Group leader at Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics @mpi-nl.bsky.social // Assistant Professor of Cognitive AI @UvA_Amsterdam. Cog-sci 🤝 AI 🤝 neuroscihttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mtiztoybsc2kNew preprint, w/ Karolina Drożdż Understanding language requires internally modelling what's happening where, even when unstated We built a new task to measure this ability in language models and people, and find it emerges at model scales far smaller than previously thought20 Aug 2026 10:26 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mtiztoybsc2khttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mr2yvab6bk2rBelated, but still happy to see our paper (with @drhanjones.bsky.social) on fleeting memory transformers is out in TACL! We find that giving language models human-like memory decay *improves* language learning, while, unexpectedly, impairing human reading time prediction Follow up results soon!20 Jul 2026 09:41 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mr2yvab6bk2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mqr5jkydhs2zWhat makes some stimuli more memorable than others? In a new paper w/ @davogelsang.bsky.social, we show that the magnitude of a stimulus's ANN representation predicts both image and word memorability Stimuli that activate more features, more strongly, leave a stronger memory trace Out now in JML⬇️16 Jul 2026 11:37 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqr5jkydhs2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mjjs4a7f3c2rNijmegen friends: Tomorrow (10–12) I'll be debating Pim Haselager at a Donders Session on the thesis: "Artificial neural network models are adequate mechanistic models of the mind" I'm defending, he's opposing. Should be fun. Come join us! https://www.ru.nl/en/donders-institute/agenda/donders-session-16-april @dondersinst.bsky.social15 Apr 2026 11:28 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjjs4a7f3c2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3miy5anjzb22nClassic predictive coding: V1 predicts low-level features, higher areas high-level. But recent studies + AI models suggest prediction happens at higher levels of abstraction. Who's right? In new work w/ @wiegerscheurer.bsky.social we find that both are – distinct regimes across the visual field [contains quote post or other embedded content]08 Apr 2026 11:00 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3miy5anjzb22nhttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mibphfw74k2lInterested in pursuing a PhD in NLP/cog-sci? Studying language learning in LMs from the perspective of human language acquisition? Few more days to apply!! [contains quote post or other embedded content]30 Mar 2026 12:54 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mibphfw74k2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mgph4na75k2g📢 PhD position in Developmental Language Modelling (PLZ RT) What can human language acquisition teach us about training language models? Join us as a PhD! mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-developmental-language @carorowland.bsky.social @mpi-nl.bsky.social10 Mar 2026 13:12 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgph4na75k2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mgph4na75k2g📢 PhD position in Developmental Language Modelling (PLZ RT) What can human language acquisition teach us about training language models? Join us as a PhD! mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-developmental-language @carorowland.bsky.social @mpi-nl.bsky.social10 Mar 2026 13:12 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgph4na75k2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mgcvyshpnk2j📢 PhD position in the NeuroAI of Language Why can LLMs predict brain activity so well? We're hiring a PhD student to find out -- AI interpretability meets neuroimaging Deadline March 20 Please RT 🙏 👇 mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-neuroai-language05 Mar 2026 13:34 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgcvyshpnk2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mftisf5evk23Job update: Next week I start as a group leader at the Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen @mpi-nl.bsky.social 🧠 Building the Language and Predictive Computation group -- using LLMs to model language in the mind/brain, and vice versa. Hiring soon!27 Feb 2026 10:27 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mftisf5evk23https://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3mdx5ztzjds2mInteresting convergence: The trick that made predictive self-supervised vision models work seems to be what the brain was doing all along w/ @predictivebrain.bsky.social: visual cortex is most sensitive to high-level prediction errors -- even in V1 Now published: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013136 [contains quote post or other embedded content]03 Feb 2026 10:35 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3mdx5ztzjds2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/mheilbron.bsky.social/post/3m4zusqzmr22kThis is, without a doubt, the best popular article about current state of AI. And on whether LLMs are truly 'thinking' or 'understanding' -- and what that question even means https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/10/the-case-that-ai-is-thinking07 Nov 2025 10:32 +0000at://did:plc:sufletpsh5msygu7ht7xbs6y/app.bsky.feed.post/3m4zusqzmr22k