Long time in the making: our preprint of survey study on the diversity with how people seem to experience #mentalimagery. Suggests #aphantasia should be redefined as absence of depictive thought, not merely "not seeing". Some more take home msg: #psychskysci #neuroscience doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Some people are unable to consciously picture images in their mind's eye – they have aphantasia. What have scientists learned about aphantasia over the past 10 years? This paper reviews subtypes of aphantasia, its potential functions, and ongoing debates. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

OK. One more item added to my reading list 📚

Ahem. Mental imagery (& imagery-critical) researchers should read this: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

I hate cancel culture, seriously. I don't think Jimmy Kimmel should be cancelled by ABC, and I don't think Megyn Kelly should be cancelled by MSNBC either. Instead of cancelling, a mature society should encourage mutual understanding and open discussion.

A transformation from vision to imagery in the human brain www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... "Extensive work has shown that the visual cortex is reactivated during mental imagery"; #neuroscience

I'm sure I'm not the only one being overly tired yet unable to turn my brain off. What a gift the @snlmtg.bsky.social community is 💙 I genuinely can't wait to welcome you all in Geneva for #SNL2026!

A study by Bartels et al (J Neurosci) showed that decoding what colour one person was seeing also decode what another person was seeing. I haven’t read the study but it is a clever way of trying to find out if your blue is my blue. Not my expertise but worth expert discussion.

Although I’m a liberal, my heart still sinks hearing what happened in Utah today. Political violence has no place in our democratic society. Our differences must be resolved through dialogue and democratic processes, not through threats or acts of harm. Rest in eternal peace, Charlie Kirk.

Variance partitioning is used to quantify the overlap of two models. Over the years, I have found that this can be a very confusing and misleading concept. So we finally we decided to write a short blog to explain why. @martinhebart.bsky.social @gallantlab.org diedrichsenlab.org/BrainDataSci...

A transformation from vision to imagery in the human brain. Intriguing new preprint by Roy & Naselaris et al for anyone interested in mental imagery! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprint states "The attention model conceptualizes aphantasia as primarily a deficit in top-down attentional control": www.researchgate.net/publication/... @jianghaoliu.bsky.social is on a good role, but "attention control deficits" need to be carefully specified and here's why... 1/6

Rethinking category-selectivity in human visual cortex www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

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)

The Next Level @thebulwark.com is so excellent. What a great dynamic between the three hosts, and such insightful and fun conversation on a depressing topic. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8lC...

Here's a set of new results from my lab asking how the brain combines different ideas (concepts)! Now in press at J of Cog Neuro, we looked at how semantic composition (combining different concepts together) shapes brain activity. Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #neuroskyence

Had a lovely afternoon with my Surrey colleagues, chatting and exchanging farewell gifts. Bye, Surrey - I’ll miss many wonderful people I’ve met here. Thanks to Alan W, Carolina FS, Marie M, Ally G, Di F, Juha S, Melissa M, Angela M, Fabio F, & Yetta W 😃

🇯🇵 Japan’s Keio University built a robotic tail, Arque, to help with balance. The 1-meter tail uses artificial muscles and counterweight motion, aiding the elderly, workers, and even VR users. Still a prototype, it mimics animal tails to restore stability www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/08...

Congratulations to Flo Martinez-Addiego and ‪@striemamit.bsky.social‬ for the publication of a cool new paper in PNAS showing that high-level actions like tool use generalize between hand and foot, even in individuals born without hands. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Excited to share our new preprint... ...𝑖𝑡'𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒! ⏳ We find temporal confounds in fMRI that emulate neural patterns of perceptual learning. These can be hard to spot with conventional RSA, but may influence our understanding of how prior knowledge shapes perception. tinyurl.com/4bwy6nre

Happy 54th birthday to #KeHuyQuan 🎂 #filmsky #moviesky

BIRD! My most recent commission - a really fun challenge making non-standard VTuber models! This is my test live tracking my motion in VSeeFace to make sure it's all working correctly🪶

Would you like some good news for a change? newatlas.com/infectious-d... "The pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) provides HIV-negative individuals around 99% protection from contracting the devastating virus through sex." #science #medicine

Top-down and bottom-up neuroscience: overcoming the clash of research cultures rdcu.be/exi8N - yes, please!

If I weren’t moving to Birkbeck, I’d definitely consider York! The Psychology Department is fantastic - modern facilities and leading experts in perception, language, & memory. My mentor Beth Jefferies & former office mate Becky Jackson are there too. I’d highly recommend it to any strong candidate!

