Levi Solomyak

Very excited to share 📢🎉 my first first-author paper out in @PLOSCompBiol, where @eraneldar , @paul_b_sharp and I demonstrate that the way humans encode preferences is adapted to the diversity of experiences offered by the immediate learning context. #pcbi-1010664-g001" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/a…

To all those asking me what's going to happen at @Columbia and other American universities, the truth is - I don't know. But here are my predictions: (1) The pro-Hamas professors like Joseph Massad and Hamid Dabishi will keep indoctrinating students. In three months, they will receive a new crop of first-year undergraduates to fill with hate against Israel and the United States. (2) Unless they face actual consequences, the pro-terror student organizations like SJP and JVP will continue disrupting academic life on campus, making life unbearable for Jewish and Israeli students. (3) There will be unauthorized protests and illegal encampments, with complete impunity for their leaders. They will organize pro-Hamas protests during orientation. They will organize pro-Hamas protests to mark the anniversary of the October 7 Massacre. They will organize pro-Hamas protests to shut down any speaker with whom they disagree. (4) Following months of constant bombing from Lebanon, Israel will eventually have to fight Hezbollah (remember, almost 100,000 Israelis have not been able to return to their homes in Northern Israel since October). There will be civilian casualties. The pro-terror student organizations and their faculty indoctrinators will side with Hezbollah. (5) Most "good" professors will stay silent. Professors of psychology who have stood idly by will teach students about the importance of bystander intervention. Professors of business who haven't shown even an iota of leadership will teach MBAs how to be leaders. Professors of sociology who haven't said a word in defense of Jewish students will teach students about the importance of diversity. Professors of gender studies who haven't said a word about the mass rapes by Hamas will teach about body autonomy. Just a lot more of "do as I say, not as I do." (5) I may or may not have a job at @Columbia, but I will still be there, fighting. Because fuck it. This is more important than anything else I have ever done.

Amazing how little thought the anti-oppression crowd spares for the fact that Hamas stole hundreds of millions of dollars meant for the Palestinians to build a financial and military empire with its leaders living abroad like kings in lavish hotels.

The irony of all the anti-Israel marches is they reinforce the logic of an Israel.

Bizarre how no Arab country has offered to help one Gazan refugee. But those freakin Jews better feed them and give them water and electricity while they slaughter their children, rape their women, fire rockets at them and hold 200 hostages…

A hospital in Ashkelon, Israel is hit by rockets fired by Hamas on October 8th. Silence. A hospital in Gaza is hit on October 17th. When those rockets might be Israeli - worldwide outrage and condemnation. When it turns out they might actually be Palestinian - silence.

Hamas stole 24,000 liter fuel from a hospital in Gaza. Hamas does not care about Gaza residents. Hamas ruined the life of Gaza residents. #ThisIsHamas

Wednesday, an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside @Columbia's main library. Thursday, hundreds of students gathered on the campus to cheer on the mass genocide of Jews. Where is the president of the university? What is being done to keep Jewish students safe? nypost.com/2023/10/12/isr…

@hubermanlab @hubermanlab what to do about persistent headaches post-plunges, particularly when submerging my head in the water?

It does not completely offset the massive sympathetic activation, which is what causes the increased alertness, and in some people, highly accelerated breathing. But it makes the whole experience more manageable. No requirement to do cold plunges or showers of course but if you do, I suggest in the morning anytime before workouts, or in general before workouts as opposed to afterwards. The impact on neurotransmitter levels (e.g., dopamine and norepinephrine) and thereby mood and alertness hours is substantial and long lasting (hours).

Wonder why submerging your head and/or face at the start of a cold plunge for 5-20 seconds makes the rest of it *easier*? Because it activates the mammalian dive response, the parasympathetic (‘calming’) aspect of the autonomic nervous system & thereby lowers heart rate.

Can we use computational accounts of emotions to better understand emotional disturbances? In our new paper (doi.org/10.1007/s00213…), @eraneldar and I expand the "emotions as computations" framework /1

New preprint out! We demonstrate that uncertainty aversion is associated with more expanded semantic representations, reduced semantic interference and generalization. Thanks to @DaantjedeBruin, and the thorough guidance of @orielf and @apaxon! biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

These findings from Solomyak, Sharp and Eldar clarify what learning conditions promote the formation of generalizable preferences that can help reach optimal decisions across different contexts. Read their full article here: plos.io/3fRrGIk

A special thanks to my incredible mentor @eraneldar for all of his guidance in this work, to @paul_b_sharp for all of his help and mentorship throughout this project, and to our highly insightful and helpful reviewers at @PLOSCompBiol. (9/9)

Our findings clarify what learning conditions promote the learning of preferences that generalize well across different contexts. Such learning is vital in the real world where experience is inevitably fragmented across multiple shifting contexts.(8/9)

Very excited to share 📢🎉 my first first-author paper out in @PLOSCompBiol, where @eraneldar , @paul_b_sharp and I demonstrate that the way humans encode preferences is adapted to the diversity of experiences offered by the immediate learning context. #pcbi-1010664-g001" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/a…