Hookmark 7.2 is available: improved context window and more.
Brief NPR Interview of Me on the Cognitive Shuffle Aired Today
Missing my mellifluous voice 😉? Here is the link to NPR interview of me published today ( 2026-04-29). It’s just a few minutes long. It’s on the cognitive shuffle sleep technique and research:
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2026/04/29/cognitive-shuffling-sleep
Mental Perturbance in Landmark Publication in Cognitive Science and AI
I’m pleased to report that this paper has now been selected for inclusion in the 2026 four-volume reference work Artificial Intelligence: Critical Concepts in Cognitive Science—a collection intended to map the intellectual development of AI as a field contributing to cognitive science.
You can read about mental perturbance, that paper, and a more recent paper on the same topic here: Why You Can’t Stop Thinking About Them.
As part of the learning from stories project, I also briefly explored Repetition As a Cognitive Device in Stories and Song, arguing that repetition in art (story, song, etc.) functions because it resembles mental perturbance. And mental perturbance is fundamental to human cognition and emotion.
Why AI Needs More Years of Education—and More Geometry
If you’re curious about that, please read my Substack article published today: What We Cut from Education—and Why It Matters for Cognitive Science and AI. The answer may surprise you.
Updated BSBM+ a New Meditation for Strengthening Attention, Executive Control, and Emotional Regulation
Having published a wildly popular meditation for inducing sleep called the “cognitive shuffle,” On my substack, I’ve published a new iteration of my BSBM+ meditation. This multi-anchor meditation intersperses Andrew Huberman’s “physiological sigh” technique in a body scan during which one controls one’s breathing and recites a mantra. In the “+” phase, this meditation is optionally followed by an open monitoring or focused attention meditation.
Have a look and let me know what you think on social media.
Hazel, Clean My Links, Hookmark 7.0.2 etc.
Here’s a summary of a newsletter we sent today to all Hookmark customers:
How Cognitive Science Helps Design Better Software
Our software company is called CogSci Apps for a reason: our software is designed with cognitive science in mind. Following Donald Schön’s The Reflective Practitioner, we recognize that one cannot directly infer engineering (or psychotherapy) from science—but one can design better systems by using science as a guiding resource.
Continue reading How Cognitive Science Helps Design Better Software
Recently
These days, I write mainly on the Hookmark blog and my Substack..
How to update yourself — include productive practice in your workflows
We are constantly told that we can transform ourselves by reading more, listening more, watching more. We assume we will remember, understand, and apply what we take in. In educational psychology, these are called illusions of learning (discussed in Cognitive Productivity with macOS). Most people believe that re-reading is an effective learning strategy. In fact, research shows that the mind does not easily transform itself by re-reading.
I believe the key to taking control of one’s learning is to use productive practice. I explain that on substack.
A Story Was a Deal
In A Story Is a Deal: How to Use the Science of Storytelling to Lead, Motivate In and Persuade, Will Storr arguess that a story involves a deal between the storyteller and the listener. I argue on my substack that before we became such a literate society, this was much more likely to be the case than it is now that we are inundated with stories.