iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

We are planning a new version of this study which we believe will be easier, but also shorter and more fun than regular psychophysics. It's not clear yet when we will launch that study as we probably will run that as a Registered Report and have it refined by @pci-regreports.bsky.social review first

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Thanks to all who did this experiment - which we realise is quite perceptually demanding (such is the curse of psychophysicists testing normal people!). We particularly thank the people who came through the #Aphantasia Network who turned up in legion! :)

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Someone else told me the left/right aspect is confusing too. Originally we had it as inside vs outside, but the problem is that this then sometimes requires a left button press when the dot is to the right of the line so that's actually worse. I have a better(? I hope...) idea for the future though

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Originally it was too large but I think we now went a bit too much in the other direction. But it still okay - the task has to be hard to work unfortunately.

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It's been going okay - but you're not kidding that many (most?) people find the perceptual task rather hard!

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Welcome to the world of psychophysics! 😏 Thanks for giving it a try...

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you can spare ~20 min on an online study on perception & #mentalimagery please consider participating: #visionscience #psychscisky #neuroskyence tstbl.co/131-782

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Awesome, that's great to see :)

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Curious to hear how you find it. So far I like it better than Slack, especially for dealing with multiple servers. But the way threaded replies are handled is a bloody mess. (But I do like having subthreads in channels - that is a useful feature).

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Thanks, glad to hear it's a known issue 🙂

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I've tried this the other day & it works really well! Very timely since recent Matlab versions completely broke our old delineation interface...

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Fernanda Ribeiro @felenitaribeiro.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Drawing ROIs on cortical surfaces just got a lot easier! 😍 SurfAnnotate is a free, browser-based tool I have been co-developing with Claude Code (@dlinhardt.bsky.social, @sbollmann.bsky.social, and @sampendu.bsky.social ), leveraging the @neurodesk.org infrastructure!

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Interesting - so far I notice very little difference between them.

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Thanks, at least that means it's not just us... 😏

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Decided to trial out Discord instead Slack for lab communications. But I didn't think through the full consequences of naming this channel... 🤦

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Hi @royalsocietypublishing.org our recent article in RSOS has suddenly vanished from both PubMed and Google Scholar: dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos... Our papers are like our babies & we love them all - but especially this one 😏 Is there a way to get it back?

dx.doi.org

Vividness of mental imagery reflects a broad range of internally generated visual experiences

Abstract. Research on mental visual imagery typically relies on vividness ratings. However, vividness is ill defined as it lacks an objective reference. He

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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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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

JoN has word limits, or at least used to (I cannot afford to publish anymore so I haven't looked at it in ages). They were pretty tight, 500 originally for intro and 1500 for discussion. I think it's a good idea!

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Brad Wyble @bwyble.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Realizing that another danger of LLMs in science is loooooonnnnngggg discussion sections that are exhaustive and repetitive. This is more an issue for reviewers because readers can just ignore it.

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Will Harrison @willjharrison.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Sometimes I just want to try to code pretty shit low pass filter 3D noise (creates the undulation) -> project noise onto a colour wheel (with some other bells and whistles)

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Time to create an institutional data sharing repository UoA?

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

In another sign of how AI is ruining the world, in the past googling this would have given you synonyms or other ways of phrasing something. Now you have to deal with a petulant LLM 😏🤦

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Auckland is unusually cold this week but hope it stays crisp and pleasant so you all get to enjoy the scenery, not just the excellent science! 🙂

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

IT'S CONFERENCE WEEK! 🎉 Welcome to Auckland, NZ for APCV/EPC2026. Whether you're giving a talk, presenting a poster, or simply taking it all in, we're glad to have you here. Tag us with: #APCVEPC26

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

This is excellent - and if you use the online version it should deal with any of the inevitable schedule changes were aren't planning to make... 😏

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Our final schedule and abstract booklet are now available to download from our conference website: visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz/epc-apcv-2026

