“We propose a new model in which public communication and advocacy are considered as essential to our mission as rigor and reproducibility—critical not only for safeguarding science, but also for ensuring that its benefits reach all segments of the societies we serve” www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Neat registered report from @mattmattoni.bsky.social @dvsmith.bsky.social @mindimager.bsky.social and @olinotom.bsky.social diving into the tension between nomothetic (group-level) v. idiographic (individual specific) in functional connectivity models. #Neuroskyence direct.mit.edu/imag/article...

A deserving recognition for an incredible scientist and a great colleague. Congrats Nora! @noranewcombe.bsky.social

So excited that our work on children’s ability to discern real from AI-generated content received this recognition. We show that kids systematically misjudge some types of AI content as human, and that kids who use more technology in the home are worse at AI detection. Way to go Allison and team!

BREAKING: Scientists are staging a “science fair” in the lobby of a Congressional building to tell elected officials about the critical knowledge the US will lose because their research grants have been canceled.

Nice write up of our paper (with @vpmurty.bsky.social) showing that memories expressed with greater “authenticity” are more accurate, but people don’t use that information in judging whether someone actually remembers the event accurately or not, and instead use unreliable signals of accuracy.

This is great, and freely accessible!

Beyond honored! Credit to the amazing students and collaborators who I’ve had the incredible privilege to work beside along the way.

Alert! ... for the child development world! @fluxsociety.bsky.social @fitngin.bsky.social ‪ The Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study has released its first data wave - it’s massive. Check here: docs.hbcdstudy.org and here: nbdc-datahub.org Here’s why it matters 🧠🍼

Alert!!!! “An Action Networks Model for Pain” We propose a new model for chronic pain — and highlight two functionally connected cortical networks that could revolutionize how we treat it. 👉 thread below 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...

New research from MIT found that those who used ChatGPT can’t remember any of the content of their essays. Key takeaway: the product doesn’t suffer, but the process does. And when it comes to essays, the process *is* how they learn. arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...

This new article by @aaronjfisher.bsky.social, @mindimager.bsky.social, et al. is important for cogneuro research b/c it discusses the common yet problematic assumption that inferences based on group averages are applicable to inherently intraindividual processes. (1/3)

While the 'belief' plot draws attention, the core message of the final, deliberative consensus statements is that evidence linking smartphone and social media use to negative outcomes is limited, mixed, context-dependent, insufficient to support causal claims, and better research is needed.

Check if your university has signed. Write to your President if not.

New R package almost birthed - SemanticDistance - computes two semantic distance metrics (experiential and embedding) for any rolling chunk size (ngram-to-ngram, word-to-word, turn-to-turn, ngram-to-word). You give it your language sample. It does the rest, including lemmatize and stopword omit

Thinking about fMRI study designs for brain-based prediction? Updated preprint!

The research grants canceled this week will stop treatments in rural communities, will stop the study of cures for conditions that affect all people, and will take away jobs from lower and middle class folks who live in “red” states. Period.

With teens, it doesn't help to just say no to screen time. Instead, experts suggest teaching them to be smarter viewers of content, and learn to recognize how influencers and algorithms can manipulate them.

NEW 🧵 Is human intelligence starting to decline? Recent results from major international tests show that the average person’s capacity to process information, use reasoning and solve novel problems has been falling since around the mid 2010s What should we make of this? www.ft.com/content/a801...

New report shows that NIH grants fueled $95 billion in economic activity and 407,782 jobs in 2024. That's not to mention the countless lives that biomedical research has saved. Show me a better investment than that. www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

|| New Publication (Nature Communications) Psychological Booster Shots Targeting Memory​ Increase Long-Term Resistance Against Misinformation doi.org/10.1038/s414... Press Release www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-03... Key Findings * Inoculation works * Effects dissipate * Booster shots remedy this (1/10)

Very excited that this fun collaborative piece with @aliocohen.bsky.social is now in press! We highlight how insights from adolescent brain development can shape and enhance computational models of learning.

My lab’s latest paper, with @vpmurty.bsky.social. Memory for a scary real-world event (a haunted house) is reflected in the “authenticity” of expressed memories, but listeners mistakenly think accuracy is reflected in how “analytic” the expressed memory is - oops! link.springer.com/article/10.3...

