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Elkan Akyurek

@elkanakyurek.bsky.social
331 followers 134 following 41 posts

Cognitive neuroscience. Professor, University of Groningen @rug.nl

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Reposted by Elkan Akyurek
Christoph Strauch @cstrauch.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
How much of a risk are LLM-generated bots for online behavioral experiments? We present results of an entirely natural language prompt-generated agent, capable of absolving any of the 26 experiments we tested it on. Most tasks are passed with data that can pass as human osf.io/preprints/ps... (1/)
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Heleen Slagter @haslagter.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
🚨 Job alert 🚨 Our department @vuamsterdam.bsky.social is hiring an Assistant Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience! Join our lovely community here in beautiful Amsterdam! 🧠🔥 Deadline: October 15 workingat.vu.nl/vacancies/as...
workingat.vu.nl
Vacancy — Assistant Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience
Join the Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) as Assistant Professor in cognitive neuroscience.
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Matthijs Pals @matthijspals.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
What kind of dynamics underlie sequence working memory? In the last project of my PhD we developed and analysed RNNs fitted to multi-session single-unit data of macaques. Now out on: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... With @jakhmack.bsky.social and data from Chen et al., Neuron 2024. [1/4]
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Rowan Merewood @rowan.fyi · 02/10/2026
Ages since I made an #opticalIllusion demo, but luckily I saw a video from the master @akiyoshikitaoka.bsky.social and needed an interactive web version. For a little Friday fun you can drag that square back and forth and I promise, hand on heart, it never changes colour. rowan.fyi/made/lightne...
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Nursena Ataseven @nursenaataseven.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
New preprint! We asked why neural representation of the original item that is encoded for mental rotation persists even after it becomes irrelevant. Given working memory's limited capacity and evidence for efficient storage, why keep irrelevant information around? 1/4 doi.org/10.64898/202...
doi.org
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Casper Albers 🟥 @casperalbers.nl · 31/08/2026
Reminder dat de strijd van politici tegen buitenlandse studenten nooit om de economie ging maar pure vreemdelingenhaat is. Met -ook hier- een kwalijke hoofdrol voor Pieter Omtzigt nos.nl/artikel/2629...
nos.nl
Internationale studenten kosten geld, maar leveren uiteindelijk meer op
Studenten die na hun afstuderen in Nederland blijven wonen en werken, compenseren het geld dat de overheid tijdens hun studie aan hen uitgeeft gemiddeld ruimschoots.
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Joost de Jong @joost-de-jong.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
🧵 What is the briefest visual response we can elicit? Intuitively, that's the response to the briefest stimulus, aka a flash, right? 📸 No, we can go even briefer! Using a deceptively simple technique, we designed stimuli that elicit briefer-than-brief responses www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
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Veera Ruuskanen @veerahelmisofia.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Super excited to see our review out in TiCS! Here me & @cogsci.nl present the first comprehensive framework of the mechanisms driving relationships between spontaneous pupil-size fluctuations, neural activity, and behavior 👀🧠👩🏻‍💻 Spoiler: arousal is only one of at least four 😶‍🌫️ doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
doi.org
Redirecting
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Şahcan Özdemir @sahcan.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Preprint alert! 🚀 Spontaneous eye blinks are often treated as EEG artefacts. We show they can serve as temporal markers of internal attention, aligning with moments of attentional focusing in working memory. Check it out:
biorxiv.org
Spontaneous eye blinks as temporal markers of internal attention
Eye blinks are among the largest physiological artefacts in electroencephalography and are typically removed from the recordings. Yet their timing may carry information about cognition. Here, we asked...
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Maëlan Menétrey @maelanmenetrey.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
🚨 Happy to see this paper finally out in @plosbiology.org ! "Sequential neural dynamics underlie unconscious integration and conscious perception of visual stimuli" with Michael Herzog and @davidpascucci.bsky.social #neuroimaging #EEG #consci doi.org/10.1371/jour...
doi.org
Sequential neural dynamics underlie unconscious integration and conscious perception of visual stimuli
Understanding the neural correlates of consciousness remains a challenge, as disentangling unconscious from conscious processing is highly complex. Using EEG decoding, this study provides neural evide...
