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SP Arun

@sparuniisc.bsky.social
628 followers 251 following 111 posts

Neuroscientist at IISc Bangalore studying visual perception using 🐒🚶🏽‍♀️💻 sites.google.com/site/visionlabiisc

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Reposted by SP Arun
Will Giardino @willgiardino.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Drink SVD wines and know their singular value
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Aakash Agrawal @aakashagr.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
2/ Describe a study in plain language, an LLM drafts the jsPsych code. It opens in a full editor and stays standard jsPsych — editable, exportable, no lock-in.
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Stop coding your cognitive tasks! Chat with AI and focus on the experiment design and the science! Have a good at VibeMyExpt and let us know your feedback!
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Prayas @prayas01.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Why does one shape strike you as more beautiful than another? VisionLab@IISc is recruiting for an online study on how people perceive beauty. Your device, your time, and you get paid for it! Register and we'll follow up with next steps: forms.gle/py2oNCjBZ8QY... @sparuniisc.bsky.social
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Edvard I Moser @edvardmoser.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Out now in @science.org : How does the brain rapidly scan space to guide navigation? We found that the brain’s internal map is continuously retuned from moment to moment, focusing neural activity on what matters most. 🧵1/8 👉 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Adaptive modulation of theta sweeps in the brain’s navigation circuit
Efficient navigation requires prioritizing information from behaviorally relevant locations. In rats, such selective sampling may arise from theta-paced sweeps in grid and place cell populations, whic...
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Bella Fascendini @bellafascendini.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
This work was inspired by @tomerullman.bsky.social's “illusion illusion” paradigm (arxiv.org/abs/2412.18613) where VLMs mistake illusion-like images for genuine optical illusions. In both cases, models respond to what a problem looks like rather than what it actually requires.🔮
arxiv.org
The Illusion-Illusion: Vision Language Models See Illusions Where There are None
Illusions are entertaining, but they are also a useful diagnostic tool in cognitive science, philosophy, and neuroscience. A typical illusion shows a gap between how something "really is" and how some...
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
How do we see rectangles when we never see rectangles?
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Jeff Yau 姚明穎 @jeffmyau.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
🚨PREPRINT ALERT!🚨 I’m delighted to share new work from Yau Lab @bcmneurosci.bsky.social addressing thermotactile interactions. What happens when your hands get cold? A common experience is for your sense of touch to be impaired by coldness. 1/n
static.klipy.com
Frozen Hands Close-Up
ALT: Frozen Hands Close-Up
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Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
This paper is absolutely wild and amazing. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Homing pigeon navigation relies on superparamagnetic macrophages under overcast conditions
Birds use a variety of navigational strategies, including the geomagnetic field, especially when other cues are not available, such as under overcast or nocturnal conditions. Magnetite particles in th...
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Wow, (bird) vision is awesome!
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Stanislas Dehaene @standehaene.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
A very interesting piece by @henryconklin.bsky.social et al. on how brains and LLMs acquire abstract, meaningful internal representations by compressing the information they receive. Similar ideas in my book "How we learn"! henryconkl.in/posts/i-am-a... Full paper: henryconkl.in/posts/llms-a...
henryconkl.in
i am, myself, a lossy compression – h
a companion piece to our ICLR 2026 Paper: Learning is Forgetting: LLM Training As Lossy Compression
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Ben Hayden @benhayden.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
New paper from the lab! "Plasticity and language in the anaesthetized human hippocampus" www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Plasticity and language in the anaesthetized human hippocampus - Nature
In the hippocampus, complex processing of sensory stimuli occurs even in the unconscious state.
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Kindly use this new word where useful (with Rishikesh Narayanan) maux (v): to maximize an auxiliary attribute while losing sight of original goals. (e.g. A coffee shop is mauxing when it revamps its ambience and stops making good coffee)
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Preprint alert! We've done the first ever wireless brain recordings from the high-level visual & motor regions (IT/PMv/PFC) in monkeys engaged in natural behaviors as well as during controlled screen-based tasks. Read below for a lay summary and the link for details! 1/8
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Prediction without understanding sustained astronomy through a thousand years of epicycles, writes @tonyzador.bsky.social. AI is now offering neuroscience the same deal. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/machine-lear...
thetransmitter.org
Can AI do neuroscience without understanding?
