Dota Tianai Dong
@dotadotadota.bsky.social
Phd student at @MPI_NL@Donders, working on language and interaction in 🖥️ and 👶🧠 https://tianaidong.github.io/
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Understanding how learners conclude “X laughed Y” is incorrect is an age-old question, with several hypotheses, some of which have been ~impossible to disentangle!
@tomyxw.bsky.social, @fredashi.bsky.social, and I use controlled rearing to shed light on this in our new EMNLP paper:
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@tomyxw.bsky.social, @fredashi.bsky.social, and I use controlled rearing to shed light on this in our new EMNLP paper:
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September 9, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Understanding how learners conclude “X laughed Y” is incorrect is an age-old question, with several hypotheses, some of which have been ~impossible to disentangle!
@tomyxw.bsky.social, @fredashi.bsky.social, and I use controlled rearing to shed light on this in our new EMNLP paper:
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@tomyxw.bsky.social, @fredashi.bsky.social, and I use controlled rearing to shed light on this in our new EMNLP paper:
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Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Are brains and artificial neural networks converging onto universal representations?
There is a seductive idea making the rounds in NeuroAI / machine learning: train systems well enough, and they all converge on the same representation of reality (i.e. a unique world model).
We have thoughts™
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There is a seductive idea making the rounds in NeuroAI / machine learning: train systems well enough, and they all converge on the same representation of reality (i.e. a unique world model).
We have thoughts™
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The Umwelt Representation Hypothesis: rethinking Universality
Recent studies reveal striking representational alignment between artificial neural
networks (ANNs) and biological brains, leading to proposals that all sufficiently
capable systems converge on univer...
www.cell.com
August 28, 2026 at 2:59 PM
Are brains and artificial neural networks converging onto universal representations?
There is a seductive idea making the rounds in NeuroAI / machine learning: train systems well enough, and they all converge on the same representation of reality (i.e. a unique world model).
We have thoughts™
1/n
There is a seductive idea making the rounds in NeuroAI / machine learning: train systems well enough, and they all converge on the same representation of reality (i.e. a unique world model).
We have thoughts™
1/n
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
This review began with the great Peter Hagoort asking after one of my talks: "What have we actually learned about the brain from brain–DNN comparisons?" 🔥
So eye-opening to survey NeuroAI work across vision and language--many questions have been answered in one field but remain open in the other!
So eye-opening to survey NeuroAI work across vision and language--many questions have been answered in one field but remain open in the other!
1/5 Over a decade of comparing deep neural networks to the human brain—but what have we actually learned? Our new @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social Feature Review synthesizes a decade of brain–DNN comparisons, asking what they reveal about brain function across vision and language.
July 23, 2026 at 1:08 PM
This review began with the great Peter Hagoort asking after one of my talks: "What have we actually learned about the brain from brain–DNN comparisons?" 🔥
So eye-opening to survey NeuroAI work across vision and language--many questions have been answered in one field but remain open in the other!
So eye-opening to survey NeuroAI work across vision and language--many questions have been answered in one field but remain open in the other!
1/5 Over a decade of comparing deep neural networks to the human brain—but what have we actually learned? Our new @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social Feature Review synthesizes a decade of brain–DNN comparisons, asking what they reveal about brain function across vision and language.
July 21, 2026 at 5:58 PM
1/5 Over a decade of comparing deep neural networks to the human brain—but what have we actually learned? Our new @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social Feature Review synthesizes a decade of brain–DNN comparisons, asking what they reveal about brain function across vision and language.
