iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 19/09/2026

Check out the reusability checker ShinyApp! It's very useful for making sure your data repositories are in good condition before the upcoming read-only freeze of OSF repositories.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 13/09/2026

Can we put OpenAI/Anthropic/etc. through any Institutional Review Board / Research Ethics Committee? It would be so fun to watch them implode from all the administrative barriers and minutiae they have to get through to do their "research" (let alone address all the actual ethical issues).

Michelle Yeoh saying "Have you heard the one about the unstoppable force that met the immovable object?"

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 28/05/2026

We also explored the reported strategies for dealing with the perceived impacts of digital technology on attention (and their resulting benefits). We catalogued them on a continuum from moderation to elimination – from curating content to using "dumbphones" and having devices only for a single use.

A thematic map of the strategies that are used to handle the impact of digital technology on attention. The individual strategies are organised on a continuum from moderation to elimination (in order from moderation to elimination: content curation, device modifications, using devices intentionally, time-related strategies, blockers, distance from device, removing specific apps, and dumbphones and single use devices. The strategies lead to benefits and resulted in time spent on alternative more fruitful activities. There were also collective and social strategies, such as the need for collective social action, parental modelling, accountability and social supports.

WIlliam X.Q. Ngiam, Natasha van Antwerpen, Ella K. Moeck, Carly R. Stagg; “Endless Mind-Numbing Slop”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Perceived Impact of Digital Technology on Attention. Collabra: Psychology 5 January 2026; 12 (1): 161934. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.161934

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 28/05/2026

Cognitive scientists mostly have specific and nuanced lenses on attention. In contrast, our analysis identified a wide range of perceived impacts, both individually and socially – such as "brain rot", wasting time, mindless consumption of digital media, and a disconnection from the "meatspace".

$A thematic map showing the perceived individual impacts and social impacts of digital technology on attention reported in four relevant subreddits. The individual impacts are "fractures attention in the moment", "persistent impact on overall cognition", "leads to mindless consumption", "causes brain rot", "Wasting time", "who's in control?", and "opportunity cost". The social impacts are "societal expectations to be constantly connected", "noticing digital technology's impacts on others' attention", "disconnection from the "meatspace"", and "comparison to a pre-digital world". There are many factor that increase the vulnerability of these individual impacts; and drivers of both individual and social impacts such as the attention economy, algorithms, design features to capture attention and being trapped in the digital ecosystem. “Endless Mind-Numbing Slop”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Perceived Impact of Digital Technology on Attention: https://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article/12/1/161934/218241/Endless-Mind-Numbing-Slop-A-Qualitative-Analysis$

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 28/04/2026

In its fourth year, the pre-data poster session has helped researchers get their ideas out there, receive feedback at a point in the project when it can be actually actioned, and to meet other interested researchers in the same area. It is a low-key way for junior scientists to get involved in VSS!

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 14/03/2026

Okay, this is probably the best I will do. A bit of inspiration for some fun citizen science / psychophysics! What's My JND? 0.00080 Can you beat it? www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd...

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 12/03/2026

How dare you besmirch psychophysics? What's My JND? 0.0017 Can you beat it? www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd...

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 12/03/2026

Years of piloting my own visual psychophysics studies trained me for this moment. Any vision scientists out there that can do better than me? www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd...

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 24/11/2025

The data from the task is compelling because there is no "correct" answer; it's a free choice! Super-recognisers are grouping faces based on identity rather than valence or gaze angle. This ends up interfering their expression-matching in an independent face task (they are worse when faces mismatch)

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 24/11/2025

Tim Cottier @tvcottier.bsky.social introduces a novel face triad task to explore whether super-recognisers decipher the identity, valence or gaze of faces. When asked which face is distinct out of the three, super-recognisers preference identity information more than controls! #ASPP2025

A presenting displaying a triplet task structure for face recognition.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 24/11/2025

Wawu means spirit - the life force connecting people, Country and story; it conveys that knowledge and care are intertwined, and that knowledge is relationship and responsibility.

A slide by Cammi Murrup-Stewart for a keynote at ASPP. The title text is "Wawu as Spirit". The slide text is "Wawu means spirit - the life force connecting people, Country, and story. It is not a metaphor, but a way of knowing. Wawu reminds us that research itself can be ceremony, a practice of care and reconnection." The right of the slide contains art depicting a First Nations person amongst other faces in the forest to their side

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 24/11/2025

The second keynote for the conference is Cammi Murrup-Stewart on "Connection as Knowledge: Decolonising Mind through Wawu". A good reminder on our responsibility as knowledge leaders is sure to come.