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Biased opinion here, but check out this amazing work by Joost on adaptive encoding in working memory! 🔥🔥
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Super interesting study by Sophia, who pretty much predicted its outcomes perfectly from the start! 👇👍
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Peter Kok @peterkok.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
I am recruiting a postdoctoral researcher and a PhD student, funded by a new ERC grant. The grant focuses on the role of the hippocampus in visual perception, using 7T fMRI (hippocampal subfields, cortical layers) and MEG+iEEG. The intended start dates for both positions are in early 2027. 🧠🟦 1/3
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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Speedy, spiraling electrical waves may be key to brain’s information flow Rotating neuronal waves are built into brain anatomy and help coordinate far-flung regions, mouse imaging study suggests www.science.org/content/arti... #neuroscience
science.org
Speedy, spiraling electrical waves may be key to brain’s information flow
Rotating neuronal waves are built into brain anatomy and help coordinate far-flung regions, mouse imaging study suggests
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Reposted by Elkan Akyurek
Eddie Ester @eester.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Some positive news amongst the chaos: I received an official award notice from NSF (SBE/BCS) this AM! So for those of you with pending applications, keep the faith. Also, looks like I'll be recruiting 1-2 new Ph.D students this fall to carry out the work; interested parties can e-mail me to chat!
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Eren Günseli @erengunseli.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
I am looking for a postdoctoral researcher to join my lab at Sabancı University in Istanbul for a 2-year TÜBİTAK-funded position, with possible extension. Interested candidates can email me with a CV and a brief note about their research interests. More details on gunselilab.com soon.
gunselilab.com
Memory, Attention, & Cognitive Control Lab | Istanbul | Sabanci Uni.
Memory, Attention, & Cognitive Control Lab at Sabancı University - Eren Günseli. We study how memory and attention interact, how humans control what to remember, what to forget, what to attend to, and...
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Freek van Ede @freekvanede.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Finally out: my review in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social covering how my lab and others have been ‘Looking into working memory through micro eye movements’ over the years. What does the microsaccade bias buy us? A lot I argue. Go see for yourself at: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
doi.org
Redirecting
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Brad Postle @bradpostle.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Postdoc position available at postlab.psych.wisc.edu. Pls send cv to postle@wisc.edu
postlab.psych.wisc.edu
PO-STL-AB
Our interests in human memory and cognition encompass the cognitive and neural basis of working memory, attention, control, and consciousness.News  Madison Symposium on Memory & Control. On 30 May 202...
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Şahcan Özdemir @sahcan.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Our latest paper is no longer behind a paywall! We show that visual bias in working memory toward interference can be moderated by motor control 🧠. Check it out!
jneurosci.org
Motor Control Processes Moderate Visual Working Memory Gating
Gating processes that regulate sensory input into visual working memory (WM) and the execution of planned actions share neural mechanisms, suggesting a mutual interaction. In a preregistered study (Op...
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Reposted by Elkan Akyurek
Olaf Dimigen @olaf.dimigen.de · 29/05/2026
Our detailed tests of high-speed OLED monitors for vision, eye-tracking, and EEG research are finally out in 𝐵𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑟 𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑀𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑑𝑠. So why did it take 1.5 years to publish this? Because we discovered a new property of OLEDs that vision researchers should be aware of... [1]
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Ryszard Auksztulewicz @auksz.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
ANOTHER assistant professorship available in my department. Focus on contemporary neuroimaging applications to neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. #NeuroJobs vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl/job/Maastric...
vacancies.maastrichtuniversity.nl
Assistant Professor Neuroimaging
Assistant Professor Neuroimaging
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Nick Myers @nick-myers.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
New paper with @paulm-k.bsky.social and Mark Stokes on how we switch internal attention between working memory contents. Beta-band oscillations tracked the magnitude and success of these switches. www.jneurosci.org/content/46/1... #neuroskyence
jneurosci.org
Human Beta Oscillations Reflect Magnitude and Fidelity of Priority Shifts in Working Memory
Flexible prioritization in working memory (WM) is supported by neural oscillations in frontal and sensory brain areas, but the roles of different oscillations remain poorly understood. Recordings in h...
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Berna Güler @bernaguler.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Happy to share that I will give a colloquium talk at the Heymans Institute for Psychological Research, University of Groningen, on June 2 I will present my work on how experiences are segmented into meaningful events, and how contextual stability and working memory contribute to this process ✨
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Alex J. Hoogerbrugge @ajhoogerbrugge.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Investigations into whether we can search for multiple targets in a simultaneous fashion have led to mixed findings. In this new PsychScience article, we report that people CAN search concurrently, but don't always DO so... 🧵 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Results figure, showing that, when instructed, participants can either search sequentially or concurrently for multiple items
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Rosanne Rademaker @rademaker.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
To conclude: It’s looking like feedback is a plausible mechanism to invoke latent states in EVC, and is necessary to maintain flexible and distractor resistant visual thoughts. As usual, there’s much more cool stuff in the preprint, so check it out! 11/11
biorxiv.org
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Eren Günseli @erengunseli.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Excited to share our new paper on how distraction affects memory retrieval. Using a continuous report paradigm, we show that distraction reduces whether memories are accessed but not how precisely they are represented. link.springer.com/article/10.3...