I’ll be presenting at 9:30 AM PST in Oral Session D: Linguistic Theories, Cognitive Modeling, and Psycholinguistics 2 at #ACL2026! Come say hi! 👋
And stay tuned for more of our work exploring language and language models in interactive worlds. 🚀
And stay tuned for more of our work exploring language and language models in interactive worlds. 🚀
Check out our #ACL2026 Oral paper 🗣️🤖
How do MLMs ground word usage through interactions with the physical and social world? Taking a classical human communication paradigm, we compare 7 MLMs with humans.
doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.84
How do MLMs ground word usage through interactions with the physical and social world? Taking a classical human communication paradigm, we compare 7 MLMs with humans.
doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.84
Using Perspectival Words Is Harder Than Vocabulary Words for Humans —and Even More So for Multimodal Language Models
Dota Tianai Dong, Yifan Luo, Po-Ya Angela Wang, Asli Ozyurek, Paula Rubio-Fernandez. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). 20...
doi.org
July 2, 2026 at 2:01 PM
I’ll be presenting at 9:30 AM PST in Oral Session D: Linguistic Theories, Cognitive Modeling, and Psycholinguistics 2 at #ACL2026! Come say hi! 👋
And stay tuned for more of our work exploring language and language models in interactive worlds. 🚀
And stay tuned for more of our work exploring language and language models in interactive worlds. 🚀
Check out our #ACL2026 Oral paper 🗣️🤖
How do MLMs ground word usage through interactions with the physical and social world? Taking a classical human communication paradigm, we compare 7 MLMs with humans.
doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.84
How do MLMs ground word usage through interactions with the physical and social world? Taking a classical human communication paradigm, we compare 7 MLMs with humans.
doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.84
Using Perspectival Words Is Harder Than Vocabulary Words for Humans —and Even More So for Multimodal Language Models
Dota Tianai Dong, Yifan Luo, Po-Ya Angela Wang, Asli Ozyurek, Paula Rubio-Fernandez. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). 20...
doi.org
July 2, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Check out our #ACL2026 Oral paper 🗣️🤖
How do MLMs ground word usage through interactions with the physical and social world? Taking a classical human communication paradigm, we compare 7 MLMs with humans.
doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.84
How do MLMs ground word usage through interactions with the physical and social world? Taking a classical human communication paradigm, we compare 7 MLMs with humans.
doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.84
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
(1/n) Thrilled to share my first paper at Meta FAIR! "EgoBabyVLM: Benchmarking Cross-Modal Learning from Naturalistic Egocentric Video Data" 👶 Human infants learn language from sparse, noisy multimodal input. Today's VLMs can't. We built a benchmark + challenge to close that gap. 🧵
June 26, 2026 at 10:51 PM
(1/n) Thrilled to share my first paper at Meta FAIR! "EgoBabyVLM: Benchmarking Cross-Modal Learning from Naturalistic Egocentric Video Data" 👶 Human infants learn language from sparse, noisy multimodal input. Today's VLMs can't. We built a benchmark + challenge to close that gap. 🧵
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Excited to announce that I'll be starting my own lab in Tübingen this October!
Hiring at all levels: Postdoc, PhD & RA.
Want to work on computational cognitive science at scale? Apply: core-cognition.github.io
Reposts and shares much appreciated 🙏
Hiring at all levels: Postdoc, PhD & RA.
Want to work on computational cognitive science at scale? Apply: core-cognition.github.io
Reposts and shares much appreciated 🙏
June 9, 2026 at 10:05 AM
Excited to announce that I'll be starting my own lab in Tübingen this October!
Hiring at all levels: Postdoc, PhD & RA.
Want to work on computational cognitive science at scale? Apply: core-cognition.github.io
Reposts and shares much appreciated 🙏
Hiring at all levels: Postdoc, PhD & RA.
Want to work on computational cognitive science at scale? Apply: core-cognition.github.io
Reposts and shares much appreciated 🙏
What is the function of function words ⁉️Using head-mounted eye-tracking and machine learning, we show how tiny words like THIS and THAT actively power word learning 👶🤖. Check our preprint, we’d love to hear your feedback!!!
In our latest paper on how multimodal interaction supports language acquisition, Zhang, Dong et al use head mounted eyetracking technology to demonstrate (!) the role of demonstratives (this/that) in helping children identify the correct referent in a complex visual scene osf.io/preprints/ps...
May 14, 2026 at 1:16 PM
What is the function of function words ⁉️Using head-mounted eye-tracking and machine learning, we show how tiny words like THIS and THAT actively power word learning 👶🤖. Check our preprint, we’d love to hear your feedback!!!
