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Edwin Burns

@edwinburns.bsky.social
341 followers 883 following 53 posts

Researcher and Senior Lecturer at Swansea University. Interested in prosopagnosia, aphantasia, autism, SDAM and other neurodivergent populations. Contact me here through a DM

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Reposted by Edwin Burns
Dan Carragher @danieljcarragher.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
We have a competitive funded PhD scholarship on offer at Adelaide University "When to Trust the Machine: Cognitive Drivers of Reliance on Automation in Security-Critical Decision-Making". Full details and how to apply: adelaide.edu.au/research/res... (Search "SRTSR0506"). Summary below. Due Sept 30!
adelaide.edu.au
Find a research project | Adelaide University
Explore cutting-edge research projects at Adelaide University. Join our community of world-leading researchers and contribute to impactful discoveries.
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Dr James Dunn @jamesdunn.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
We're looking for a Postdoc to join the Face Lab at UNSW Psychology! Ideal: someone with strong ML/deep learning expertise and an interest in how people perceive AI-generated faces. 📍 Sydney | Full-time, 18 months 📅 Apply by 3 Sept 2026 🔗 external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au/cw/en/job/54...
external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au
Research Associate - UNSW Face Research Lab
he Research Associate works within the UNSW Face Research lab located in the School of Psychology at UNSW and is responsible for taking a leading role in a collaborative ARC Discovery Project aiming t...
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Are face recognition tests failing to identify difficulties in acquired prosopagnosia (face blindness)? 🧠👀 Our new study shows 50% of self-IDed cases fail to meet widely used criteria. We advocate for a more inclusive approach: www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/16... #Neuroscience #Prosopagnosia Thread 👉
mdpi.com
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
However, authors must start reporting on the cases who fail to meet task based criteria, so we can learn more about them, and help improve our cognitive tests' validity. This approach aligns with modern principles of open and transdiagnostic science. See the paper here: www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/16...
mdpi.com
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
By contrast, a famous faces test was far more sensitive, decting severe difficulties (<-2 SDs) in 86% of people who self-identify as having acquired prosopagnosia. We therefore recommend a symptom questionnaire and a famous faces test as the best approach to classify cases.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Our new study shows the same problems are apparent in acquired prosopagnosia. Despite reporting severe problems with faces in daily life, roughly half of all cases performed normally when completing a widely used unfamiliar face memory task (the Cambridge Face Memory Test).
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
It has become apparent in recent years that strict diagnostic cutoffs exclude half of all self-identified developmental prosopagnosics (Burns et al., 2023; Burns, 2024; both Behaviour Research Methods), meaning we know very little about these people. link.springer.com/article/10.3...
link.springer.com
A new approach to diagnosing and researching developmental prosopagnosia: Excluded cases are impaired too - Behavior Research Methods
Developmental prosopagnosia is characterized by severe, lifelong difficulties when recognizing facial identity. Unfortunately, the most common diagnostic assessment (Cambridge Face Memory Test) misses...
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Are face recognition tests failing to identify difficulties in acquired prosopagnosia (face blindness)? 🧠👀 Our new study shows 50% of self-IDed cases fail to meet widely used criteria. We advocate for a more inclusive approach: www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/16... #Neuroscience #Prosopagnosia Thread 👉
mdpi.com
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The vOICe vision BCI 🧠🇪🇺 @seeingwithsound.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
(LinkedIn) In a review of 55 cases of cortical blindness, vivid imagery was repeatedly preserved despite complete or near-complete bilateral V1 damage. When imagery was impaired, lesions extended beyond V1, often into ventral temporal cortex. www.linkedin.com/posts/paolo-...