Prediction without understanding sustained astronomy through a thousand years of epicycles. Artificial intelligence is now offering neuroscience the same deal.
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Cognition @cognitionjournal.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
A computational theory of Aha! moments! New paper explaining why Aha! moments occur & why they feel so good. TLDR: They are a form of meta-cognitive prediction errors i.e. they occur when we surprise ourselves about our own abilities! @rachitdubey.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Preprint alert! We've done the first ever brain recording simultaneously from IT & PMv in two monkeys interacting socially in natural setting! Dynamic tracking of social variables in simultaneous brain recordings of socially interacting monkeys www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Minas Karamanis @minaskar.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Hey, I wrote a thing about AI in astrophysics ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...
ergosphere.blog
The machines are fine. I'm worried about us.
On AI agents, grunt work, and the part of science that isn't replaceable.
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
Either you know you are a neuroscientist, or you don't. Either way, apply to join our lab before March 31 2026! :-)
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
www.forbes.com/sites/scottt...
forbes.com
Are Humans The Only Primates With White Eyes? An Evolutionary Biologist Explains The Research
The whites of your eyes are not an accident. They are, scientists now believe, one of the most sophisticated social communication tools in the animal kingdom.
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Zack Hawes @zackhawes.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Is mental imagery a single process? Our meta-analysis of 46 fMRI studies suggests not. We find a key divide between object imagery (visualizing an object in rich detail) and spatial imagery (mentally transforming objects). This split mirrors the ventral and dorsal streams of vision
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Please circulate widely! Open positions at the Vision Lab, Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) sites.google.com/site/visionl... How to Apply: forms.gle/vWa1PwUrcpWf... Deadline : March 31 2026
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Reza Shadmehr @rezashadmehr.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
Today I received a note from a grad student who lives in Tehran. Her note gives you firsthand experience of what it’s like to live in a city that is being bombed, and what it’s like to be young and feel despair about your future. rezashadmehr.blogspot.com/2026/03/hope...
rezashadmehr.blogspot.com
Hopeless in Tehran
Essays on neuroscience
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
What's My JND? 0.0046 Can you beat it? www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd...
keithcirkel.co.uk
What's My JND?
Find your Just Noticeable Difference in colour perception. How small a colour difference can you actually see?
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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 13/03/2026
Humanoid robots can run, crawl, and sort objects in flashy demos. So why can’t they reliably climb stairs or open doors? @johnpavlus explains:
quantamagazine.org
Why Do Humanoid Robots Still Struggle With the Small Stuff? | Quanta Magazine
The last decade has seen vast improvements in humanoid robots, but graduating to widespread use might require going back to the fundamentals.
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Roozbeh Kiani @roozbehkiani.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Join us in Woods Hole for Methods in Computational Neuroscience (MCN) at MBL (July 24–Aug 21). Four weeks of computational + systems neuroscience, hands-on training, and close interaction with an exceptional faculty.
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Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
DNN models of the brain are getting bigger. Are we replacing one complicated system in vivo with another in silico? In new work, we seek the *smallest* DNN models of visual cortex, balancing prediction with parsimony. It turns out these compact models are surprisingly small! rdcu.be/e5H8G
rdcu.be
Compact deep neural network models of the visual cortex
Nature - Parsimonious deep neural network models can be used for prediction of visual neuron responses.
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Come to IISc for open day, when all departments showcase fun demos!
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Neuroskeptic @neuroskeptic.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Here's a striking visual illusion - the 9 purple dots. Focus your eyes on the top left dot. That one is more purple than the others, right? Now try another dot... that one becomes the purple one! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41744429/
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Tim Verstynen @tdverstynen.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Proud of my colleague Doug Weber for bringing in a much needed reality check to this discussion on the promise of brain implant tech. Story: www.statnews.com/2026/02/26/b... Archive: archive.today/jsk0t @cmu-neuroscience.bsky.social
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Gautam Kamath @gautamkamath.com · 24/02/2026
Fantastic post by Colin Raffel, "We Are Over-Indexing on Paper Acceptance," drafted in May 2021 (!) but only posted now. The more things change.. Last sentence: "If you want to judge a researcher’s quality, the only meaningful way is to read their papers and judge for yourself."
