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Dr Poppy Watson

@popwatson.bsky.social
370 followers 701 following 197 posts

University of Technology Sydney, Lecturer in Psychology. Attention, reward, control, associative learning, habits, goal directed, PIT, addiction

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Reposted by Dr Poppy Watson
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The amount of Amazon workers relying on SNAP and Medicaid has nearly tripled since 2020 — while Amazon’s annual profits soared by over 550%. It’s the same story everywhere: corporate profits are at record highs, while workers’ share of the economy is at a record low. We must unrig the system.
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 18/09/2026
This is an *excellent* post on cluster analysis. If you ever thought about applying cluster, latent class or latent profile analysis to psychological scales, you absolutely should read this!>
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Solomon Kurz @solomonkurz.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
At a basic level, I think this depends on what you care about. If you want quick pubs for a grade or a promotion, just do t-tests. If you are interested in your data, learn how to fit and interpret ordinal models.
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The BMJ @bmj.com · 10/09/2026
Nearly a third of the government’s nutrition advisors still have “significant” ties to the food industry including Coca Cola, Sainsbury’s, and Danone, reveals our new investigation. Despite a new code of conduct banning links to the food industry, members with ties are allowed to remain in post
bmj.com
A third of UK government’s nutrition advisers are still paid by food industry, including Coca-Cola and Nestlé
Financial conflicts of interest remain rife in the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), BMJ analysis reveals. Despite a new code of conduct banning links to the food industry, members wi...
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 09/09/2026
NEW: Our analysis found that from 2020 to 2025, the rate of deaths involving ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled compared with the previous six-year period. The uptick was steeper in states with abortion bans.
propublica.org
Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans.
With prompt and appropriate medical care, experts say, people shouldn’t die from an ectopic pregnancy. Women in Texas and Oklahoma have sued over delays in care, which, coupled with our new analysis, ...
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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · 09/09/2026
If you thought "everything is everywhere" in the brain: inactivations reveal a clear distinction of labor. Sensory areas sense, colliculus promotes eligible actions (!), and prefrontal cortex integrates. The role of superior colliculus in a logistic decision www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Malika Ihle @malikaihle.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Please anonymise your data before sharing ! At the @lmu-osc.bsky.social we promote responsible data sharing through data anonymisation, or the creation of synthetic data to share instead of sensitive data. Our self-paced tutorials: lmu-osc.github.io/data-anonymi... lmu-osc.github.io/synthetic-da...
lmu-osc.github.io
Welcome to the Data Anonymization Course! – Data Anonymization Course
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eLife @elife.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Visual working memory guides attention rhythmically in humans
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Visual working memory guides attention rhythmically in humans
Working memory alternates between remembered items in a rhythmic theta cycle.
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David Poeppel @davidpoeppel.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Speech production is fast, complicated, cool (when the right thing is said...) Covert speech is a nice trick to study this. If you like speech planning, forward models, efference copies, brains this work is (we hope) helpful to clarify the brain mechs. #neuroskyence www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Temporally structured motor and auditory representations in covert syllable production | PNAS
Inner speaking—the deliberate generation of speech through covert production mechanisms—is a common human experience. Current accounts propose that...
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Dr Poppy Watson @popwatson.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Oooh looks interesting!
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European Behavioural Pharmacology Society @eurbehavpharm.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
We can't wait to see you all this week at the #EBPS2026 workshop in Amsterdam 25th & 26th of August! Looking forward to exciting key note lectures, sessions, and inspiring discussions. See you there @eurbehavpharm.bsky.social
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Opinion Editor @ Bluesky @dly.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
a perfect summation of the tech broligarchy
“These people long for immortality but can't wait ten minutes for a cup of coffee," she says.
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Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
“If you want research led teaching then at a minimum you have to allow teaching staff time to *read* and incorporate new research” I say every year as I object, again, to a workload model that allows 50mins prep per 1 hour teaching.
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Daniel Lakens @lakens.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
New Blog post: Which Data Repository Should you Use? In light of OSF closing down, I compare Zenodo, Dataverse, ResearchBox, PsychArchive, and local repositories on six important dimensions. If you want to know which to pick: It depends! daniellakens.blogspot.com/2026/08/whic...
daniellakens.blogspot.com
Which Data Repository Should You Use?
The Center for Open Science has announced that from November 16, 2026, no new projects can be created on the Open Science Framework. After F...
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Mara Mather @maramather.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Starting September 1, I will be working with a team to start a new research center at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. We currently have a couple of positions posted but there will be more so if you are interested stay tuned and feel free to get in touch.
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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Flu season was late to get going this year, but it's here now (and not too late to get a flu jab) www.phfscience.nz/digital-libr...
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Kate Wassum @katewassum.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
We’re hiring a research technician!! We’re an inclusive team of behavioral neuroscientists trying to discover the brain circuits of learning, decision making, and habit. More info👇 wassumlab.psych.ucla.edu/join-the-lab/ Job posting: jobs.ucla.edu/jobs/11232
Photo of group of Wassum lab scientists standing in front of a fountain at UCLA.