Schematic representation of the double dissociation between cortical blindness and neurological aphantasia. Left: bilateral V1 damage causes cortical blindness but can spare visual mental imagery when ventral temporal regions, including the fusiform imagery node (FIN), and frontoparietal networks remain intact. Center: schematic summary of the proposed dissociation between the impaired visualperception pathway, dependent on V1, and the preserved imagery pathway, supported by interactions between ventral temporal cortex/FIN and frontoparietal networks. Right: conversely, neurological aphantasia can follow lesion or disconnection of the FIN/ventral temporal cortex despite preserved V1 and visual perception. Together, these patterns argue against an obligatory role of V1 in visual mental imagery and support a heterarchical network model centered on ventral temporal and frontoparietal systems.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Forgot to add, give me a follow if you want to receive updates on our latest findings in aphantasia, prosopagnosia, SDAM and other neurodivergences.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Emmanuel has already published a preprint showing complex PTSD is elevated in aphantasia, and has another couple papers from before his PhD in the pipeline. Looking forward to seeing what he publishes on SDAM! osf.io/kj5d3_v1
osf.io
OSF
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I'm pleased to welcome Emmanuel Ale as a new PhD researcher at @swanseauni.bsky.social. We'll be researching severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM), so please send me message via the link below if you have SDAM and want to help with our work: swanseachhs.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
swanseachhs.eu.qualtrics.com
Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management
The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.
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Jianghao Liu @jianghaoliu.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
🔊 New preprint 🧠 for the first time we show congenital #aphantasia has physical brain anatomy alterations. Surprisingly, they have structurally intact #visual pathways. Structural alterations instead found in the fronto-temporal and cingulate systems. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Looking forward to Themis Karaminis @themiskaraminis.bsky.social as today's guest speaker in the Swansea University Research Seminar series. He's going to be talking about how autism is portrayed in the British press. You can join here swanseauniversity.zoom.us/j/9288183180...
swanseauniversity.zoom.us
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Reposted by Edwin Burns
Michelle Dawson @autismcrisis.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Autistics (vs non-autistics) "are less likely to make errors in self-assessments of their cognitive performance"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... "findings provide valuable insights into both the cognitive strengths of autistic individuals and the mechanisms underlying metacognitive biases"
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Reduced Susceptibility to the Dunning–Kruger Effect in Autistic Employees
Evidence indicates that autistic individuals are less susceptible to social influence and cognitive biases than non-autistic individuals. However, no studies have been conducted on the Dunning–Kruger....
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Reposted by Edwin Burns
Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
SAVE THE DATE! Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology (EPC) & Asia-Pacific Conference on Vision (APCV) Joint Meeting from 1-4 July at the University of Auckland, NZ. #PsychSciSky #VisionScience #neuroskyence More information to follow! visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz/epc-apcv-2026/
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Kat Chapman @katrionachapman.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
A comic I made when I realised I have aphantasia, and lots of things seemed to make sense suddenly
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
Interesting qualitative paper shows people with aphantasia report troubles with faces, autobiographical memory and navigation. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Aligns with a preprint we released this year that shows faceblindness is a common complaint amongst this group. tinyurl.com/efkshpt3
tandfonline.com
“I just see nothing. It’s literally just black”: a qualitative investigation into congenital aphantasia
Aphantasia, the inability to form voluntary sensory imagery, is a newly emerging field. While quantitative evidence regarding the prevalence and profile of aphantasia is increasing, few studies hav...
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Jackie Andrade @profjackieandrade.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
40 minutes of functional imagery training reduced anxiety and motivated students with high anxiety achieve their goals. Here's the evidence: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Paper suggests multilingualism may improve mental imagery. emerginginvestigators.org/articles/24-... Given multilinguals also exhibit improvements in face recognition (e.g., Burns et al., 2019), possibly by enhancing domain general attention, I wonder if that is responsible here too? #aphantasia
emerginginvestigators.org
The relationship between multilingualism and visual imagery: Investigating aphantasia using the VVIQ | Journal of Emerging Investigators
JEI is a scientific journal for middle and high school scientists
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Reposted by Edwin Burns
Brent Pitchford @bpitchford.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Excited to share a new article from @icevislab.bsky.social! In a sample of over 60 people, we found distinct neural differences underlying object and face recognition in dyslexia. These findings highlight crucial domain-general visual processes that may contribute to word reading challenges.
sciencedirect.com
Distinct neural processing underlying visual face and object perception in dyslexia
Developmental dyslexia is a disorder marked by difficulties in reading, spelling, and connecting sounds to written language. The high-level visual dys…
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
Feel like this has just captured the attachment style of respondents.
