iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Alex Holcombe @alexh.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I did not use AI to write this email. Apologies for any writing infelicities. Best, Alex

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Caroline Robertson @carolinerobertson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Our newest work: a voxel-level retinotopic code structures the functional coupling of large-scale cortical networks — led by the brilliant @neurosteel.bsky.social and @pangeli95.bsky.social!

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Are you gonna apply? Noo... don't leave the UK 😭

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Steve Fleming @smfleming.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

What if consciousness isn't real? By @timbayne.bsky.social in @sciam.bsky.social "we should ask whether bees, babies or bots are conscious. But in asking that question, we should be alive to the possibility that the question itself might need replacing." www.scientificamerican.com/article/what...

scientificamerican.com

What if ‘consciousness’ isn’t real?

Our understanding of consciousness could be fundamentally wrong

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Rebecca Saxe @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I have a question about the future of metrics for hiring and promoting faculty in science. Academic journal articles have been our currency for a long time, but are under extreme & mounting pressure. Is any dept or field already using a better metric *for hiring and promoting faculty*?

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Derek Arnold @visnerd.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

This is our summary of where we think the field of Aphantasia research stands. Congenital aphantasia: what we (think we) know, what we thought we knew but were mistaken about, and what we don't know. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Congenital aphantasia: what we (think we) know, what we thought we knew but were mistaken about, and what we don't know

Congenital Aphantasia initially described a lifelong inability to visualise. But it is now understood to manifest as imaginative inabilities that can …

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Didn't know you're at Rice. I thought you're still at Pittsburgh!

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Daniel Yon @danieljamesyon.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

On my way to Edinburgh Book Festival - to consider consciousness this evening with @michaelpollan.bsky.social and @aldersonday.bsky.social @edbookfest.bsky.social

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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Very interesting, findings show when different people hear unfamiliar music and are asked to envision a story to go with it, there is a lot of overlap in what parts of the brain activate, and narrative details, showing music conveys clear cues about narrative content. No specific story examples alas

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Peter Angeli @pangeli95.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

New paper out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social with @neurosteel.bsky.social and @carolinerobertson.bsky.social! We use 7T data from the NSD to characterize a bivalent (positive and negative) retinotopic code in the hippocampus that patterns hippocampal activity even during rest. tinyurl.com/3pm43w6s

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Sam Nastase @samnastase.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

New perspective piece out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social with Zaid Zada, @adelegoldberg.bsky.social, and Uri Hasson! We try to articulate some of our excitement about LLMs and discuss what kinds of insights they might provide into the neural computations supporting natural language in the human brain.

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Now we know who's the real fantasist....

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

And ironically, he questions others’ intelligence based on race. Another video shows him fantasising about heading the Dept of “Eugenics and Race Science” at Harvard. If an advocate of eugenics comes across as stupid, it hardly helps his cause.

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Bcz of the Jason Arday controversy, I spent some time looking into his accuser, the “race realist” Nathan Cofnas, & found this video. He struggled to articulate his theory & defend his position. Didn’t come across as particularly intelligent to me.

youtube.com

Nick Ferrari challenges Cambridge academic at centre of race row | LBC debate

YouTube video by LBC

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I believe the Jason Arday controversy was never only about allegations of academic misconduct. While questions about his track record were legitimate, they soon became part of a much wider political battle. My condolences to his loved ones. #RestInPeace #JasonArday

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Tim Verstynen @tdverstynen.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

🚨Preprint alert!🚨 Have you ever wondered what imagination is good for? A new preprint from our lab tests the idea that imagination helps us develop generalizable strategies by bootstrapping experiences that haven’t happened in order to learn. We look at this in both man and machine. 1/9

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

This textbook by Jamie Ward is a fantastic introductory guide: routledgelearning.com/wardcognitiv...

routledgelearning.com

The Student's Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience - Jamie Ward

Jamie Ward

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Nadine Dijkstra @nadinedijkstra.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Excited to share our Preview about this excellent recent paper. In this Preview, @giuliacabbai.bsky.social and I explore how these findings connect with the rich literature on sensory reinstatement during imagery, and outline important questions for future imagery research! doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

It was a fantastic experience working with Daniel Margulies, Austin Benn (@neurabenn.bsky.social), Beth Jefferies, and other co-authors on this project. Cortex topography and imagery have long been studied separately. Glad that we've been able to integrate these 2 lines of research.

