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Henry Beale

@bealebrains.bsky.social
339 followers 990 following 11 posts

PhD candidate researching brain rhythms in vision. Psychophys, comp modelling, & EEG. Brisbane, Australia. www.henrybeale.com

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Reposted by Henry Beale
Andrey Chetverikov @achetverikov.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I made an interactive demo with different visual illusions to replace the old videos we used before. Feel free to play with it here illusions.andreychetverikov.org and to use it yourself (the code is on my Github; if I missed to include somebody in the credits - please let me know).
illusions.andreychetverikov.org
Visual Illusions Lab
Eleven live, adjustable visual-illusion demonstrations for outreach events.
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Reposted by Henry Beale
Derek Arnold @visnerd.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A recent paper argued that there is no visual binding problem. I disagree, and wrote a response... journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Related demonstrations can be found here... staff.psy.uq.edu.au/~uqdarnol/JS...
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Neuroskeptic @neuroskeptic.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
It's possible to decode which movie someone was watching just from the *post-movie* resting state fMRI. This is because the voxels active during the movie are persistently deactivated afterwards! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... What goes up must come down...
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Tom Wallis @tsawallis.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
New preprint! Have you ever wanted to measure psychometric functions in high-dimensional stimulus spaces, but realised that this is infeasible? We present and validate a technique to adaptively estimate psychometric functions for stimulus spaces up to 50 dimensions. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Adaptive experiments in high-dimensional feature spaces: A particle filtering approach
Behavioral experiments are often infeasible when stimulus spaces have many dimensions or when testing time is limited. One way to address this challenge is adaptive stimulus selection, where informati...
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Dan Feuerriegel @danfeuerriegel.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Interested in the neuroscience of dietary decisions? Check out our lab's latest preprint led by Violet Chae @violetchae.bsky.social ! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... w/ @tgro.bsky.social, @laurencf.bsky.social, Stefan Bode, @paulmgarrett.bsky.social Explainer thread below 1/n
biorxiv.org
The Centroparietal Positivity Traces the Path of Evidence Accumulation During Dietary Decisions
Each day we make dozens of decisions about food. These choices are informed not only by information that we receive from our senses, but also by our memories, values, cultural norms, and goals. Eviden...
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Perception / i-Perception @pec-ipe.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
🎯 Three ways to perceive the same object ⬛ The figure compares luminance-, disparity-, and two-frame motion-defined forms. 📏 Even though motion-defined objects quickly faded from view, observers judged their shape almost as accurately as the other two conditions. Full paper doi.org/10.1177/0301...
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Roxana Zeraati @roxana-zeraati.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Our paper "Neural timescales from a computational perspective" is finally out in @natneuro.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... We discuss how computational models and methods can distill empirical observations on neural timescales into quantitative, testable theories of brain computation.
nature.com
Neural timescales from a computational perspective - Nature Neuroscience
This review integrates computational approaches to provide a unified view on how data analysis methods, biophysical mechanistic models and machine learning approaches can help to uncover the origins a...
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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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Sushrut Thorat @martisamuser.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
1/ Periodic reminder: decodable ≠ causally used. Or, as we put it: Represented Is Not Computed. New paper w/ the excellent Ishita Darade (not on BSky; www.linkedin.com/in/ishita-da...), an undergrad student: arxiv.org/abs/2605.22488 #representation #NeuroAI #neuroscience #interpretability
arxiv.org
Represented Is Not Computed: A Causal Test of Candidate Algorithmic Intermediates in a Transformer
Structured prompts require integrating components according to task-relevant relations. How a network implements this integration is often hard to judge in language or vision, where those relations ar...
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Sam Verschooren @samversc.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
🎉New paper out today in Nature Reviews Psychology🎉 with @mjdahl.bsky.social, @mariamaly.bsky.social, and @thiasmittner.bsky.social. We've been working on a unified framework for attentional states and the dynamics of transitions between them. 🧵
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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 28/05/2026
There's ongoing discourse about whether digital technology is impacting attention spans, but the empirical research does not seem to connect with what is felt by the general public. So, to better understand the perceptions, we examined what was being said on the issue in four relevant subreddits.
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
"Science is not simply a sequence of tasks that can be optimized....The scientific system thrives on inefficiency: redundant efforts, failed attempts, and divergent paths. These are not costs to be eliminated but sources of discovery." Excellent essay! ⬇️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Progression without progress
Progress in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to advance scientific discovery has made it increasingly realistic to envision automated “end-to-end science” (ETES) systems: integrated pipelines t...
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Marcus Siems @marcussiems.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
„Rhythmic sampling of decision alternatives through attention“ 🔦 Spotlight of our recent work in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social by Alireza Valizadeh www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
cell.com
Rhythmic sampling of decision alternatives through attention
Recent work by Siems et al. shows that the brain rhythmically samples competing alternatives through covert spatial attention. This challenges continuous models of decision-making and suggests that ev...