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Jan R. Wessel @janw.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
New preprint from the lab. We think we have a solution (two, actually) to a long-standing problem in the field of response inhibition. Using two different mathematical approaches, we think we can identify long-hypothesized inhibitory 'trigger failure' trials. More in🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Two types of response inhibition failures in humans
Response inhibition is a key control function that allows humans to perform safe, goal-directed behaviors. The dominant behavioral-computational model holds that response inhibition fails when the inh...
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Aaron Fisher @aaronjfisher.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Attention early career methodologists and quantitative psychologists: Berkeley Psychology is hiring! This is an assistant teaching professor position with potential for security of employment (equivalent to tenure). Please share widely! Thank you! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05480
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Teaching Professor Quantitative Methods-Psychology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
We're experiencing loneliness epidemic. Could AI chatbots help solve that problem? If you would have asked me up until recently I would say "probably!". But we don't know for sure. To answer this question, researchers in France recently ran a very cool experiment...
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Paveen Phon-Amnuaisuk @pavamn.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
🚨Our new reviewed preprint is out at eLife! 🎉 Using bi-daily gamified smartphone 📱 tracking, we ask: • Does depressive mood precede under-confidence, or vice versa? • How does depression affect the integration of local confidence into global confidence over time? elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
elifesciences.org
Dense repeated sampling reveals impaired hierarchical integration of metacognitive confidence that scales with depression
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Jessie Sun @jessiesun.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Interested in doing a postdoc with me in Auckland, New Zealand? 🇳🇿 See info below on a competitive award opportunity, and please spread the word!
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Prof Sam Illingworth @samillingworth.com · 01/08/2026
🧠 Compulsion has a wiring diagram Flip one circuit between cortex and hypothalamus in a mouse and it stops caring about anything but nice food. In people, that same connection tracks body weight and binge eating. www.cell.com/neuron/abstr... 🧪 #Neuroscience #SciComm
cell.com
A cortical-hypothalamic neural circuit for compulsive eating in mice
Leow et al. identify a prefrontal-hypothalamic circuit that drives compulsive eating despite negative consequences. In mice, binge eating reshapes prefrontal neural dynamics into persistent food-seeki...
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Oliver @oliver48.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
The thin line between US President policy making satire and reality ... via Arthur Barnes
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Jennifer Bussell PhD @jenbussell.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
How does the brain represent the value of knowledge? In our paper--out now at Nature Neuroscience--we identify a representation of intrinsic information value within neural population structures in the orbitofrontal cortex in mice. www.nature.com/articles/s41593-026-02377-y #neuroskyence 🧠🧪 (1/8)
nature.com
Representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex - Nature Neuroscience
Mice are motivated to seek information of no extrinsic value. Recording neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex reveals a representation of the value of information that is distinct from the value of ...
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ARC Tracker @arc-tracker.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Did you know the ARC is on Bluesky? If not, I encourage you to follow them: @arc-gov-au.bsky.social There will be a lot of change over the next couple of years. Tuning into them on here will help raise this channel's priority for their communication with actual researchers.
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Blake Richards @tyrellturing.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Super cool paper here, showing that the cerebellum has a credit assignment mechanism solving the weight transport problem and giving every P-cell the right error signal! But, could the neocortex be the same? Could it possibly be hard-wired like this? I suspect not... Mystery to solve! 🧠📈 🧪
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Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I believe he can go lower
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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.
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Yue Zhang @yuezhang-mu.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Excited to see this line of research continue to grow, from our initial findings in Psych Science to our follow-up work in JEP: LMC. Thanks, Nick, for the great write-up! Check it out if you’re interested in how experience can rapidly reshape attentional control.
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Reza Shadmehr @rezashadmehr.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
If an action results in error, each neuron requires an individualized teaching signal that guides change in its output. This is the credit assignment problem of learning. Are there neurons in the brain that can compute such a sophisticated teaching signal? Yes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Climbing fibers encode the gradient of a loss function for the cerebellum
Neurons in the brain are often many synapses away from motoneurons, yet if a movement results in error, each distant neuron needs a teacher that considers its specific contribution to production of th...
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Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net · 29/07/2026
Your 'doom quote' for today: "Our massive tampering with the world's interdependent web of life ... could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems" www.ucs.org/resources/19...
ucs.org
1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity
This appeal, written in November 1992, was the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity and was written and spearheaded by the late Henry Kendall, former chair of UCS's board of directors.
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The Onion @theonion.com · 26/07/2026
Nation Wakes Up From Strange Dream Where They Were Watching Soccer
theonion.com
Nation Wakes Up From Strange Dream Where They Were Watching Soccer
WASHINGTON—Dazed while trying to piece together the series of bizarre yet deeply vivid images, the entire nation reportedly awoke Monday from a strange dream in which it had been watching soccer. “I w...
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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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Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
same but for academia
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Dr Poppy Watson @popwatson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Oooh looks like a good read
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𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖 𝔾𝕦𝕣𝕝 @sundaedivine.lol · 23/07/2026
BREAKING: Canine delivers strongest bipartisan statement of the year.