And now this!? These moves are going to complete destroy land at NzIH that do incredible and important work

Former NIH director weighs in on the status of science in today’s America. A good summary of where we are, and why its bad. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/o...

Scientist unite!

All NIH study sections canceled indefinitely. This will halt science and devastate research budgets in universities.

Setting up an fMRI model and getting hit with collinearity errors? Been there! 😢 Try removing regressors? Orthogonal regressors? Other tricks to resolve collinearity errors? Guess what—those fixes might make things worse. We explore why and propose recommendations. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Unintended bias in the pursuit of collinearity solutions in fMRI analysis - Amazing work by @jeanette-mumford.bsky.social and @demidenko.bsky.social and many thanks to all of our collaborators! If you are using the monetary incentive delay (MID) task you should definitely read this.

My paper with @mikearcaro.bsky.social exploring the organization of pulvino-cortical connections in newborn human infants is now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social ! www.cell.com/current-biol...

I am devastated to share the news that Professor Eleanor Maguire has died at the age of 51 after 3 operations and proton beam therapy for a spinal tumour. She was internationally renowned for her work on navigation, episodic memory and brain plasticity. #neuroscience #psychology

Democratic Values can be embedded directly into Social Media via the recommendation algorithms dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1... A social media feed that downranks anti-democratic content reduces partisan animosity compared to engagement-based algorithms (d=.25).

Geoengineering could save 400,000 lives annually by 2080, a study finds. There is a 61% probability that the benefits would outweigh the risks from air pollution and ozone loss caused by the injection of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

It helps if you imagine auto-correct as a tiny elf in your phone who's trying so hard to be helpful but is, in fact, quite drunk.

Excited that our study on individual differences in human discernment of generative-AI texts (masquerading as social media news posts) is out in #ScientificReports. Main findings and some examples you can test yourself on in this thread ... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Psych version

For those trying to access this, yes the pay wall is down - just enter an email for free registration if needed. @natureportfolio.bsky.social opened this up in response to requests from parents, youth, and educators who are suspicious of the story sold in this book. Thank you!

In his TEDx talk, Steve argues that "education is not the filling of a pail," but "the lighting of a fire." As teachers, we should present ourselves to our students NOT as "distant experts," but as "fellow travelers" who are on the same fun learning journey (but a little bit ahead). Check it out.

Very cool. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

www.jmir.org/2024/1/e59585 There are some things to quibble over, but this is a pretty nice summary of where the research evidence points us.

Oxford’s “brain rot” definition misconstrues its use among gen A. The term references mental deterioration from digital media use, but also the lingo, culture, and aesthetic that emerges from shared online experience. It’s “cheeky, and self-aware” with pride and humor in it. time.com/7199246/brai...

Maybe I’m just late to the party, but yes, there’s a place to search starter packs @blueskystarterpack.com. And there’s a search feature here: blueskystarterpack.com.

A growing share of U.S. adults say the federal government should take steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information. The share of U.S. adults with this view has risen from 39% in 2018 to 55% in 2023.

Here's a starter pack for folks interested in the psychology of digital media and technology. I'll be encouraging others into the arena: go.bsky.app/Fsz1TyW

Here's a starter pack for folks interested in the psychology of digital media and technology. I'll be encouraging others into the arena: go.bsky.app/Fsz1TyW

Excited about this new paper in Elife where we show for the first time resting state patterns contain information about a participants states (e.g. their thoughts) as well as traits (e.g. personality). Led by the awesome @hardigirl.bsky.social postdoc in THINC Lab elifesciences.org/articles/93689

If you haven’t heard yet about the emergence of AI “agents” - generative AI models that designed to “do things”, like complete digital tasks, heres a good read on why we might want to be concerned: www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/26/1...

Special Issue at Developmental Psychology! New Approaches to Understanding How Early Experience Shapes Executive Function and Self-Regulation Skills Guest Editors: Sabine Doebel, Dana Miller-Cotto, and Jennifer McDermott @sabinedoebel.bsky.social @damcotto.bsky.social 1/3

Interesting discovery, and nice way to put large public datasets to use in an unplanned way. My bet is that the “summer slide” in cognition has more to do with amotivational states during summer test taking, rather than actual slippage in cognitive functioning.