Sign in

Alasdair Clarke

@riadsala.bsky.social
61 followers 76 following 93 posts

Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex. Works in a psychology department, but mainly teaches statistics and writes models. I should probably tell you about the book I have coming out next year.

PostsRepliesMedia
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Delighted that our new paper paper on visual foraging is now out (w/ @scienceanna.bsky.social ). We find that our generative model does a pretty good job of acocunting for human behaviour over a range of metrics. [journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/arti…
171
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Anna Hughes @scienceanna.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Roll up, roll up: @riadsala.bsky.social did some more thinking about our model of visual foraging: doi.org/10.1371/jour.... It now has some shiny new parameters (absolute direction!) and it's not bad at distinguishing individual differences in strategies too. #PsychSciSky #VisionScience
doi.org
FoMo: A unifying theory of visual foraging
Author summary Foraging is an important behaviour for humans and other animals, helping them to find food, habitats, and mates. It can involve searching both through visual space (such as searching fo...
1145
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 29/01/2026
Just learned about this study looking at methodological trends in psych and econ over time: online.ucpress.edu/collabra/art.... Matches my perception well: Nobody in psych bothers to (explicitly) try causal inference unless they conducted an experiment, not a lot of theoretical work either.
Figure 1 from the paper.
Econ: from 2008 to 2024, methods aiming for causal inference have increased, theoretical work has decreased. 
Psych: Mostly experimental or descriptive correlational work.
86817
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Professor Caroline Edwards @theblochian.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
And so it begins... 3 UK universities (Essex, Sussex & Kent) have just gone public about walking away from their Elsevier Read & Publish deals, despite Jisc's recently announced agreement. Expect to see more of these over the coming months. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/three-m... #OpenAccess
timeshighereducation.com
Three major research universities opt out of new Elsevier deal
Complaints over ‘price increases’ and open access models spur UK institutions to walk away from offer from publishing giant, despite nationally negotiated agreement
510562
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
This is the best paper I have read in ages (disclaimer: I haven't finshed reading, so I may end up hating it). I've been thinking a lot about very similar problems, so great to see somebody else doing all the hard work so I don't have to :)
131
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Ben Recht @beenwrekt.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Psychophysics is a human-facing science with interventions arguably more robust than medicine.
argmin.net
1000 Hurts
Psychophysics is a human-facing science with interventions arguably more robust than medicine.
26720
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Has anybody offered up a good defense of the current UK university secor and how it can be stabalised? The only solutions I can imagine are large increase in student fees (unfair, and punatitve on young people?); large increase in funding from government (seems unlikely), or drastic reform?
120
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
This is fantastic. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
bbc.co.uk
Through the Night - Keith Jarrett's The Köln Concert in a new arrangement - BBC Sounds
Quator Classica perform a new arrangement of Keith Jarrett's legendary concert.
000
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Urrgh. I just spent an hour trying to get tikz working with quatro. Frustrating partial success. I can make figures appear, but they look *really* ugly. Maybe i know somebody who can help, as Claude.ai wasn't at all helpful.
000
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Interesting to note that Claude (Sonnet 4.5) gets the Clarke & Hunt (2016, Psych Science, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...) Focus-Divide Dilema wrong.
110
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
Cold War is easily one of my fav films. 90minutes of perfection.
020
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Curzon Cinemas @curzon.com · 31/08/2025
Tired of happily ever afters? If you've seen caustic marriage comedy THE ROSES in cinemas and are looking for something else to watch, our Curzon Home Cinema collection Love Will Tear Us Apart features a series of breakup films, including A SEPARATION, COLD WAR and GLORIA BELL.
011
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
The smartest decision I made on this project was inviting Matteo in as a co-author :) I can't think of a better person to have worked on this with.
020
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Matteo Lisi @mlisi.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
Excited to finally have in my hands a copy of our new book Statistics for Psychology Using R: A Linear Models Perspective (written with Alasdair Clarke, not on bsky) !! 📘 www.mheducation.co.uk/statistics-f... #PsychSciSky #neuroskyence #statistics #statssky @rhulpsychology.bsky.social
Physical copy of the book “Statistics for Psychology Using R: A Linear Models Perspective” by Alasdair Clarke and Matteo Lisi, with a red title block and abstract network graphic.
55910
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
I went to Warwick back in the day I knew nothing of the brand, but my dad told me they had a good mathematics department. I'm pretty sure this new branding would have put me right off applying, and I probably would have gone to Edinburgh instead.
