This head is spinning continuously, but we see it rotating back and forth... ...presumably because of our strong prior expectation that faces are convex. This is a very nice example of the Hollow-Face illusion promoted by Richard Gregory: www.richardgregory.org/experiments/

❤️ Bluesky fMRI people! 3-day #fMRI course live online Jan 7-9, 2026. #SPM, #ICA, GLM, connectivity, mediation, MRI physics, #DataScience with @vcalhoun.bsky.social and Kent Kiehl. We love talking methods & connecting with colleagues! Come join us! Register here: sites.google.com/dartmouth.ed...

Now out in #JNeurosci -- we found changes in medial parietal cortex after manual exploration of everyday real-world objects doi.org/10.1523/JNEU... with Beth Rispoli, Vinai Roopchansingh & @cibaker.bsky.social

Announcing the next AFNI Bootcamp: Sep 23-25, 2025. Free, open & virtual. This "Part 1" will focus on basic visualization and single subject FMRI processing, including discussions of alignment, templates, regression, ROIs and quality control. Details & registration: afni.nimh.nih.gov/bootcamp

If you’d like to write a commentary to accompany our new article arguing for a rethinking of how we approach understanding visual function in occipitotemporal cortex, now is your chance!

Now out in @natneuro.nature.com What happens to the brain’s body map when a body-part is removed? Scanning patients before and up to 5 yrs after arm amputation, we discovered the brain’s body map is strikingly preserved despite amputation www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02037-7 🧵1/18

High-frequency transcranial random noise stimulation (hf-tRNS) targeted at motion processing region hMT+ does not improve visual motion discrimination. Failed #replication in #registeredreport @ryanruhde.bsky.social Mica Carroll @cibaker.bsky.social #trns #nibs #NIMH doi.org/10.1016/j.co... 1/6

In these tumultuous times, still happy to report a scientific achievement: our preprint on affordance perception was just published in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Using behavior, fMRI and deep network analyses, we report two key findings. To recapitulate (preprint 🧵lost on other place):

The result of a large (42 authors!) collaboration: "Go Figure: Transparency in neuroscience images preserves context and clarifies interpretation" arxiv.org/abs/2504.07824 TL;DR: The FMRI world can (and should) improve results interpretation and reproducibility *today*, via transparent thresholding.

Two more days until our workshop 🥳@cosynemeeting.bsky.social #Cosyne2025 Object-centric neural representations across species 🐒🐁🕷️🐝🖥️ Check out our homepage: toliaslab.org/workshop/cos... Excellent speakers include @dyamins.bsky.social @hansopdebeeck.bsky.social & many more 🙌

I'll be giving a talk at the foundation model workshop #Cosyne2025 tomorrow: neurofm-workshop.github.io In response to @thetransmitter.bsky.social article by @tyrellturing.bsky.social & Eva Dyer I'll be talking about: How do "foundation"/AI models help us (experimenters) study the brain?

Why do we not remember being a baby? One idea is that the hippocampus, which is essential for episodic memory in adults, is too immature to form individual memories in infancy. We tested this using awake infant fMRI, new in @science.org #ScienceResearch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I wrote a commentary on a very nice paper that just appeared in @brain1878.bsky.social by @selmalugtmeijer.bsky.social, Sobolewska, de Haan & @neurosteven.bsky.social. Spoiler: It's about modularity in mid-level vision. 🤓 Original paper: doi.org/10.1093/brai... Commentary: doi.org/10.1093/brai...

The dynamic version is even more disturbing...

New Paper out in @Cognition with @peelen.bsky.social !🚨📣 In a large-scale (N = 13539!) inattentional blindness experiment ran on naive museum visitors we demonstrate visual sensitivity to the 🚶‍♀️ upright human form 🚶‍♂️ @dondersinst.bsky.social Open access link www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

People talk a lot about objects, but what about the softness of a cushion, the greenness of an emerald, or the viscosity of oil? In our work just published @pnas.org, we shed light on how we make sense of the hundreds of materials around us. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

www.nature.com/articles/s41... awesome new work out today! From the Lee lab in the intramural research program at NIMH!

Why is it hard to make bathroom tiles look random? I really enjoyed discussing how our pattern-seeking visual brains make it tricky to perceive randomness with the BBC CrowdScience team.

🚨PhD opportunity Fall/Winter 2025🚨 Join me in Geneva Switzerland #unige to learn more about colour perception. Using neuroimaging & computational modelling, you'll be working with an international & interdisciplinary team to understand how we transform light into a colourful world!🧠👁️🌈 #neurojobs

Embracing the complexity of visual understanding Chris Baker's talk now at University of Maryland #neuroscience

New paper story time (now out in PNAS)! We developed a method that caused people to learn new categories of visual objects, not by teaching them what the categories were, but by changing how their brains worked when they looked at individual objects in those categories. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Leslie Ungerleider (1946 - 2020) was an extraordinary, pioneering neuroscientist. The latest issue of @jocn.bsky.social honors her legacy with articles authored by former colleagues & trainees that highlight critical aspects of her work and its influence https://buff.ly/4156UKw #cogsci #neuroscience

We are editing a Special Issue in JoV #VisionScience following our VSS symposium on 'The Temporal Evolution of Visual Perception'. More details: arvojournals.org/DocumentLibrar… @cibaker.bsky.social @dimafic.bsky.social @irisgroen.bsky.social @tgro.bsky.social @rdenison @melcherpaclab.bsky.social

Excited to share our recent work investigating the temporal dynamics of object space! It’s been wonderful working with @tgro.bsky.social and @drquekles.bsky.social at @marcsinstitute.bsky.social on this fun project😊

How do we segregate objects from the background? Here, we show that early visual cortex (V1) enhances object borders and rapidly (±50ms) discriminates them, indicating V1 neurons are tuned to perceptually relevant borders in natural images. Full paper: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Super excited to be co-hosting scientist Nancy Hopkins and author Kate Zernike at NIH this Wednesday as part of a event jointly organized by the Porter Book Club, Women Scientists Advisors (WSA) and Women Scientist Fellows (WSF). Details: linktr.ee/wsf.nih?utm_... videocast.nih.gov/watch=55349

In this new perspective piece, we argue for an alternative framework of visual function in occipitotemporal cortex that prioritizes the behavioral relevance of visual properties in real-world environments.