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Jason Samonds @jason-samonds.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Using a detection task with stimuli right at threshold, whole cell recordings in NHP primary visual cortex, and choice probabilities, we demonstrate how internal fluctuations related to anticipation of a stimulus multiplicatively interact with sensory responses.
nature.com
Fluctuating internal states mediate neural–behavioral covariations in V1 - Nature Neuroscience
The authors report surprising covariations between subthreshold activity of single V1 neurons and behavior, demonstrating that interactions between external sensory inputs and internal states are impl...
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Max Levinson @maxlevinson.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
NEW PAPER🚨👀 in Science Advances with a wonderful transatlantic team. (incl @sylvainbaillet.bsky.social @olejensen.bsky.social @katduecker.bsky.social) Using human MEG, we found lower-order and higher-order neural processes that underlie illusory transitions in conscious visual perception. 🧵👇
science.org
Hierarchical brain dynamics supporting visual perceptual transitions
Illusory transitions in conscious visual perception involve both early visual cortex and higher-order motor cortices.
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Will Harrison @willjharrison.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Also, I’ll be giving a workshop on the first day about early vision theory and modelling. visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz/epc-apcv-2026/
visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz
EPC & APCV 2026
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Reposted by Henry Beale
Tim Gastrell @tgastrell.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
🏰 New preprint! 🏰 (w/ the excellent @neuronomist.bsky.social & Prof. Jason Mattingley) For my PhD I've been using EEG, psychophysics and modelling to explore how the brain uses uncertainty to balance sensory information against expectations about what's out there. 🧵1/n
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Will Harrison @willjharrison.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
My first foray into explicitly trying to bridge Marr’s levels, with @bealebrains.bsky.social. Inspired by Hahn and Wei’s models (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38360947/), we wondered how the brain could instantiate sensory inference with efficient /decoding/ properties. 1/
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Runhao Lu | 陆润豪 @runhaolu.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Using time-resolved EEG/MEG decoding?🧠 Here’s a new approach! No feature engineering (decode from raw signals), but capturing info that standard decoding often misses (oscillatory/aperiodic activity, connectivity). Lightweight, INTERPRETABLE, and easy to use. (1/6) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 29/03/2026
"The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It [cannot] anticipat[e] any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with." — Ada Lovelace, 1843
From Note G, p. 722

It is desirable to guard against the possibility of exag-
gerated ideas that might arise as to the powers of the Ana-
lytical Engine. In considering any new subject, there is
frequently a tendency, first, to overrate what we find to be
already interesting or remarkable; and, secondly, by a sort
of natural reaction, to undervalue the true state of the case,
when we do discover that our notions have surpassed those
that were really tenable.

‘The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to|
192 #$ ADA, THE ENCHANTRESS OF NUMBERS
originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to
order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no
power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its
province is to assist us in making available what we are al-
ready acquainted with. This it is calculated to effect pri-
marily and chiefly of course, through its executive
|
1 snce on science itself in ano or, in so
distributing and combining the truths and the formula of
analysis, that they may become most easily and rapidly |
amenable to the mechanical combinations of the engine,
the relations and the nature of many subjects in that sci-
ence are necessarily thrown into new lights, and more pro- |
foundly investigated. This is a decidedly indirect, and a
somewhat speculative, consequence of such an invention. |
It is however pretty evident, on general principles, that in |
devising for mathematical truths a new form in which to |
record and throw themselves out for actual use, views are |
likely to be induced, which should again react on the more |
theoretical phase of the subject. There are in all exten- |
sions of human power, or additions to human knowledge, |
various collateral influences, beside the main and primary |
object attained. |
¥ |
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Ned Block @neddo.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Clarifying the conceptual dimensions of representation in neuroscience
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Appeals to representation are widespread, despite neuroscientists’ uncertainty about what kind of findings count as evidence for such claims. In this...
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Dan Feuerriegel @danfeuerriegel.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Our paper on double decisions in working memory tasks is now published in Computational Brain and Behaviour! When you give people a second chance, it reveals a lot about the contents of their memory. Led by @paulmgarrett.bsky.social @psychunimelb.bsky.social rdcu.be/e8SLX
rdcu.be
Double-decision Response Time Models of Recall and Recognition Support Resource Accounts of Visual Working Memory
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Reposted by Henry Beale
Will Harrison @willjharrison.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
I'm looking for a skilled PhD student who doesn't want to work too hard but still do great science: unisc-cp.enquire.cloud/round/RND-00...
Screenshot of job ad:
How do Bayesian brains acquire priors?