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Good morning #ICLR2026 ☀️
The Re-Align workshop kicks off in under an hour! A full day on what we can actually do with representational alignment, from brains to language models to agents.
Schedule in the thread 👇
The Re-Align workshop kicks off in under an hour! A full day on what we can actually do with representational alignment, from brains to language models to agents.
Schedule in the thread 👇
April 27, 2026 at 11:43 AM
Good morning #ICLR2026 ☀️
The Re-Align workshop kicks off in under an hour! A full day on what we can actually do with representational alignment, from brains to language models to agents.
Schedule in the thread 👇
The Re-Align workshop kicks off in under an hour! A full day on what we can actually do with representational alignment, from brains to language models to agents.
Schedule in the thread 👇
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Children exhibit visual understanding from limited experience, orders of magnitude less than our best models.
We introduce the Zero-shot World Model (ZWM). Trained on a single child's visual experience, BabyZWM rapidly generates competence across diverse benchmarks with no task-specific training. 🧵
We introduce the Zero-shot World Model (ZWM). Trained on a single child's visual experience, BabyZWM rapidly generates competence across diverse benchmarks with no task-specific training. 🧵
April 14, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Children exhibit visual understanding from limited experience, orders of magnitude less than our best models.
We introduce the Zero-shot World Model (ZWM). Trained on a single child's visual experience, BabyZWM rapidly generates competence across diverse benchmarks with no task-specific training. 🧵
We introduce the Zero-shot World Model (ZWM). Trained on a single child's visual experience, BabyZWM rapidly generates competence across diverse benchmarks with no task-specific training. 🧵
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
postdoc and PhD positions in visual cognitive computational neuroscience in my lab at the University of Cambridge kamilajozwik.com/join_lab.html
Kamila Jozwik - Join lab
kamilajozwik.com
March 23, 2026 at 9:13 PM
postdoc and PhD positions in visual cognitive computational neuroscience in my lab at the University of Cambridge kamilajozwik.com/join_lab.html
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
📢 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-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-language
March 5, 2026 at 1:34 PM
📢 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-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-language
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
📢 We’re now accepting applications for the 2026 School on Analytical Connectionism dedicated this year to Language Acquisition.
📍 Gothenburg, Sweden
🗓️ August 17–28, 2026
☠️ Apply by April 17!
🔗 analytical-connectionism.net/school/2026/
👇 Meet the experts joining us this summer!
📍 Gothenburg, Sweden
🗓️ August 17–28, 2026
☠️ Apply by April 17!
🔗 analytical-connectionism.net/school/2026/
👇 Meet the experts joining us this summer!
February 18, 2026 at 11:42 AM
📢 We’re now accepting applications for the 2026 School on Analytical Connectionism dedicated this year to Language Acquisition.
📍 Gothenburg, Sweden
🗓️ August 17–28, 2026
☠️ Apply by April 17!
🔗 analytical-connectionism.net/school/2026/
👇 Meet the experts joining us this summer!
📍 Gothenburg, Sweden
🗓️ August 17–28, 2026
☠️ Apply by April 17!
🔗 analytical-connectionism.net/school/2026/
👇 Meet the experts joining us this summer!
🔥🔥🔥
🚀 The Re-Align Challenge is now LIVE!
We’re inviting you to explore what properties of vision models and data lead to convergences and divergences in representational alignment.
🔗 Get started: huggingface.co/spaces/repre...
🧵👇
We’re inviting you to explore what properties of vision models and data lead to convergences and divergences in representational alignment.
🔗 Get started: huggingface.co/spaces/repre...
🧵👇
Re-Align Hackathon Leaderboard - a Hugging Face Space by representational-alignment
Submit Blue/Red hackathon JSON and rank by alignment scores.
huggingface.co
February 16, 2026 at 7:16 PM
🔥🔥🔥
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
I wrote a short article on AI Model Evaluation for the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science 📕👇
Hope this is helpful for anyone who wants a super broad, beginner-friendly intro to the topic!
Thanks @mcxfrank.bsky.social and @asifamajid.bsky.social for this amazing initiative!
