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Paul Bays

@bayslab.org
185 followers 75 following 50 posts

Computational cognitive scientist, Professor at University of Cambridge.

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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 22/08/2026
Our lab is at @ecvp.bsky.social this week, giving one talk and presenting three posters. Come and say hi!
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 22/08/2026
Our lab is now on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/bays...
linkedin.com
Bays Lab (University of Cambridge) | LinkedIn
Bays Lab (University of Cambridge) | 4 followers on LinkedIn. Computational Cognition Group, Department of Psychology, Cambridge
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Ivan Tomic @ivntmc.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Feeling really proud of this one: a review of Bayesian efficient coding with Máté Lengyel and Paul Bays (@bayslab.org) is now available online in TICS! authors.elsevier.com/a/1nF3i4sIRv...
Screenshot of a Trends in Cognitive Sciences article header. Title: 'Bayesian efficient coding as a theory of perception: progress, controversies, and prospects.' Authors: Ivan Tomić, Máté Lengyel, Paul Bays. Available online 9 June 2026, In Press, Corrected Proof.
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Ivan Tomic @ivntmc.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
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
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 01/08/2025
New work on sensory prediction resolves some long-standing puzzles about attenuation of self-touch journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....
journals.physiology.org
Divisive attenuation based on noisy sensorimotor predictions accounts for excess variability in self-touch | Journal of Neurophysiology | American Physiological Society
When one part of the body exerts force on another part, the resulting tactile sensation is perceived as weaker than when the same force is applied by an external agent. This phenomenon has been studie...
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 29/01/2025
Now out in Comms Psych: the "anti-Bayesian" size-weight illusion is a consequence of the brain focusing resources on encoding typical combinations of size and weight (i.e. "efficient coding"). Explains the material-weight illusion too www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
Weight illusions explained by efficient coding based on correlated natural statistics - Communications Psychology
Weight illusions reflect the efficient coding of everyday experiences with objects. Bayesian models that account for the resulting differences in discriminability predict the size-weight and material-...
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 21/11/2024
We have an opening for a postdoc to work on a collaborative project with Máté Lengyel (UCambridge Engineering) combining machine learning methods with human experiments on visual perception and memory www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/49299/
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 11/06/2024
Out now in NHB (finally!), a review of visual working memory from a computational perspective, with @weijima01 @timothyfbrady and Sebastian Schneegans.
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 14/05/2024
Nice commentary from @salinas_urgent and @mangosheikh_B on our new eLife paper
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 12/02/2024
The size-weight illusion is a by-product of efficient sensory coding adapted to the combinations of volume and mass found in everyday objects. New preprint
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 13/01/2023
We measured how effectively observers can reallocate working memory resources to new visual items when old ones become obsolete - people are surprisingly good at it! New paper with @ivntmc @dataforyounz @DAagtenMurphy
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 10/01/2023
A critique of the psychological similarity account of working memory errors: work with @ivntmc now out in JEP:LMC
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 04/07/2022
New work with Jess McMaster & others: we show swap errors (item confusions) in cued recall are not a strategic response to forgotten items, but instead occur at exactly the rate predicted by variability in recall of the cue features
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 17/02/2022
New in Psych Review with Sebastian Schneegans & Jess McMaster: comparing the roles of time and space in binding features in working memory
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 28/07/2021
We have an opening for a post-doc (or potentially a talented graduate RA) to research computational mechanisms of visual perception/memory using online and offline experiments - note deadline 11 Aug
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 21/07/2021
Views of an object before and after a saccade may be combined even if you are aware the object has changed - new with Garry Kong, @DAagtenMurphy and Jess McMaster.
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 28/05/2021
New in JOV: the ability to combine visual evidence across gaze fixations depends on a limited but flexible memory resource
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 05/02/2021
New paper on the consequences of stroke for recall precision and binding in visual WM, a collaboration with Roy Kessels and colleagues at the Donders (@DondersInst)
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 29/09/2020
Our new Analogue Report Toolbox can be downloaded at . It implements in MATLAB a range of methods we use in the Bays lab for analyzing and modelling behavioural responses on VWM recall tasks, including...
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 20/08/2020