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John Greenwood @jagreenwood.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Why do children struggle to recognise objects in cluttered scenes more than adults? Our new paper looks at the development of visual acuity and crowding across childhood, and the way the visual system fine tunes our ability to see detail: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Like someone said on the thread, thanks. I hate it 😏
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David Barner @drbarner.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Bots have made their way to Prolific experiments. Our lab has stopped online testing of adults entirely now for this reason - we want to know if what we study is real. Probably data collected 2-3 years ago are ok, but moving forward we just can't know. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
The best nerdy valentine poem ever 😏
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
www.instagram.com/p/DUtEMUCEiZL/
instagram.com
Pint of View Bangalore on Instagram: "You think studying the brain means lasers, machines and futuristic labs. But you already carry the most sophisticated perception lab in the world, the one inside...
111 likes, 2 comments - pintofview.club on February 13, 2026: "You think studying the brain means lasers, machines and futuristic labs. But you already carry the most sophisticated perception lab in ...
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Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
The amazing Rebecca Saxe @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social speaks tomorrow Wed at noon east coast time in the Bisan Lecture Series. Title: What People Learn from Punishment Register here to get the Zoom link!: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi... scientists4palestine.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?...
scientists4palestine.us2.list-manage.com
What People Learn from Punishment - Scientists For Palestine
Wednesday, February 11, 2025, 7 pm Palestine time Prof. Rebecca Saxe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Title: What People Learn from Punishment Abstract: In human society, punishment can so...
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Declan Campbell @thisisadax.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
The visual world is composed of objects, and those objects are composed of features. But do VLMs exploit this compositional structure when processing multi-object scenes? In our 🆒🆕 #ICLR2026 paper, we find they do – via emergent symbolic mechanisms for visual binding. 🧵👇
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Chris Krupenye @chriskrupenye.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Imagination in bonobos! I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko
youtu.be
Apes Share Human Ability to Imagine
YouTube video by Johns Hopkins University
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Biyu Jade He @biyuhe.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Ever wondered how the Dalmatian Dog effect works? The human brain can quickly learn from a single experience and generalize it to related experiences — an impressive feat so far not matched by AI. Our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com reveals how this works. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Watch this fascinating video about our Indian Face Perception Project, featuring an interview with a face blind person! youtu.be/urN9_ygKOc0
youtu.be
Studying Face Blindness In India: Introducing the Indian Face Perception Project
YouTube video by Indian Face Perception Project
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Yuriria Vázquez @yurivazu.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Thrilled to share our paper in @pnas.org! "Neural synchrony links sensorimotor cortices in a network for facial motor control" With superb team: Ianni GR (co-first), Rassi E, Rouse AG, Schieber MH, Yazdani F, Prut Y, Freiwald WA. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Title and authors of our PNAS paper on neural synchrony and facial motor control
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
Face paredolia in an actual fruit bowl at home 🙂
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Dan Goodman @neural-reckoning.org · 27/11/2025
Nature Sci Rep publishes incoherent AI slop. eLife publishes a paper which the reviewers didn't agree with, making all the comments and responses public with thoughtful commentary. One of these journals got delisted by Web of Science for quality concerns from not doing peer review. Guess which one?
Two posts from Bluesky. The first one shows a figure from a paper published in Nature Scientific Reports full of totally incoherent AI fabricated gibberish words. The other a comment on a recently published paper by eLife discussing the paper and its peer reviews which were published along with the paper.
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Its the AI version of Moravec's paradox: What we find hard (literature, art, math), AI will find easy What we find easy (seeing, hearing, moving, laundry), AI will find hard. "We are least aware of what we do best" - Marvin Minsky en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec...
en.wikipedia.org
Moravec's paradox - Wikipedia
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
This is such a bizarre illusion - the helmet leads to an expectation of a face inside and all I saw was a blurred out face until I realized what's really happening...
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Our awesome poster trilogy happening Tuesday morning! Don't miss it.
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SP Arun @sparuniisc.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Come check out our lab at SFN this week!
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