Hope this is helpful for anyone who wants a super broad, beginner-friendly intro to the topic!
Thanks @mcxfrank.bsky.social and @asifamajid.bsky.social for this amazing initiative!
AI Model Evaluation by Jennifer Hu: https://doi.org/10.21428/e2759450.b0757e8d
February 12, 2026 at 10:22 PM
I wrote a short article on AI Model Evaluation for the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science 📕👇
Hope this is helpful for anyone who wants a super broad, beginner-friendly intro to the topic!
Thanks @mcxfrank.bsky.social and @asifamajid.bsky.social for this amazing initiative!
Hope this is helpful for anyone who wants a super broad, beginner-friendly intro to the topic!
Thanks @mcxfrank.bsky.social and @asifamajid.bsky.social for this amazing initiative!
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Get ready to submit your 8-pagers!
🚨 #CCN2026 Proceedings submissions are open!
CCN 2026 again features an 8-page Proceedings track (alongside extended abstracts). Accepted papers will appear in CCN-Proceedings (CCN‑P) with DOIs on OpenReview.
CCN 2026 again features an 8-page Proceedings track (alongside extended abstracts). Accepted papers will appear in CCN-Proceedings (CCN‑P) with DOIs on OpenReview.
January 28, 2026 at 4:49 PM
Get ready to submit your 8-pagers!
Missed the Re-Align hackathon at ICLR or CCN 2025 — or want more? 🙂 Re-Align is back at ICLR 2026 🚀 Beyond the paper track, we’re launching a persistent shared-task challenge + challenge paper track. Can’t wait to see your creative & critical takes on representational alignment 🔥🥳
🎉 Re-Align is back for its 4th edition at ICLR 2026!
📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields.
📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog)
⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers
🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/
📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields.
📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog)
⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers
🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/
January 8, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Missed the Re-Align hackathon at ICLR or CCN 2025 — or want more? 🙂 Re-Align is back at ICLR 2026 🚀 Beyond the paper track, we’re launching a persistent shared-task challenge + challenge paper track. Can’t wait to see your creative & critical takes on representational alignment 🔥🥳
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Thrilled to start 2026 as faculty in Psych & CS
@ualberta.bsky.social + Amii.ca Fellow! 🥳 Recruiting students to develop theories of cognition in natural & artificial systems 🤖💭🧠. Find me at #NeurIPS2025 workshops (speaking coginterp.github.io/neurips2025 & organising @dataonbrainmind.bsky.social)
@ualberta.bsky.social + Amii.ca Fellow! 🥳 Recruiting students to develop theories of cognition in natural & artificial systems 🤖💭🧠. Find me at #NeurIPS2025 workshops (speaking coginterp.github.io/neurips2025 & organising @dataonbrainmind.bsky.social)
December 6, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Thrilled to start 2026 as faculty in Psych & CS
@ualberta.bsky.social + Amii.ca Fellow! 🥳 Recruiting students to develop theories of cognition in natural & artificial systems 🤖💭🧠. Find me at #NeurIPS2025 workshops (speaking coginterp.github.io/neurips2025 & organising @dataonbrainmind.bsky.social)
@ualberta.bsky.social + Amii.ca Fellow! 🥳 Recruiting students to develop theories of cognition in natural & artificial systems 🤖💭🧠. Find me at #NeurIPS2025 workshops (speaking coginterp.github.io/neurips2025 & organising @dataonbrainmind.bsky.social)
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
🌱 The Donders Research Stimulation Funds give early-career scientists the freedom to build something new from the bottom up like the #Neuro-#AI #Focus #Group.
A new round of the Donders Research Stimulation Funds is open until December 1st. 👇
www.ru.nl/en/donders-i...
A new round of the Donders Research Stimulation Funds is open until December 1st. 👇
www.ru.nl/en/donders-i...
Donders’ Research Stimulation Funds: call for new collaborations and focus groups | Radboud University
At the Donders Institute, new ideas often begin at the crossroads of disciplines. Through its Research Stimulation Funds, the institute encourages researchers to explore collaborations.
www.ru.nl
November 14, 2025 at 8:48 AM
🌱 The Donders Research Stimulation Funds give early-career scientists the freedom to build something new from the bottom up like the #Neuro-#AI #Focus #Group.