Our new PNAS paper reveals how the main competing models of working memory limits can all be interpreted in terms of sampling. A number of surprises, including that item limits don't require discrete representations.
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 01/04/2020
New with @robthedatafiend in Psych Review: for every visual feature dimension there is a consistent upper bound on the "s.d." you can obtain by fitting errors with a normal+uniform mixture...and it just might be telling us something about neural tuning!
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 18/09/2019
"Stochastic sampling provides a unifying account of working memory limits" - our new preprint:
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 12/07/2019
A short note on BioRxiv on the relationship between the psychophysical scaling account of working memory by @timothyfbrady @markSchurgin and population coding models of the same:
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 01/04/2019
Asymmetric competition in visual working memory: storing orientations doesn't affect memory for facial expressions, but storing expressions degrades orientation recall - new paper with Viljami Salmela on WM at different levels of the visual hierarchy:
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 20/03/2019
An independent store in working memory for the locations of visual objects in relation to one another: provides a separate source of information for recalling locations and doesn't tap absolute (egocentric) WM resources - work with @DAagtenMurphy: PDF here
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 07/02/2019
We have an opening for a graduate Research Assistant to join @BaysLab. More info here:
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 12/12/2018
A Journal of Neuroscience "journal club" about our work on drift in working memory representations, by Ben Cuthbert & Dominic Standage
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 12/12/2018
Our new review article identifies three distinct functions of transsaccadic memory
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 12/11/2018
Another postdoc opening in @BaysLab: we're looking for someone with background in experimental study of eye movements to investigate visual evidence accumulation across gaze fixations. Apply here:
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 29/10/2018
New paper in PLOS Comp Biol reveals how the sensory strength of a stimulus to be remembered determines how much space it takes up in working memory (corrected link)
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 29/10/2018
New paper in PLOS Comp Biol reveals how the sensory strength of a stimulus to be remembered determines how much space it takes up in working memory
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 17/10/2018
Our new review article sets out the latest advances in understanding how visual features are bound together in working memory:
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 14/08/2018
We are looking for two new post-docs to join @BaysLab. Applications by 13 September:
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 13/08/2018
New paper in J Neurosci brings together efficient coding theory and the neural resource model of visual working memory to explain why the bias and variance of recall estimates varies across stimulus space
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 06/06/2018
Time from manuscript accepted to full and final publication online: 9 days. Well done to Cognitive Psychology, but why can't every journal do this?
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 06/06/2018
Another challenge to discrete resource models of WM - new article in Cognitive Psychology
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 17/01/2018
Reassessing the evidence from imaging data for a fixed item limit in working memory - new paper in Cerebral Cortex
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 06/08/2017
As of 2017 we will be making all our published data publicly available via our publications page
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 06/04/2017
The population coding model of working memory explains why people make binding ("swap") errors
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 16/03/2017
New article in PLOS Computational Biology examines the fidelity with which we store information about reward
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 16/03/2017
New code available for trial-by-trial estimation of mixture component probabilities in working memory tasks
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 25/10/2016
New paper in eLife: activity in angular gyrus predicts the precision of episodic memories
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 17/10/2016
We have an opening for a post-doc in our lab, see
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 01/06/2016
I've made code available for my population coding model of working memory errors:
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 22/03/2016
New non-parametric methods for investigating swap errors in memory tasks . Code available at
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 06/08/2015
Two post-doctoral positions available in my lab to start October 2015
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 06/08/2015
I have a new Opinion paper in TICS: "Spikes Not Slots" responsible for working memory limitations
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 30/01/2015
An investigation of the theoretical basis of misbinding in working memory, with Loic Matthey and Peter Dayan
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 10/12/2014
We report EyeSearch has benefits for visual search ability in hemianopic patients
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Paul Bays @bayslab.org · 10/12/2014
EyeSearch [ is a web-based therapy for patients with visual disorders, developed with Alex Leff and Masud Husain
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