Title slide for Cammi Murrup-Stewart's keynote talk. It depicts a forest with the title "Connection as Knowledge" and subtitle "Decolonizing the mind through research"

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 24/11/2025

After seeing @micahgoldwater.bsky.social speak on memes as forms of argument-making, I've decided to livetweet what I can of the Australasian Society of Philosophy and Psychology conference #ASPP2025. Conservatives can see the effectiveness of liberal memes, whereas the reverse is not observed.

Using an epic handshake meme to convey that philosophy and psychology are joined at the Australasian Sciety of Philosophy and Psychology conference (ASPP)

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 09/11/2025

me: finding a recent and relevant Chaz phil vis paper that I had missed through zohran-posting

Philosophy for vision scientists....or else

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 03/11/2025

As per Schurgin et al. (2020), we find that the cognitive representation underlying all tasks do not match the physical stimulus space. But we also find that the representation is different for similarity comparison and both reproduction tasks; similarity is not the basis for working memory. /7

A figure panel from Ngiam and Lee (2025) preprint. This shows the representation underlying a memory reproduction task – on the y-axis is the physically presented stimulus, whereas the x-axis is the psychological representation of that stimulus. The representation is clearly non-uniform with respect to the physical space.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 18/09/2025

We conducted a follow-up experiment comparing static discs to moving discs; we wanted to make sure the canonical CDA set-size effect replicated in our paradigm where we cued targets first. And it does when the discs are static, and we also replicated the lack of color load effect for moving discs!

Contralateral delay activity waveforms showing a big amplitude difference for remember two or four colors when the discs are static, but no difference when the discs are moving.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 18/09/2025

A surprisingly similar result! While the CDA amplitude was slightly elevated overall, there was no clear effect of working memory load. That is, the CDA appeared to be largely driven by the attentional tracking load – one or two discs.

Contralateral delay activity waveforms for tracking one or two discs, and remembering two or four colors. The key takeaway is that the CDA amplitude is driven by the number of discs being tracked, rather than the number of colors being remembered.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 18/09/2025

Our result? When subjects were only required to complete the MOT task (and could ignore the colors), the CDA was as expected. We observed a sustained difference in the CDA amplitude when tracking one disc compared to tracking two discs. But what about tracking and remembering?

Contralateral delay activity waveforms when tracking moving objects. The amplitude reflects the tracking load (one or two discs) and is insensitive to the number of colors shown (which was irrelevant on those trials).

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 18/09/2025

We combined MOT with the whole-report WM task – subjects had to track one or two moving discs, while also remembering the colors of those discs. There were either one or two colors per target discs, so either two or four colors to remember in total. We had subjects do MOT-only as well to compare.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 06/08/2025

I had a fantastic experience presenting at Raising the Bar last night! It was nerve-wracking to speak about research with no slides, but it meant I really connected with the audience on the current discourse around the perceived impact of digital technology on attention spans and brain function.

A flyer for a talk given as part of Raising the Bar Adelaide. The flyer features Dr William Ngiam, giving his talk titled "Attention! Are we losing it?"

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 18/06/2025

Does tracking and remembering the colour of multiple moving objects share a common mechanism? How might the encoded information be represented in the mind and brain? See my talk tomorrow morning to hear about a couple of EEG studies looking at this (see task below)! @expsyanz.bsky.social #EPC2025

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 01/05/2025

In the first iteration of the session, @styrkowiec.bsky.social and I shared the very beginnings of an experiment idea testing how information would be organised in working memory when stimuli were moving and changing at the same time. We got a useful signal – that others were interested in the idea!

Pre-data poster by Piotr Styrkowiec and William Ngiam. The poster presents an idea on testing how information might be represented in working memory when stimuli are changing and moving.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 24/04/2025

I created this reading list on theory in psychology a while back, so it probably needs an update! Would love any recommendations for papers to include – maybe I can turn this into a syllabus of sorts. PDF of this reading list here: williamngiam.github.io/reading_list...

A reading list on theory in psychological science; it contains ten papers, a summary of those papers, keywords and a related resource. This is best viewed at https://williamngiam.github.io/reading_lists/#theory

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 14/03/2025

Embarrassing as a vision scientist to upload a SVG of the logo, for it to come out blurry. Hopefully this one is a bit nicer to look at

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 14/03/2025

For the #visionscience folks, the pre-data poster session is back at VSS for its third year. It only makes sense to get feedback at the conference at a point in time where you can actually action it! I think it is a great opportunity for ECRs to be involved in VSS as well!

