 30 items more easily than 29 In Embers of Autoregression, we explain such effects by analyzing what LMs are trained to do pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn… Major updates since the preprint! 1/n