Preprints have helped researchers take control of dissemination of their work, but there is a ways to go. Institutions, please prevent certain corporate publishers from wresting back control, and set the foundation for further open dissemination by adopting these recommendations! #openaccess

I have no idea what is happening here but it is the best thing I’ve seen today!

I wrote this Cortex commentary in response to a recent fMRI study on the angular gyrus's role in segmenting continuous info (e.g., speech, music, film), reviewing key findings & discussing how human connectome research can illuminate neural event segmentation. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In a new popular science book, The Animal and the Thinker, John Duncan explains how the balance of instinct and reason answers big human questions. Right and wrong. Ambition and fulfilment. Women and men. Law and democracy. A psychologist’s perspective on “the meaning of life”

Cooperating brain systems and intelligent behaviour: Special issue in honour of John Duncan. Because John is very special. www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu... #neuroscience

Cool article about our recent paper by @nature.com 🤩 @peterkok.bsky.social, @smfleming.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I am so excited to share that our paper 'A neural basis for distinguishing imagination from reality' is now published in @cp-neuron.bsky.social! 🧠✨ See thread below! doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

Modern AI is often clear, easy to understand and 'cognitively fluent' for the user. In a blogpost today, I talk about why this can give the illusion that you're mastering a topic, when you're actually not (and what to do about it).

Happy Pride Month 2025 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Be gay do crow stuff #pridemonth #pridecrows

Reviewing scientific papers with AI: Part 2 - Meta-review using multiple LLMs and comparison to human reviews open.substack.com/pub/russpold...

I'm deeply concerned about the impact of the current immigration policy on the financial predicament in the higher education sector. After the Prime Minister's press conference today, I expect there'll be fewer international students willing to study in the UK & fewer academics considering UK jobs.

Pope Leo XIV used his first Sunday address to the faithful to call for peace. “Never again war,” he said to a roar from the crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

Proud to announce our primer on "Ten principles for reliable, efficient, and adaptable coding in psychology and cognitive neuroscience" www.nature.com/articles/s44... This primer is for beginners to get started, advanced programmers to improve, and PIs. #psychology #psychsci #cogsci #neuroskyence

Something that goes unmeasured is just how much potential science has been lost from the hit in productivity as we worry about funding, jobs, and more

We are extremely excited to announce the 4th edition of the Metacognitive Science Meeting (formerly known as the Perceptual Metacognition Satellite) - to be held on August 11th 2025, right before @cogcompneuro.bsky.social in Amsterdam! For info and how to submit: sites.google.com/view/metacog...

I submitted an RO1 in September, which should have been reviewed in February. That review was cancelled, but rescheduled for this week. I happened to log into the NIH site on Friday, whereupon I discovered that my grant was withdrawn by NIH the day before because it had no "foreign justification"...

the most accurate sign ever

Invasive Deep Brain Stimulation is often a last resort for people with Parkinson's disease & other conditions. Here, Darmani et al show direct electrophysiological evidence that *non-invasive* ultrasound stimulation is effective even in deep brain structures. Amazing! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Super excited about Cory's @coryshain.bsky.social work showing that you can recover the language network in individual brains via func connectivity methods from ~any fMRI data. A massive effort using all the data ever collected in my lab from neurotypical participants! Go, Cory!

🚨New post alert 🚨 We are recruiting at UCL for permanent faculty in Computational Cognition. Please circulate and/or apply! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DML927/l... The dept is wonderful - exciting & clever research; supportive; dynamic. Feel free to send qus my way. @uclpals.bsky.social #NeuroJobs

Just read an insightful piece by @remlehmann.bsky.social, Director of @whiteheadinstitute.bsky.social. Her vision for bold, curiosity-driven research is one reason I joined #WhiteheadInstitute, to work with top scientists, spark meaningful discussions, and drive breakthroughs. Exciting times ahead!

Goldstein et al. link acoustic, speech, and linguistic data with brain activity during real-life conversations to create a model that predicts neural responses during speech with high accuracy. https://www.nature.c...

"...pleased to inform you that your article, "Consensus guidelines for the use of concurrent TMS-fMRI in cognitive and clinical neuroscience", has now been accepted and sent to our Production department and should soon be published in Nature Protocols."⚡🎈🤘 OG preprint here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Veryp proud to share this preprint with @neurabenn.bsky.social as the leading author. 😎 Austin reported some very cool results that intrinsic cortical geometry predicts reading capability... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

'Adolescence' which rose to the top of Netflix's most-watched shows list, follows the fallout after a teenage boy is arrested for murdering his female classmate.