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Join us on 1 July, 12:00–3:15 PM, for the Synaesthesia Science & Community Forum. Explore the latest research in consciousness, sensory neuroscience, auditory cognition, and phenomenology through talks and discussion. See here for more details: visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz/epc-apcv-2026/

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Join Professor Gina Grimshaw on 2 July, 6:00–7:30 PM, for a public lecture discussing how emotions shape attention, memory, decision-making, and human connection. Register now on: visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz/epc-apcv-2026/

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

D-10! See you all soon at APCV & EPC 2026. A reminder of what's happening on the first day: 🔬 A workshop on image processing 🎨 A satellite event on synaesthesia 🎓 An ECR panel on navigating academia & industry The welcome ceremony will start at 17:30 NZT

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Exactly. There have been some other mapping studies of digits (Alex Puckett's lab published pRF maps of digits some time ago). But Susanne's study is different cause it's a map of literally only the fingertip itself. Need really high resolution for that. They're trying 9.4T next for this...

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Not quite. For one thing her study didn't use pRF mapping (which was hardly even a thing back then) and the study wasn't mapping the finger tip itself.

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I know this was a labour of love (and blood, sweat, and tears) by my great colleague Susanne Stoll: the first ever tactile maps of the human finger tip! ☝️ #neuroskyence (not really #psychscisky or #visionscience but tagged it anyway 😉) doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

A reminder that the conference schedule is now live on our website at visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz/epc-apcv-2026/ We look forward to seeing everyone soon! #EPCAPCV26

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

We have been looking at this recently - and I am not sure I agree. Although I am also not yet sure if our results agree. So stayed tuned... 😉

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

All speakers should have received information about the session & timings of their presentations at #epc-apcv-2026 by now! A preliminary (searchable) schedule is available on the website: visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz/epc-apcv-2026 Remember to register by the end of 15 May for early-bird rates!

visualneuroscience.auckland.ac.nz

EPC & APCV 2026

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Final days for Early Bird registration! Register now and take advantage of discounted pricing.

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Another reminder that our Early Bird Registration closes next week (15th May 26). All presenters, including speakers and discussants, please register by then.

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Congratulations to the brilliant Dr Ecem Altan who has official graduated with her PhD today! Moving to a foreign country to start a PhD in early 2020 must have taken much patience & perseverance - but it turned into a fantastic thesis in the end... Ka pai! Tebrikler!

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

The last trickles of sand are slipping through the hourglass... 😏⌛ #EPC-APCV-2026 - Do it now. It's gonna be awesome! 🙂

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

The sands of time are running out... Submit your abstracts while you can! 🕚⌛ (But ideally not all at the same time right before midnight because I'm the poor sod who must read them all 😏)

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

⚠️ LAST CHANCE to submit your abstract. Submissions close 30 April 2026.

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Evan Gordon @gordonneuro.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

I always assumed that brain function had to line up with cytoarchitectonics. It turns out I was wrong. Human cortex, especially PFC, is tiled by chains of functional patches that subdivide and interlink architectonic areas into parallel processing streams. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Deadline is fast approaching! Come on, get your abstracts in and swap the thermal & political heat of the northern hemisphere for some New Zealand winter cool 🙂

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

❗Last week before the abstract submission deadline for APCV & EPC 2026❗ Abstracts are due on 30 April 2026. Please also note that all presenters—including speakers and discussants in symposia—must register for the conference by the early-bird deadline on 15 May 2026.

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Sam Schwarzkopf @sampendu.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

I hate Outlook so very much... 😒🤦

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Australasian Society for Experimental Psychology @expsyanz.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

⚠️ Reminder: 2 weeks left until the abstract submission deadline for APCV & EPC 2026. Abstracts are due on 30 April 2026. Please also note that all presenters—including speakers and discussants in symposia—must register for the conference by the early-bird deadline on 15 May 2026.

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