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Both items were similarly decodable during encoding, but differed during maintenance. A predictable, fixed testing order resulted in order-specific priority (at Impulse 1). An unpredictable, random order did not. Work lead by Mingmin Zhang and together with Wouter Kruijne. 3/3 #neuroskyence #cogpsyc
EEG decoding of working memory representations at successive impulses during maintenance, for predictable, fixed-order and unpredictable, random testing orders.
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
We decoded working memory representations from EEG while they were being encoded, and during maintenance, where we decoded from two impulse stimuli presented before the response to each item was given. We found that your encoding would likely not change, but your maintenance of the items might. 2/3
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
New preprint! Imagine you’re locked in a lab, doing a working memory task, in which two items are presented and successively tested each trial. If you knew in advance which item would be tested first, would you encode it differently, with priority? 1/3 Our answer: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
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David_Pascucci @davidpascucci.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Read our latest #perspective on spatiotemporal routines in perception and cognition, published in @natrevpsychol.nature.com 👉 rdcu.be/fgYWU, with Árni Kristjánsson @icevislab.bsky.social , thanks to @snsf.ch @thesensech.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social
rdcu.be
Spatiotemporal routines in visual perception
Nature Reviews Psychology - Perception unfolds within richly structured spatiotemporal environments but is often studied in simplified contexts. In this Perspective, Pascucci and Kristjánsson...
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Brad Postle @bradpostle.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Effects of TMS on the Decoding and Electrophysiology of Priority in Working Memory www.eneuro.org/content/13/4... More evidence for a (not-inhibitory) role for oscillatory dynamics in the low beta band in the encoding of priority in WM
eneuro.org
Effects of TMS on the Decoding and Electrophysiology of Priority in Working Memory
The flexible control of working memory (WM) requires prioritizing immediately task-relevant information while maintaining information with potential future relevance in a deprioritized state. Using do...
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Veera Ruuskanen @veerahelmisofia.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
How robust is the large-pupil advantage in visual detection? Turns out, very! Here we show with @cogsci.nl that the effect persists for different stimulus colors, eccentricities, and retinal adaptation-states ✨👀 Check it out in JEP:HPP: doi.org/10.1037/xhp0...
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Nika Adamian @nikaadamian.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Tenure-track position in Denmark "with a particular focus on visual perception, including visual attention, working memory, and visual neuroscience" #neurojobs #neuroskyence #visionscience fa-eosd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
fa-eosd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com
Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Cognitive Psychology
The Department of Psychology at the University of Southern Denmark invites applications for a full-time position as tenure-track Assistant Professor. The position is a six-year tenure-track appointmen...
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Sebastiaan Mathôt @cogsci.nl · 17/04/2026
❤️‍🔥 Exciting new preprint ❤️‍🔥 #Pupil constriction causes, by itself and independently of visual stimulation, activity in the human #retina and #visual system. w/ @anavili.bsky.social @veerahelmisofia.bsky.social @hakankarsilar.bsky.social @olaf.dimigen.de 1/4 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 13/04/2026
How do experiences reshape our internal representations of the world? @bstaresina.bsky.social &co show that learning sequential experiences reshapes how the #brain represents what we see; a post-learning nap strengthens these predictive changes @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4dJGwMC
Emergence of Successor Representations and Experimental Design. Top: Example of how sequence learning and sleep might change neural representations. Upon encountering a Welsh Corgi, the brain primarily represents the current stimulus entity. If the Corgi is part of a recurring temporal sequence (Corgi → Girl → House), subsequent stimuli (Girl and House) might be integrated into the Corgi representation. Post-learning sleep might provide an opportunity for the brain to replay learned experiences and thereby further strengthen successor representations. Upon post-sleep exposure to a Corgi image (right), brain activation patterns might reflect both the current stimulus (Corgi) as well as learned successors (Girl, House). Faded images indicate weaker representations. Middle: Timeline of the experiment. Participants first completed a perceptual task, followed by a sequence learning task (Memory Arena). Memory for the learned sequence was then assessed both before and after a period of sleep. Finally, participants completed the perceptual task again. Bottom left: Memory Arena sequence design. Participants (N = 26) were tasked with learning the spatiotemporal structure of 50 images. These images belonged to five distinct categories (letter strings, scenes, objects, faces, and body parts) and were organized into 10 subsequences of five images each, following one of two fixed category orders: (i) letter string, scene, object, face, or (ii) object, scene, letter string, face, with body part images randomly inserted to obscure the primary category sequences. The two subsequence types were counterbalanced across participants. Bottom right: Memory Arena location design. The Arena was spatially organized into five principal ‘slices’, with each slice corresponding to one of the five main image categories.