APPLICATIONS CLOSE
20/4/2026 11:55 PM


Summary of the Project
This project explores how the brain constructs perceptual experience from visual input, focusing on the role of Bayesian models in perception. A key challenge in vision science is understanding how humans interpret complex scenes from the limited information available in retinal images. Modern theories suggest that perception involves probabilistic inference, where the brain integrates sensory signals with prior expectations to make sense of the world. However, the origins and nature of these expectations remain poorly understood. This research aims to advance our understanding of perceptual experience by examining how structured patterns in visual input can inform models of perception. The work spans computational modelling and experimental approaches to uncover principles that explain how visual systems interpret properties such as shape, material, and lighting from images. By addressing fundamental questions about perception, this project will contribute to psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, offering insights into how biological and artificial systems can learn to interpret complex environments.
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Will Harrison @willjharrison.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
To add to this: now is the time we need human to human training and transfer of verifiable research and scholarship skills. As much as tech bros want to replace your jobs, legitimate scientists are now more important than ever.
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Lucas Benjamin @lucaswbenjamin.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Excited to share our new paper in @pnas.org with @bnmorillon.bsky.social & @valentinwyart.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We study three core inference systems, and how their interaction shapes human learning and decision-making.
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PessoaBrain @pessoabrain.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀? Interesting paper tackling this difficult question. Answer (in part): it's complicated! The same fixed system can be interpreted as implementing many (even infinitely many) computations depending on the chosen decoding map. doi.org/10.1088/2632...
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John Greenwood @jagreenwood.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Why do children struggle to recognise objects in cluttered scenes more than adults? Our new paper looks at the development of visual acuity and crowding across childhood, and the way the visual system fine tunes our ability to see detail: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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hakwan lau @hakwan.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
from a published academic paper by highly influential authors: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
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Kate Storrs @katestorrs.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Our latest paper, “Visual language models show widespread visual deficits on neuropsychological tests”, is now out in Nature Machine Intelligence: www.nature.com/articles/s42... Non-paywalled version: arxiv.org/abs/2504.10786 Tweet thread below from first author @genetang.bsky.social...
nature.com
Visual language models show widespread visual deficits on neuropsychological tests - Nature Machine Intelligence
Tangtartharakul and Storrs use standardized neuropsychological tests to compare human visual abilities with those of visual language models (VLMs). They report that while VLMs excel in high-level obje...
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Visual confidence accurately tracks increasing internal noise with eccentricity in peripheral vision www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Hsing-Hao Lee @hsinghaolee.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Check out our new paper on Journal of Vision showing that both endogenous and exogenous attention enhance contrast sensitivity uniformly across meridians despite differential adaptation effects! jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx...
jov.arvojournals.org
Covert spatial attention is uniform across cardinal meridians despite differential adaptation | JOV | ARVO Journals
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Doby Rahnev @dobyrahnev.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
How do people compute a sense of confidence? This question is usually addressed using very simple images because we don't know how complex stimuli are represented internally. In a new paper, we addressed this question using artificial neural networks (ANNs). journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...
journals.plos.org
Using artificial neural networks to reveal the human confidence computation
Author summary Human decisions are accompanied by a sense of confidence which reflects the decision accuracy. Conventionally, human confidence has been studied using two-choice tasks with simple stimu...
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Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world: gershmanlab.com/textbook.html It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class. My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
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Richard Gast @rgast.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
At the Bernstein Conference 2024, Jeremie Lefebvre and I organized a workshop on the computational consequences of neural heterogeneity. Now, slightly more than a year later, we funneled the emerging discussions into a perspective piece: www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
cell.com
How heterogeneity shapes dynamics and computation in the brain
No two neurons are the same, yet models often treat neural populations as pools of identical and interchangeable elements. Here, Dahmen et al. highlight recent theoretical advances that reveal the imp...
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Brad Wyble @bwyble.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
We recently published a theoretical review about how compositional and generative mechanisms in working memory provide a flexible engine for creative perception and imagery. Pre-print: osf.io/preprints/ps... Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Illustration of the hypothesized flows of information between perception, memory and cognitive control in a conceptual model of working memory. Stimuli attributes are processed to varying degrees of abstraction and parts of these representations can be loaded into working memory under the guidance of cognitive control. Familiar stimuli such as the letter B activate visually abstract representations while less familiar stimuli are limited to sensory representations. Information can be shifted both up and down levels of the perceptual hierarchy to build either more or less abstract representations of either perceived or imagined stimuli. Working memories can be shifted into or out of the hierarchy as needed.
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racheldenison.bsky.social @racheldenison.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Happy to share this new paper from the lab led by Angus Chapman, now out in PLoS Biology! It presents an integrated spatiotemporal normalization model for continuous vision. @afchapman.bsky.social journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
journals.plos.org
A dynamic spatiotemporal normalization model captures perceptual and neural effects of spatial and temporal context
The effects of spatial and temporal context on sensory systems have mostly been studied independently of each other. This study shows that the modulation of visual perception and neural activity by th...