042
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
My book with Matteo Lisi is now out and available! www.mheducation.co.uk/statistics-f...
mheducation.co.uk
Statistics for Psychology Using R: A Linear Models Perspective
“This is the first accessible resource to linear models and R coding for Psychology students! Clarke and Lisi have mastered the art of explaining complex concepts and statistical analyses in an easy-t...
030
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
moin syed @syeducation.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
I have been editor for many Registered Reports and many traditional articles, and it is truly amazing how null results suddenly appear all over the place in Registered Reports. Almost as if there is some problem with our traditional approach. Someone should look into that.
15712
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Since the birth of my baby daughter, the internet has decided that I am a woman. Is this a sign that new dads rarely search for information about how best to care for their child? Or perhaps marketing people assume that anybody looking up anything about babies must be a woman.
120
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
The more I learn about Bayesian modelling & Stan, the stupider I feel.
000
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
I've hired a car and am driving again for the first time in years. I'm not enjoying it. My last experience was 20 years ago in Scotland. I'm now living in the South East of England, and the whole experience is horrible. The amount of selfish and dangerous parking on junctions...
100
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
@jburnmurdoch.ft.com This isn’t true. The best GenAI turns out essays that are beautifully structured, flawlessly composed - but content neutral; i.e they can’t differentiate between facts, opinions & lies, or parse sarcasm & jokes. AI essays are frequently bizarre or nonsensical. Yes, we can tell.
1613119
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch.ft.com · 30/03/2025
Hi! Believe it or not our articles get fact-checked 🙂 And what I wrote is based on a growing pile of evidence, such as: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
661
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
My latest paper with Amelia Hunt is now available at JEP:General: *Learn More From Your Data With Asymptotic Regression* psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202... I'm quite pleased with this one. I think it is a nice example of how we can deal with confounds due to learning and practise effects.
psycnet.apa.org
APA PsycNet
120
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
I'm starting to wonder why the UK's HE sector thinks the government should bail the sector out? Seems like a waste of effort given the 0% attendance. It's a shame the students don't want to turn up as I enjoy teaching.
010
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
on my way to Durham to give a seminar.
010
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Greg Fell @felly500.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
ULEZ has not negatively impacted High Streets. But it has improved air quality Lots said "it will kill local businesses" The *actual* evidence said no impact This didn't stop the negative press. ?fueled by PR?? Here is more evidence that says same www.centreforcities.org/blog/ulez-ex...
centreforcities.org
ULEZ expansion hasn’t hurt high street spending - Centre for Cities
Large scale credit card transaction data shows that the expansion of ULEZ in 2023 did not reduce demand for high street goods and services.
0219
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Wish me luck.. I have to go do a 2 hour lecture on Intro p-values to first year psych students.
110
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Altmetric @altmetric.com · 19/12/2024
THREAD This Is The Story Of The The Pernicious Rise of AI-Generated Papers and their Online Impact An Incomplete History Told In The Voice of Documentarian Adam Curtis 1/31
Adam Curtis Title Card: We Too Are Trapped In A System. Text over a background of a large office building
30599359
Reposted by Alasdair Clarke
Anna Hughes @scienceanna.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Scottish Vision Group 2025 website is now live: sites.google.com/view/svg2025/. It's one of my fave conferences - small, friendly, excellent scenery. Join us 4th-6th April 2025! #VisionScience #PsychSciSky @riadsala.bsky.social
sites.google.com
SVG2025
The Scottish Vision Group (SVG) is a collective of vision researchers aimed at encouraging collaboration among laboratories engaged in studying visual perception in Scotland and beyond. Every spring s...
0117
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
010
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
"For all experiments, we have reported all measures, conditions, data exclusions, and how we determined our sample sizes. Data and materials are available on the Open Science Framework osf.io/xxxxx).%22 ...rolls eyes...
000
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 08/12/2023
I'm still not sure the point of this service. At the moment, as I only seem to follow @mgreenephd.bsky.social and @benwolfevision.bsky.social, it feels like I'm just eavesdropping on their conversations about cats and vss.
000
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 27/10/2023
if a colleague gave a seminar and made a series of claims that you think aren't backed up by the data, would you raise this with them? [the data's all on osf, so I've had a play around]
000
Alasdair Clarke @riadsala.bsky.social · 23/10/2023
Hello all. Maybe I should give this new service a shot! I have a new preprint on how asymptotic regression can be a useful tool in a range of cog psych paradigms. That's all... I've never been one for those long twitter-threads outlininig a paper. Just read the abstract! osf.io/preprints/ps...
020