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Yuanyuan did a great job on this one! If you're interested in working memory & EEG, stay tuned for a couple more projects from her, coming out soon.
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Ingmar de Vries @ingmardevries.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
JOB ALERT: PhD opening in my lab! @cimecunitrento.bsky.social in Italy, as part of an Italian FIS3 starting grant. The project will use advanced analysis methods of MEG data to investigate how our world's naturalistic hierarchical structure facilitates predictive neural processing.
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Zurich Cognition Lab @cognition-zurich.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
We have a new PhD position at the University of Zurich to work on visual working memory. For more info see here: www.psychology.uzh.ch/en/areas/nec...
psychology.uzh.ch
Open Positions
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Faculteit GMW - University of Groningen @rug-gmw.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
🎓 𝐁𝐒𝐒 𝐏𝐡𝐃 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 - We are proud to announce the upcoming promotion at BSS! 👇🏻 Sophia Wilhelm - Working memory undercover: Searching for traces of synaptic states in neuronal activity across wake and sleep 👉 Read more: edu.nl/xwf39
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Pascal Mamassian @mamassian.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
A new Department of Cognitive Science is being created at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Here is the call for a cluster hire (for around 10 faculty) in all areas of cognitive science, at both junior and senior levels: www.unibocconi.it/en/faculty-a... Deadline: May 4th, 2026
unibocconi.it
Open Rank Faculty Cluster Hire Search for the New Department of Cognitive Science at Bocconi - Bocconi University
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Aidan Horner @aidanhorner.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Exciting news! The @yorkpsychology.bsky.social are recruiting 3 new ART (research and teaching) lecturers! One role will be prioritised for cognitive, affective and/or social neuroscience. #neuroskyence #cognition #psychscisky #neurojobs
jobs.york.ac.uk
Jobs - The University of York
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
We observed holistic retrieval: Retrieving one element from an episodic event causes incidental retrieval of associated elements. Practiced (RP+) and not-practiced associations from the same events (RP-) were recalled equally well, over associations from events that were not practiced at all (NRP).
Retrieval accuracy for practiced associations (RP+), for associations that were not practiced, but were in the same event (RP-), and for associations and events that were not practiced at all (NRP). Retrieval was higher in the RP+ and RP- conditions than in the NRP condition, and RP+ and RP- did not differ from each other.
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
We have a new preprint out, in which @zehan-camilla.bsky.social, me, and Mark Nieuwenstein studied retrieval in episodic memory! Full read here: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
doi.org
OSF
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Impulse perturbation can help with that, but it does require *many* trials per experiment.
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Nursena Ataseven @nursenaataseven.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
I am happy to be attending #CNS2026 with the Yale Wu Tsai Institute travel award to present this paper👇🏻 as a poster - it’ll be on Monday from 2:30-4:30pm (session E), come check it out!
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Şahcan Özdemir @sahcan.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
I am glad to attend #CNS2026 in beautiful Vancouver🇨🇦! I will present my work on action planning in visual working memory. In this project, we focus on the factors leading motor planning such as selective attention, affordances and task requirements. Meet me at the Poster Session B (B38)!
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Working Memory, Cognition, & Development Lab @womcogdevlab.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
We are looking for a new colleague!🧠🇨🇭🦩 A new post doc position is available in our lab - check the link for more details! www.unige.ch/fapse/womcog...
unige.ch
Job Opening
Annonce d'ouverture de poste
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Elkan Akyurek @elkanakyurek.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Some cool work by the indomitable @nursenaataseven.bsky.social Check it out👇
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Miles Wischnewski @miles2708.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Are you interested in psychological experiments, but feel a little unsure about programming. Try OpenSesame. Not only has it a user-friendly GUI, it is also connected to SigmundAI, an AI assistant that can basically make the experiment for you! Super cool stuff by @cogsci.nl
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Melinda Sabo @sabomelinda.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
🚨 Job alert🚨 My former lab in Germany led by Daniel Schneider is recruiting a postdoc. Daniel’s research sits at the intersection of memory and attention, and the ideal candidate will have expertise in EEG and/or fMRI. 👉Job ad in English: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/br2vg... 1/n
dropbox.com
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