Uma Karmarkar

@umakarma

Decision (neuro)scientist. Joint faculty between business and policy at UCSD. Neuroeconomics, psych, marketing, policy, snark, etc.

2.156 Folgt3.101 Follower1.065 Posts

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Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir umakarma.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Jul 7

I totally forgot to talk about a new paper from me, @johnclithero.bsky.social and Carolina Raffaelli in JEP:Gen✨ psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202... Suppose you're offered a lottery ticket. Which info do you want to know about first - the likelihood of winning (risk) or the amount of the pot (reward)?

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Apr 26

There's a post going around about a gif from movies you've watched more than 6 times. It says: "Hard mode: no Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, DC, Marvel, Disney, Pixar, Spielberg, Cameron, Wachowskis, or Ghibli." *laughs in GenX* - hard mode? You left us John Hughes.

a grid of John Hughes movie covers, including Ferris Bueller's Day Off; Sixteen Candles; Pretty in Pink; The Breakfast Club; Weird Science; Some Kind of Wonderful; Planes Trains and Automobiles, and The Great Outdoors.

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Apr 22

So, reading other people's experiences, it seems like Google's Scholar Labs lets you do more complex academic literature queries. This seems super helpful for exploring decision-making lit. But you also have to be okay with the fact that it hallucinates references.

image of two road signs. One says "1 step forward" the second one says "2 steps back"

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Mar 24

I absolutely believe this is also true of neuro-jargon Horrified daily by what happens when the two intersect

Picture of the character Egon from Ghostbusters saying "don't cross the streams"

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Mar 14

Paging OmegaMart?

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Mar 11

Wheee! I hope someone's psychophysics thesis is going well. www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd/

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Mar 10

Trent Reznor continues to live up to the hype

concert poster for nine inch nails peel it back tour consisting of a 3x4 grid of black and white images and "nine inch nails peel it back tour 2025 in red text"

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Mar 6

In case the reference wasn't familiar - here's bunny/duck

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Feb 17

Wishes of joy, prosperity and fried food to all.

Text saying "happy new year, Year of the Horse 2026" in gold on a red background with flower decorations and a stylized gold horse

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Feb 9

RhetAI is an interdisciplinary group aiming to explore "the intersection of AI and Persuasion to foster safer technology" Their second summit is at UCI - if you're in southern California, please stop by! www.rhetai.com/register

conference poster with text reading "AlphaPersuade 2.0 The 2nd Summit on Persuasion in AI". Three featured speakers are listed, Bob Williamson, Uma Karmarkar and Jesse Grey Eagle.

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Feb 8

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Jan 6

Oh no! Okay, San Diego here. We're the original home of the California burrito (which has fries in it) but for me the true gem is fish tacos. How could you not appreciate a city that commits to Taco Tuesday at the beach!

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Jan 5

The full nerd version of the framework is a little more precise (and complex) so if this looks interesting, I hope you read the paper!

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Oct 29

I'm doing the thing where you procrastinate on the important task by working on useful but less pressing tasks. Being honest with myself about this has not helped me stop doing it.

"productive procrastination meme". Image of kermit the frog facing a version of himself whose face is obscured by a black hood. text says:
Me: Time to get work done in a nice timely fashion
Me to Me: Or we could hyperfocus on a complicated but unimportant organization task that has already waited for 6 months

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Oct 6

This is only the second year that the Society for Neuroeconomics has offered a Mid Career Award, and we are delighted to announce @ccruff.bsky.social as the 2025 winner!

Photo of Christian Ruff, with the text Mid Career Award

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Oct 6

A huge congratulations to @drnikkisullivan.bsky.social and Kiyohito Iigaya, the 2025 winners of the Society for Neuroeconomics Early Career Award!

photos of Nikki Sullivan and Kiyohito Iigaya with the text "early career awards"

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Sep 23

For pop culture* vultures, this brand has been extensively promoted on the reality show Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and I'm dying to know what their customer demographics look like. (*SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Aug 28

Spectacular, but just to be as extremely nerdy as possible, I did think "blood circulation" for that blue and red one.

anatomical-style image of the veins (drawn in blue) and arteries (drawn in red) in a human circulatory system centered around the torso. No specific image of a body is shown, but the overall shapes of the vessels imply neck, arms, torso and tops of legs.