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Reposted by Edwin Burns
Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Are you, or someone you know, looking for a funded PhD position? I'm interested in supervising PhDs on topics related to my work, e.g., emerging neurodivergent populations, prosopagnosia, validity of psychological science, or political violence. Get in touch if interested: e.j.burns@swansea.ac.uk
wgsss.ac.uk
Student-led General Competition – Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Not yet. I've been doing a lot of work on aphantasia, and become interested in SDAM through that. Unfortunately, we don't know much about it atm, hence why I want to work with a PhD student to learn more about it.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
More specific topics I'm interested in supervising are aphantasia, severely deficient autobiographical memory, interoception, and alexithymia, but open to some related ideas you may have.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Closing date for applications is the 11th of December. PhD positions are funded through the Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences: wgsss.ac.uk/student-led-...
wgsss.ac.uk
Student-led General Competition – Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Are you, or someone you know, looking for a funded PhD position? I'm interested in supervising PhDs on topics related to my work, e.g., emerging neurodivergent populations, prosopagnosia, validity of psychological science, or political violence. Get in touch if interested: e.j.burns@swansea.ac.uk
wgsss.ac.uk
Student-led General Competition – Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences
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andymckilliam.bsky.social @andymckilliam.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
New paper with @ManuKirberg 💭 Is “unconscious mental imagery” real? The evidence is weaker than it seems. We explain why—and how to move the debate forward. 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Aphantasia and the unconscious imagery hypothesis
Until recently, mental imagery has largely been regarded as an exclusively conscious phenomenon. However, recent empirical results suggest that mental…
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Teilo the corgi out for brunch in Swansea.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
A striking personal account of someone's experiences with severely deficient autobiographical memory. While memory conditions rightly garner considerable research interest, the paucity of papers on SDAM is notable, despite difficulties associated with its presence. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
substack.com
The Life I Can’t Remember
I was born in the 1940s, in the last days of Empire.
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JASP @jaspstats.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
Just out: JASP 0.95! With sandboxing, a new plot builder, ESCI, and more. jasp-stats.org/2025/08/02/i...
jasp-stats.org
Introducing JASP 0.95: Sandboxing, Plotbuilder, ESCI, Parametric Survival Analysis, and Much More - JASP - Free and User-Friendly Statistical Software
We are proud to announce that JASP 0.95 has been released and is now available on our download page. JASP 0.95 presents a big step forwards, as you can see from the full release notes. Some of the hig...
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Regarding first person accounts, Sadie Dingfelder wrote a book about her aphantasia and prosopagnosia
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Interesting personal account of what living with prosopagnosia is like.
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Nadine Dijkstra @nadinedijkstra.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
After five years of confused staring at Greek letters, it is my absolute pleasure to finally share our (with @smfleming.bsky.social) computational model of mental imagery and reality monitoring: Perceptual Reality Monitoring as Higher-Order inference on Sensory Precision ✨ osf.io/preprints/ps...
osf.io
OSF
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
It may be prosopagnosia (i.e., trouble recognising faces) that causes this difference. I've met many prosos who say they don't know what family and friends look like. Our work, linked below, shows this condition is common in aphantasia. 2/2 #bb27 #aphantasia www.researchgate.net/publication/...
researchgate.net
(PDF) Is aphantasia a neurodevelopmental condition? Evidence from face recognition and developmental prosopagnosia
PDF | Developmental aphantasia is characterised by an absence of visual mental imagery, with many researchers concluding that it is not a disorder.... | Find, read and cite all the research you need o...
