1/ Why are we so easily distracted? 🧠 In our new EEG preprint w/ Henry Jones, @monicarosenb.bsky.social and @edvogel.bsky.social we show that distractibility is associated w/ reduced neural connectivity — and can be predicted from EEG with ~80% accuracy using machine learning.

Collaborate with us!! #workingmemory

Paywall: www.afr.com/policy/healt... Reddit version: www.reddit.com/r/Anu/commen... #AcademicSky #HigherEd #UKHE

I'm seeking some advice: I have just come across an article with a few incorrect references (wrong authors, bad DOIs), as well as nonsensical in-text citations to those references. What should I do about this? Should I pursue an expression of concern?

"Theoretical Grounds" – a no-phone café to encourage connection through philosophical conversations. (I also considered Pore Over Coffee)

A memory can be represented at different levels of granularity, from highly specific to generalized. Different representational formats of a memory can be used at different times or in different contexts, and draw on different neural representations. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

I fear somebody in the Australian government may have misunderstood the meaning of pull requests

New preprint with Sebastian Schneegans and @bayslab.org doi.org/10.31234/osf... Here, we ask whether the key limits of working memory - load and retention interval - are independent, or do they interact? Despite years of research, this question is still much debated. #psychscisky #neuroskyence 1/6

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue. The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea. From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

The EdsLab adding more decoding evidence towards an item-based pointer signal – this time across visual and auditory stimuli. The coolest part to me is that the MDS of the neural similarity has dimensionality that is readily interpretable. Really great work by wunderkind Darius Suplica and the lab!

I'm back to coming up with puns for my alternative career paths. Today, it's starting a restaurant titled "Wok this way, stock this way", which opens up to cheap-and-cheerful dishes on one side, and hot-pots on the other side.

How does the brain decide? 🧠 Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc. After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up. rdcu.be/eGUrv

How does the visual system track moving objects while remembering the color of those objects? My latest research article (co-first with Piotr @styrkowiec.bsky.social) exploring this question using EEG is out in JoCN! @jocn.bsky.social #workingmemory #cognition #cogneuro #cogsci #neuro

Cognitive scientists and AI researchers make a forceful call to reject “uncritical adoption" of AI in academia www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/cognitive-...

A focus app created by @hankgreen.bsky.social, was briefly the #1 free app on the Play Store! But will it actually help users with their attention? I try the app myself, and look to a recent study that examined whether blockers improve sustained attention and mental health. My takes here:

Now out in print at @jephpp.bsky.social ! doi.org/10.1037/xhp0... Yu, X., Thakurdesai, S. P., & Xie, W. (2025). Associating everything with everything else, all at once: Semantic associations facilitate visual working memory formation for real-world objects. JEP:HPP.

Our new study (Titled: Memory Loves Company) asks whether working memory hold more when objects belong together. And yes, when everyday objects are paired meaningfully (Bow-Arrow), people remember them better than when they’re unrelated (Glass-Arrow). (mini thread)

A focus app created by @hankgreen.bsky.social, was briefly the #1 free app on the Play Store! But will it actually help users with their attention? I try the app myself, and look to a recent study that examined whether blockers improve sustained attention and mental health. My takes here:

The book is published in open access format. You can find the free version via this link: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255293...

'The Idealized Mind: From Model-based Science to Cognitive Science' published by MIT Press. Claims: models of the mind are idealized models; this is consistent with scientific realism; yet, it blocks realism about neural representation and neural computation based on evidence from neuroscience.

We just released a paper on using AI to autonomously conduct scientific research, from idea conception and (human) data collection to manuscript generation. We offer 3 example studies in cog psych. I think it indicates the current capacity of AI in autonomous research. www.arxiv.org/abs/2508.13421

I love when papers state in an abstract or conclusion that it is "contributing to growing literature". Well, duh! Let's keep piling them on, shall we?

Here's the recording of my public talk for Raising the Bar, where I spoke on the current narratives on digital technology use and its impact on attention spans. I pointed out the widespread feeling about this – that something is going on – but we are missing important parts of the big picture.

Excited to share my first fMRI paper in @pnas.org We found that suppressing the encoding of one event can strengthen the neural representation of the next in CA1, and bias retrieval-related neural restatement away from suppressed information. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Preprint⭐ Our attention changes over time and differs across contexts—which is reflected in the brain🧠 Fitting a dynamical systems model to fMRI data, we find that the geometry of neural dynamics along the attractor landscape reflects such changes in attention! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New paper day! Whereas earlier studies have shown that human eye movement patterns are influenced by the physical properties of remembered stimuli, we show that they are also influenced by stimulus meaning. h/t to Ali Pexsa (not on bluesky) who led this work. tinyurl.com/4y4aev3a

😎Check out this new paper by my brilliant phd student Ana Rodriguez! Together with @philippmusfeld.bsky.social we investigated how prior knowledge contributes to a serial recall #workingmemory task!