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

And we found a reliable ‘multisensory centre with modality-selective periphery’: visual imagery posteriorly, auditory ventrally, and tactile anterior-dorsally — all encircling a central multisensory hub. This was seen in normalised and native surfaces, indivisual and group results.

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

At long last, I’m excited to share our latest preprint on the cortical topography of mental imagery! Building on the tethering hypothesis of brain evolution, we examined the spatial layout of imagery-driven neural activities to know how visual, auditory, tactile & multisensory imagery is organised.

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Best of luck with your next attempt!

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Serge Dumoulin @sergedumoulin.net · 21/07/2026

👁️🧠🧪 Vision takes time. But how does visual information flow through the human brain? Our new PLOS Computational Biology paper uses population receptive field (pRF) modelling to bring the spatial precision of fMRI to MEG, revealing the temporal dynamics of visual areas. 📖 doi.org/10.1371/jour...

doi.org

Non-invasive mapping of the temporal processing hierarchy in the human visual cortex

Author summary Vision doesn’t happen instantaneously, but unfolds over time. While we understand a lot about how the brain processes visual space, understanding how the brain processes information ove...

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I'm not a fan of Trump at all, but I still hope England will win tonight because I know how much this possible victory means for people in England...

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Peter Kok @peterkok.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

And for our own contribution to the theme issue: Oliver Warrington and I show that the dentate gyrus encodes prediction errors during learning of perceptual predictions. This finding complements our previous work showing a transition from errors to predictions during learning (Aitken & Kok 2022). 🧠🟦

royalsocietypublishing.org

Dentate gyrus encodes prediction errors during learning of perceptual predictions

Abstract. The hippocampus is involved in learning predictive associations, responding to prediction errors as well as representing predictions of future in

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

An absolute banger of an exclusive from the Sunday Times. It's devastating. For the first time, I'm uncertain if Farage can actually survive this www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

thetimes.com

Revealed: Nigel Farage secretly funded by convicted criminal

The Reform UK leader did not declare benefits including staff, security and housing by crypto-gambler George Cottrell, our investigation reveals

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Deniz Vatansever @neurodenizen.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

What if much of human thought is navigation? 🧠 New open-access review: I argue that the DMN + hippocampal–entorhinal system form a domain-general engine for "mental navigation" across physical and abstract spaces (e.g. social, conceptual, and value). www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Jenni Rodd @jennirodd.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Finally out at @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social. Everything I think I know about word meanings. Particular focus on words that are unfamiliar or ambiguous. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

It was nice to catch up with you at OHBM!

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Your talk on semantic organisation in the hippocampus was super interesting. I look forward to reading this paper!

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

My conditioned response is to make tea when I see a kettle boiling, which is more typical in a British context. After 12 years here...

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Worms & Bones @homemadehorrors.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Nothing makes you feel like a witch like making bread with backyard herbs. #bread #baking

A picture of a full tray focacia bread. There are edible leaves and flowers pressed into it like a bouquette, and tiny cut tomatoes.

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Synaesthesia is similar to mental imagery. When we imagine, although we can project image to an external location, we still know it only exists in inner mind's eye. People with synaesthesia see colours when hearing music but still know those colours are internal although they can appear "external"

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Rocco Chiou @rocco-chiou.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Your paper is super interesting and relevant to the ideas that my collaborators and I have been exploring over years - externally oriented attention, which is deployed to the outside word vs. internally oriented attention, which can be used to do semantic retrieval, mental imagery, & synaesthesia!

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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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