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Someone with aphantasia talks movingly about how difficult it is being in a Big Brother House with no mental imagery of loved ones. Mentions she does not know what family members look like, but some aphants online say they do know. So why do these differences exist? Thread 1/2 #bb27 #aphantasia
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Emiko J Muraki @emij.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
🧠 Just out with @pennypexman.bsky.social “Simulation in the ‘Blind’ Mind”. We found that even without conscious imagery (aphantasia), people still simulate sensorimotor info when processing language. 💭🔤
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Michelle Dawson @autismcrisis.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
"when primary care clinicians classified a child as having definite autism... they were 100% accurate, but only 57% accurate when they indicated a child definitely did not have autism"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... diagnostic impressions of toddlers referred for developmental concerns
journals.sagepub.com
Short report: Autism diagnostic impressions in young children formed by primary care clinicians and through telemedicine expert assessments - Andrea Trubanova Wieckowski, Ashley de Marchena, Alexia F ...
Formal autism diagnosis is often critical for children to access early, autism-specific services and supports. However, barriers to traditional in-person evalua...
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
New study suggests aphantasia may be associated with qualitative differences in early visual cortex responses. Suggest there's something unique about how aphantasics' brains respond, and retrieve information, when attempting to generate imagery. www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Imageless imagery in aphantasia revealed by early visual cortex decoding
Chang et al. report that during imagery attempts, those with validated aphantasia have decreased perceptual BOLD response and higher ipsilateral imagery response. Imagery content could be decoded usin...
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Bence Nanay @bencenanay.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
My first publication in Trends in Cognitive Sciences: Varieties of aphantasia www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Varieties of aphantasia
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Dr Reshanne Reeder @kerblooee.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
What a cool preprint! From @gaenplancher.bsky.social Different subtypes of aphantasia show different performance on spatial, verbal & perceptual tasks: www.researchgate.net/publication/...
researchgate.net
(PDF) Uncovering spatial and verbal cognitive profiles in aphantasia through unsupervised clustering
PDF | Mental images are a ubiquitous phenomenon for many people. In recent years, attention has focused on a condition defined by the absence of mental... | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Forgot to add a link to the preprint! doi.org/10.31234/osf...
doi.org
OSF
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Strikingly, we showed 16% of prosopagnosics were also aphantasic, in contrast to 4% in the general population. In summary, aphantasia may be a neurodevelopmental condition in that it cooccurs with other such conditions more frequently than we would expect in the general population.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Given prosopagnosia occurs more frequently in aphantasia, we then asked does aphantasia cooccur in developmental prosopagnosia at an elevated rate? We therefore tested for aphantasia in a large sample of developmental prosopagnosia cases in a third study.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Strikingly, the patterns between the groups were similar, suggesting that these types of difficulties may be a feature of neurodevelopmental conditions. This, with the elevated prevalence of prosopagnosia, shows aphantasia mirrors other neurodevelopmental conditions, and so may be one itself.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Remarkably, these patterns of issues occur in other neurodevelopmental populations, e.g., developmental coordination disorder (DCD, lifelong troubles with movement) In a second study, we therefore compared aphantasic patterns of face processing abilities across various tasks to a group of DCD cases
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Strikingly, we found almost 40% of aphantasics self-reported cooccurring developmental prosopagnosia. This contrasts with the commonly reported 3% in the general population. Also, they exhibited greater difficulties with familiar, than unfamiliar, faces.
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
One common feature shared across such conditions is that they commonly cooccur with one another at much higher rates than in the general population. We therefore tested if aphantasia had higher rates of developmental prosopagnosia (lifelong troubles recognising faces) than the general public
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
New preprint from our lab! 🚨 Developmental aphantasia is characterised by a lifelong absence of mental imagery. In our preprint on PsyArXiv below, we ask is aphantasia a neurodevelopmental condition, like autism, ADHD, and dyslexia? But how would you show this? Thread 👇
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Edwin Burns @edwinburns.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Comorbid prosopagnosia. In our paper we recommend any diagnostic assessment of DCD must include an assessment for prosopagnosia. You can read more about it on the link below: tinyurl.com/294snxus
tinyurl.com
Prosopagnosia is highly comorbid in individuals with probable developmental coordination disorder - Katherine Jane Maw, Geoffrey Beattie, Edwin Burns, 2024
Developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD) is characterised by difficulties in motor control and coordination from early childhood. While problems processing fa...
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