A pre-data poster icon made in the style of the Open Science badges. It features red, green and blue on the borders to represent Vision Science, and a plant in the middle to imply growth. The root of the plant is yellow to reflect the beach venue of the VSS conference, and there are three green leaves to represent the third year.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 27/02/2025

I feel like this will give ECRs (both postdoctoral researchers and early-career faculty) a great deal of insecurity, bouncing around from academic job to research job and back again, from project to project. Would like to see more explanation of how the following is achieved:

Screenshot from NCGP Policy Review Discussion Paper about the benefits of proposed embedded fellowships.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 23/01/2025

I don't think this is "radical" or is in opposition with institutional structures. Reform won't come in one fell swoop – I hope that with enough individual and local community action, there will be a strong resonance that tumbles existing structures or forces them to evolve to remain standing.

Illustration of Healthy Leadership by Scriberia. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4323154. We highlight the quotes from Adrienne Maree Brown, author of the Book Emergent Strategy.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 18/01/2025

A new update to quokka – my open-source, in-browser, free-to-use qualitative coding ShinyApp! In the new 'sorting' tab, users who have finished analysing can organise their codes into themes (or subthemes or categories based on the approach) with a simple drag-and-drop interface. #CAQDAS

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 07/10/2024

Everything is spot on, even down to the quotes. And if anyone wants to know how I think (some of the) Open Science principles can transform psychological science for the better, I will happily talk for hours on end. Check out my Veggie ID! You can create yours at sophie006liu.github.io/vegetal/

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 28/09/2024

I thoroughly enjoyed "Why We Remember" by @charan-neuro.bsky.social - it was fun to follow the weaving of personal anecdotes with our current understanding of (long-term) memory. (The Australian book cover changed the byline and lacks the distinctive brain-shaped cloud though...)

The Australian book cover for Dr Charan Ranganath's "Why We Remember", which has clouds on the background but lacks the brain-shaped cloud of the US cover.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 07/07/2024

Really cool work! Thyer et al. (fig below) shows classification from 4 to 2 with perceptual groups (wrench heads facing each other, forming illusory bars). So why isn't that kind of patterned observed with a retro-cue in the linked study? I suspect it's not an either-or between load and selection /1

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 28/05/2024

I have spent a wonderful 5 years in Chicago, learning with the Awh/Vogel Lab. It's sad to be leaving so many brilliant people who have had a positive impact on me. Tomorrow, I return to Australia and embark on the journey of becoming a faculty and starting the PALM lab in University of Adelaide! 🌴

Chicago River, taken from the Brown Line 'L'

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 12/04/2024

Piotr @styrkowiec.bsky.social will be presenting our work on the CDA in a novel dual #workingmemory and object tracking task, Tuesday morning at #CNS2024. We find that the CDA is dominated by the number of moving targets, not the load of to-be-remembered colors www.cogneurosociety.org/poster/?id=650

Our poster for the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting 2024. We conducted a novel task where subjects both track moving discs and remember shown colors. We find that the contralateral delay activity (CDA) is driven by the number of moving discs, rather than the color load.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 28/03/2024

University of Chicago ReproTea starting our meetings for the quarter by enjoying an instant ramen party while watching @priyasilverstein.com and their fantastic RIOT Science Club talk on "Easing into Open Science"! Still a relevant and helpful guide! @reproducibilitea.bsky.social

The University of Chicago ReproducibiliTea journal club enjoying their DIY instant ramen while watching Priya Silverstein's RIOT Science Club talk on "Easing Into Open Science"

A bowl of instant ramen, (Reproducibili)tea, in front of a slide from Priya's RIOT Science Club talk on Easing into Open Science

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 23/03/2024

Last year, @styrkowiec.bsky.social and I presented our own pre-data poster – a study of working memory for moving objects and the contralateral delay activity. We had a lot of helpful discussions that lead to a more impactful design – the results are going to be presented in a talk this year!

A pre-data poster by Piotr Styrkowiec and I presented at VSS 2023. We presented some background on visual working memory and contralateral delay activity (CDA), an event-related potential known to track working memory, and our proposed experimental design looking to test how the CDA may react to moving objects that change in features.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 21/01/2024

Some exciting personal news - I will become a Lecturer at the University of Adelaide, starting in June! I'm thrilled to return home and continue my journey in cognitive science.

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 11/11/2023

In an hour, as part of a SfN workshop, I will be trying to convince neuroscientists, especially early-career researchers, to (further) prioritize research rigor through open scholarship and participating in non-traditional initiatives like ReproducibiliTea. Wish me luck!

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William Ngiam | 严祥全 @williamngiam.github.io · 10/11/2023

Attention all #workingmemory researchers going to Psychonomics, there will be an unofficial social in the late Friday afternoon! Thank you to @kirsten-adam.bsky.social for her efforts in organizing, and I hope to see you all there.

Unofficial Working Memory Social – Friday, November 17, 3:30 - 6:00pm. Verba Buena Bar, 141 Second St, San Francisco.

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