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Aug 8

Shut up, you were thinking it too.

Blue animated tiger; the character "Derpy Tiger" from the movie KPop Demon Hunters

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Aug 6

I just needed to get professional help to install spm

image of the cartoon dog named Dug from the animated Pixar movie Up. He is wearing a medical/veterinary "cone" over his head, and the text says "I do not like the cone of shame"

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Aug 1

At a cafe this morning - Me : <squinting> did someone...frame a drawing of the Circle of Willis on the wall? Spouse: Me : No, sorry, I think that's an axolotl Spouse: *Why are you like this* (Okay, but like, I think I have a point, just look at the pictures)

ON the left, a sketch of an axolotl in red pencil. On the right, an anatomical diagram of the Circle of Willis (a set of blood vessels providing primary blood supply to the brain).

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Jul 18

Yes, I have run fMRI studies. However, I have always been, and will always be afraid of the magnet.

image of Munch's painting "the scream" depicting a figure on a bridge with hands raised to their face and mouth open in a scream.

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Jun 4

We consulted the sacred texts.

Image shows the cover of "The Thomas Guide" for California, a Road Atlas and Driver's Guide

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· May 27

I have reached the stage in my career where for-profits ask for work in exchange for "opportunities to develop cases", "connections with industry", "a chance for student involvement", etc. It's like getting to live that influencer life, only less photogenic!

cartoon-esque drawing in the style of a 1950's advertisement, showing a woman holding a stack of paper "money". Text reads "New. Exposure Bucks. Pay your landlord, buy your groceries. Accepted Everywhere! 'No, no, just pay men in exposure'"

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· May 8

Hello darkness, my old friend

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Apr 13

Funniest part about this Harvard/MIT shade is that the comic artist is from Stanford, whose clay tile roofs yielded the affectionate architectural description of "Fancy Taco Bell".

Top is a photo of classical red brick buildings on the Harvard Campus (looks like Peabody museum to me?). Bottom half is aerial photo of some of the curvy fantastical architecture of Frank Gehry's Stata Center at MIT.

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Mar 9

Definite need for more exploration of addiction & shopping behavior- hard to split "retail therapy" from "maladaptive" We've proposed integrating knowledge in psychiatry, cons behavior and neuroecon for this problem (Clithero, Karmarkar & Hsu, 2021) www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Figure 2 from Clithero, Karmarkar and Hsu, 2021. Left side shows transition from goals to habits and their role in addiction. This transition can be modeled as a progression from goal directed control to habitual control, with increasing compulsivity. Top half of the left side summarizes how various portions of the
population demonstrate different levels of compulsivity, is modified from Belin et al. (2013). The bottom half of left side showing
the importance of repetition and reinforcement in the transition, is modified from de Wit (2018). On right, three core components of the
“cycle of addiction” as conceptualized in Volkow, Koob, and McLellan (2016).

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Feb 24

Cleaning up old files & found my favorite professional photo featuring a central takeaway from my research on ambiguity and information preferences.

Dark-haired woman in jeans and a blazer standing on a stage with a colorful backdrop. There is a large screen with a slide projected on it that says "Informative is more persuasive than information"

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Feb 4

Ming Hsu with an exceptional talk title at the recent symposium honoring his advisor Colin Camerer #cfcfc #neuroeconomics

Professor Ming Hsu standing at a podium in front of his title slide which reads "Neuroeconomics: a History of Bad Decisions (and Why They are Worth Understanding)

Uma Karmarkar@umakarma· Jan 21

Perfect timing - my fancy science advocacy pin (thank you @nicolecrust.bsky.social !) is ready for introducing neuroecon and applied psych to psych undergrads today, and high schoolers on @skypeascientist.bsky.social in a few weeks.