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Kartik Sreenivasan @sreenivasanlab.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
🚨 new preprint alert! biorxiv.org/content/10.1... what is the architecture of an individual working memory? 1/n
biorxiv.org
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Dan Feuerriegel @danfeuerriegel.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Interested in how we make preference-driven decisions, and how this is implemented in the brain? We report that neural correlates of evidence accumulation (CPP, Mu/Beta) are also observed during value-based decisions. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Led by @laurencf.bsky.social (Lauren Fong) 1/n
biorxiv.org
Tracing the neural trajectories of evidence accumulation and motor preparation processes during voluntary decisions
Voluntary decisions have previously been described by where they arise in the brain and how actions corresponding to one's choice are prepared. However, the processes by which these internally guided ...
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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 03/11/2025
What is the representation underlying cognition? Formal models rely on multidimensional scaling of similarity judgments to derive the representation. In this preprint with @mdlbayes.bsky.social, we take an alternative approach; we build Bayesian generative models for three cognitive tasks. /1
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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
sciencedirect.com
Hierarchical interactions between sensory cortices defy predictive coding
Perceptual experience depends on recurrent interactions between lower and higher cortices. One theory, predictive coding, posits that feedback from hi…
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Tahereh Toosi @taherehtoosi.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
How does our brain excel at complex object recognition, yet get fooled by simple illusory contours? What unifying principle governs all Gestalt laws of perceptual organization? We may have an answer: integration of learned priors through feedback. New paper with @kenmiller.bsky.social! 🧵
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dorottya hetenyi @dotproduct.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Super happy to share my very first first-author paper out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social! We show content-specific predictions are represented in an alpha rhythm. It’s been a beautiful, inspiring, yet challenging journey. Huge thanks to everyone, especially @peterkok.bsky.social @jhaarsma.bsky.social
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Tom Donoghue @tomdonoghue.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
📜🎉 I'm happy to share that my review of clinical research investigating aperiodic neural activity is now published! It examines 177 reports of aperiodic activity in clinical disorders summarizing findings, discussion topics, & making some recommendations! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
A Systematic Review of Aperiodic Neural Activity in Clinical Investigations
This systematic literature review examines aperiodic neural activity in clinical disorders, summarizing current findings and discussion topics. One-hundred seventy-seven reports from across 38 distin...
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Emily A-Izzeddin @emilya-izzeddin.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
The final bit of work from my PhD just got published at JOV! We looked at similarity judgements made for naturalistic image patches, and whether these are predicted by simple image statistics… (spoiler: yep!) Link to paper: doi.org/10.1167/jov.... 1/11
doi.org
Low-level features predict perceived similarity for naturalistic images | JOV | ARVO Journals
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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
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...
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Bryan M. Li @bryanlimy.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
We present our preprint on ViV1T, a transformer for dynamic mouse V1 response prediction. We reveal novel response properties and confirm them in vivo. With @wulfdewolf.bsky.social, Danai Katsanevaki, @arnoonken.bsky.social, @rochefortlab.bsky.social. Paper and code at the end of the thread! 🧵1/7
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Ladislas Nalborczyk @lnalborczyk.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
Happy to share a new preprint in which @paulbuerkner.com and I introduce a novel model-based approach for precisely estimating the onset and offset of M/EEG effects! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
Precise temporal localisation of M/EEG effects with Bayesian generalised additive multilevel models
Time-resolved electrophysiological measurements such as those obtained through magneto- and electroencephalography (M/EEG) offer a unique window onto the neural activity underlying cognitive processes...
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Benjamin Lowe @brainboyben.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
🚨Pre-print of some cool data from my PhD days! doi.org/10.1101/2025... ☝️Did you know that visual surprise is (probably) a domain-general signal and/or operates at the object-level? ✌️Did you also know that the timing of this response depends on the specific attribute that violates an expectation?
doi.org
The Latency of a Domain-General Visual Surprise Signal is Attribute Dependent
Predictions concerning upcoming visual input play a key role in resolving percepts. Sometimes input is surprising, under which circumstances the brain must calibrate erroneous predictions so that perc...
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DrBreaky @drbreaky.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
New paper in Imaging Neuroscience, Generation of surrogate brain maps preserving spatial autocorrelation through random rotation of geometric eigenmodes direct.mit.edu/imag/article... Produces surrogates for null hypothesis testing of nonlinear effects within and correlations between brain maps
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Clare Press @clarepress.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Out now @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, w/ @akalt.bsky.social & @drmattdavis.bsky.social. Are sensory sampling rhythms fixed by intrinsically-determined processes, or do they couple to external structure? Here we highlight the incompatibility between these accounts and propose a resolution [1/6]
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