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Gavin Buckingham @drgbuckingham.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
The Cognition Group in the Psychology dept at Exeter are at risk of redundancy because "basic cognitive psychology research does not align with the current priorities of funding bodies" If you think this is overtly wrong and misguided, please sign this open letter docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Open Letter in Support of the Cognition Group, University of Exeter
To Executive members of the University of Exeter, including Vice Chancellor Prof. Lisa Roberts, Senior Vice-President and Provost Prof. Dan Charman, Pro Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean Prof. Sallie...
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Gale Sinatra @galesinatra.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
I think we just passed oops.
A timeline of climate change concern.
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Matt Golding @goldingcartoons.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
“Green energy is shielding Australia from a global power price shock″⁣ (8/6) should be compulsory reading for all Australians, but particularly Joyce, Hanson, Abbott, Taylor, Canavan and Rinehart. Tim Douglas, Blairgowrie @theageaustralia.bsky.social letters
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Mike Le Pelley @mikelepelley.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
FIVE academic jobs currently open in the School of Psychology at UNSW Sydney, across a variety of areas; see links below. Please come and join us! It's an outstanding department with excellent people. tinyurl.com/4p6tp2j3 tinyurl.com/yxm565xs tinyurl.com/2u8m77z8 tinyurl.com/3wu9hnb5
tinyurl.com
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/ Associate Professor - Psychology
A Lecturer (Level B) / Senior Lecturer (Level C) is expected to carry out activities to develop their scholarly research and professional activities both nationally and internationally and to contribu...
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Fluffy Cyborg, IInd of the name @avel.kairos-research.org · 07/06/2026
[Tim Robinson generic character voice] Who said that?
Three-panel Matrix-inspired meme. In the top panel, two open hands offer a choice between a red pill labeled “Low pay” and a blue pill labeled “Insane pressure.” In the second panel, a serious-looking man (the Neo character archetype) stares forward while the caption “Academics” appears across the image, implying he is making the choice. In the final panel, a bald man wearing dark sunglasses (the Morpheus character archetype) looks surprised and asks, “Did you just take both pills?”
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PessoaBrain @pessoabrain.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
𝗜𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗼𝗳 "𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴" 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻? philosophymindscience.org/index.php/ph... #neuroskyence
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Stories of WiN @storiesofwin.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Check out our latest profile! Dr. Megan Peters (@meganakpeters.bsky.social) studies how the brain represents & uses uncertainty and she also co-founded the online summer school, Neuromatch Academy. Learn more at the link below! #WomenInNeuroscience #StoriesOfWiN www.storiesofwin.org/profiles/202...
storiesofwin.org
Dr. Megan Peters — Stories of WiN
studies how the brain represents and uses uncertainty and she also co-founded the online summer school, Neuromatch Academy
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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
OFC encodes option values while LPFC tracks spatial locations during both overt (eye movements) and covert (internal) attention. Effects of overt and covert attention on decision-making dynamics in prefrontal cortex doi.org/10.64898/202... #neuroscience
doi.org
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Christoph Strauch @cstrauch.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
New preprint (doi.org/10.64898/202...) shows that where you look next is an economic decision. Saccades trade off effort-costs (measured via pupil) against monetary rewards. 1) By default, participants have strong saccade direction preferences (e.g., cardinal over diagonal, up over down) (1/4)
Left: participants prefer cardinals and upward directions without receiving rewards. Center: after titrating rewards throughout the experiment, downward and cardinal directions provide less reward, i.e., participants are willing to saccade there even though they gain little in comparison. Right: This titration of rewards offsets the internal saccade costs, leading to uniform preference across directions
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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Our brains don’t think in a steady stream. They rhythmically “scan” different alternatives, using attention cycles to sample and compare choices. Rhythmic sampling of multiple decision alternatives in the human brain www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience
nature.com
Rhythmic sampling of multiple decision alternatives in the human brain - Nature Communications
How humans process competing information when making multi-alternative decisions remains unclear. Here, the authors show that the brain resolves the trade-off between “evaluating within” and “comparin...
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Professor Clare Collins AO @profccollins.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Are Ultra-Processed Foods (#UPF) killing us? I talk with A/Prof @philbakernz.bsky.social @sydney.edu.au for #NutritionScieneBites on ultra-processed foods & health 🎧Spotify tinyurl.com/y9zhmr29 📺 Youtube youtu.be/kbUHIULQk_Q @nmnteatwell.bsky.social @nutritionorg.bsky.social
youtu.be
Are Ultra-Processed Foods (UPF) killing us? ... with Prof Phillip Baker
YouTube video by Nutrition Science Bites
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Jan Rosenow @janrosenow.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
This is truly mind-blowing: Norway has gone from near-zero sales of non‑emitting battery electric vehicles to now close to 100% of all new passenger car sales - achieved in about 13 years. More in my next substack newsletter. Sign up here: substack.com/@janrosenow
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