A new round of the Donders Research Stimulation Funds is open until December 1st. 👇
www.ru.nl/en/donders-i...
A new round of the Donders Research Stimulation Funds is open until December 1st. 👇
www.ru.nl/en/donders-i...
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
🥳 I am incredibly humbled and grateful to share that our work, "Aligning machine and human visual representations across abstraction levels," has been published today in @nature.com ⬇️
What aspects of human knowledge do vision models like CLIP fail to capture, and how can we improve them? We suggest models miss key global organization; aligning them makes them more robust. Check out LukasMuttenthaler's work, finally out (in Nature!?) www.nature.com/articles/s41... + our blog! 1/3
Aligning machine and human visual representations across abstraction levels - Nature
Aligning foundation models with human judgments enables them to more accurately approximate human behaviour and uncertainty across various levels of visual abstraction, while additionally improving th...
www.nature.com
November 12, 2025 at 5:05 PM
🥳 I am incredibly humbled and grateful to share that our work, "Aligning machine and human visual representations across abstraction levels," has been published today in @nature.com ⬇️
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Introducing CorText: a framework that fuses brain data directly into a large language model, allowing for interactive neural readout using natural language.
tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
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tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
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November 3, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Introducing CorText: a framework that fuses brain data directly into a large language model, allowing for interactive neural readout using natural language.
tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
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tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬
1/n
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
Our paper in annual review of dev psych is out! It's a big-picture look at the development of social cognition from a computational perspective: compdevlab.yale.edu/docs/2025/an...
compdevlab.yale.edu
October 9, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Our paper in annual review of dev psych is out! It's a big-picture look at the development of social cognition from a computational perspective: compdevlab.yale.edu/docs/2025/an...
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
So excited and honored to receive an ERC Starting Grant for the project BrainAlign!! BrainAlign will bring LLMs closer to human understanding by directly aligning them with the human brain.
Stay tuned for our findings, and multiple postdoc and PhD openings in the coming years!
Stay tuned for our findings, and multiple postdoc and PhD openings in the coming years!
September 4, 2025 at 4:21 PM
So excited and honored to receive an ERC Starting Grant for the project BrainAlign!! BrainAlign will bring LLMs closer to human understanding by directly aligning them with the human brain.
Stay tuned for our findings, and multiple postdoc and PhD openings in the coming years!
Stay tuned for our findings, and multiple postdoc and PhD openings in the coming years!
Reposted by Dota Tianai Dong
I’m recruiting committee members for the Technical Program Committee at #CCN2026.
Please apply if you want to help make submission, review & selection of contributed work (Extended Abstracts & Proceedings) more useful for everyone! 🌐
Helps to have: programming/communications/editorial experience.
Please apply if you want to help make submission, review & selection of contributed work (Extended Abstracts & Proceedings) more useful for everyone! 🌐
Helps to have: programming/communications/editorial experience.
Fill out the form here to be involved in #CCN2026
tinyurl.com/ccn26committee
And definitely fill out the #CCN2025 feedback form!
tinyurl.com/ccn25partici...
tinyurl.com/ccn26committee
And definitely fill out the #CCN2025 feedback form!
tinyurl.com/ccn25partici...
CCN 2025 Participant Survey
❗ This is the general CCN post-conference survey. For the application form for positions on the committees at CCN 2026, please see the CCN 2026 Committee Application.
Thank you for participating in C...
tinyurl.com
August 19, 2025 at 2:12 PM
I’m recruiting committee members for the Technical Program Committee at #CCN2026.
Please apply if you want to help make submission, review & selection of contributed work (Extended Abstracts & Proceedings) more useful for everyone! 🌐
Helps to have: programming/communications/editorial experience.
Please apply if you want to help make submission, review & selection of contributed work (Extended Abstracts & Proceedings) more useful for everyone! 🌐
Helps to have: programming/communications/editorial experience.