I’m looking forward to our symposium at @ispsm.bsky.social on Sat at 5:30pm CEST. Zoom in to catch me, @kenaizawa.bsky.social, @gualtiero.bsky.social, and @francesegan.bsky.social talk about realism in Neuroscience! 🧠 🥳

Well, this is a huge Executive Order power grab... www.whitehouse.gov/presidential... 1/3

🚨 PostDoc Opening 🚨 The lab of Klaus Oberauer is looking for a new postdoc, starting end of this/beginning next year. Research focus is #cognition, #workingmemory, #methods and #computationalmodeling or anything in that direction. I cannot highlight ENOUGH how great it is to work in this lab 🥰🤓

I had a fantastic experience presenting at Raising the Bar last night! It was nerve-wracking to speak about research with no slides, but it meant I really connected with the audience on the current discourse around the perceived impact of digital technology on attention spans and brain function.

Learning-dependent modulation of working memory link.springer.com/article/10.3...

Does anyone have an example of a preregistration that was done well? I'm hoping to provide one for students to read through and familiarise themselves with what goes into designing an experimental study.

Now out in JEP:G! We (@fridaprintzlau.bsky.social & @keisukefukuda.bsky.social ) resolve inconsistent attentional protection in WM by addressing discrepancies in cueing. Upshot: Attention changes how perception biases memory, but *not* how memory biases perception! doi.org/10.1037/xge0...

@thetransmitter.bsky.social wants to hear from neuroscience PIs around the world to find out where they get their funding for basic research. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/funding/quan...

Read it! It's not short but it's important. It's about why running our universities like corporations is killing them. Quentin goes beyond the usual complaints and really lays out the institutional dynamics that make universities and corporate managerialism incompatible.

I signed the open letter rejecting the call to embed generative AI in education. I sign it with the hope that it stops institutions that have acritically bought into the hype (including my own, the new Adelaide University), and shines a spotlight on those who continue to point out the many harms.

Watch this amazing video by Jim Amos and then consider signing the two open letters below. 1. Open Letter Australia: openletter.earth/an-open-lett... 2. Open Letter The Netherlands: openletter.earth/open-letter-... deeplywrong.substack.com/p/generative...

After a bit of interest on my upcoming talk, I've tentatively started a newsletter/blog on Substack! If you're interested in my thoughts on cognitive research, with a particular focus on what's in the public discourse around digital technology and attention: thecentreofattention.substack.com

I'm preparing a public talk on the impact of digital technology on attention, and whether there is any evidence behind 'brain rot' (and help the public understand that researchers need public funds and support to work on this issue!). #cogsci, what message would you want the public to hear on this?

I'm preparing a public talk on the impact of digital technology on attention, and whether there is any evidence behind 'brain rot' (and help the public understand that researchers need public funds and support to work on this issue!). #cogsci, what message would you want the public to hear on this?

Are you an early-career researcher (or someone hoping to help ECRs) working in #openscience or #metascience? The @reproducibilitea.org podcast is looking for guests for our next season of episodes! We'd love to feature ECR voices foremost – the next generation of scientists should be heard the most!

I am incredibly excited to catch-up on the latest #workingmemory research and to be amongst the community at WMS; especially as someone who is missing/avoiding US-based conferences (VSS, OPAM, Psychonomics). I will be absolutely ruining my sleep habits to be a part of the fun!

“Even the term 'Artificial Intelligence' … is widely misused, with conceptual unclarity coopted to advance industry agendas and undermine scholarly discussions. It is our task to demystify and to challenge 'AI' in our teaching, research & engagement with society.” openletter.earth/open-letter-...

Experimentology is out today!!! A group of us wrote a free online textbook for experimental methods, available at experimentology.io - the idea was to integrate open science into all aspects of the experimental workflow from planning to design, analysis, and writing.

US scientists are being recruited to Australia. Already a flood of applications for senior positions. Now active recruitment programs. More to come, perhaps for humanities and social sciences too

I’ve been thinking a lot about the interaction yesterday at the #metascience2025 panel on AI and more generally how I’ve felt about the conference and how I fit into the metascience community, and here’s a potentially useful analogy… 🌈 thread👇

Who doesn't like a good model of the brain? Yet, from simple regression to neural nets, some limitations keep popping up (e.g., overfitting) @mjwolff.bsky.social & I saw some cool but puzzling data, ran a quick analysis & found one such limitation: model mimicry. Now in #naturecommunications &🧵below

Thank you to everyone posting to #metascience2025 – I'm gaining a lot though I am not there! I do wish there was more content on how to include (and give power to) early-career researchers in the push to improve science (though I am heartened by similar calls for feminists and the Global South!)