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David Watson

@dmwatson.bsky.social

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David Watson @dmwatson.bsky.social · Feb 13

New paper out in eNeuro - Functional Connectivity of the Scene Processing Network at Rest Does Not Reliably Predict Human Behavior on Scene Processing Tasks

www.eneuro.org/content/12/2...

With Tim Andrews & @yorkpsychology.bsky.social

Functional Connectivity of the Scene Processing Network at Rest Does Not Reliably Predict Human Behavior on Scene Processing Tasks

The perception of scenes is associated with processing in a network of scene-selective regions in the human brain. Prior research has identified a posterior–anterior bias within this network. Posterio...

www.eneuro.org

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Reposted by David Watson

Imaging Neuroscience @imagingneurosci.bsky.social · 14d

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Kirsten L. Peterson, Michael W. Cole, et al:

Regularized partial correlation provides reliable functional connectivity estimates while correcting for widespread confounding

doi.org/10.1162/IMAG...

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Reposted by David Watson

Brent Pitchford @bpitchford.bsky.social · 16d

Excited to share a new article from @icevislab.bsky.social! In a sample of over 60 people, we found distinct neural differences underlying object and face recognition in dyslexia. These findings highlight crucial domain-general visual processes that may contribute to word reading challenges.

Distinct neural processing underlying visual face and object perception in dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is a disorder marked by difficulties in reading, spelling, and connecting sounds to written language. The high-level visual dys…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by David Watson

Ole Jensen @olejensen.bsky.social · 21d

In our Trends in Cogn Sci paper we point to the connectivity crisis in task-based human EEG/MEG research: many connectivity metrics, too little replication. Time for community-wide benchmarking to build robust, generalisable measures across labs & tasks. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Confronting the connectivity crisis in human M/EEG research

The cognitive neuroscience community using M/EEG has not converged on measures of task-related inter-regional brain connectivity that generalize acros…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by David Watson

Alex Pike @alexandrapike.bsky.social · 26d

New qualitative paper! A foray into gastric interception. @lucysta02475610.bsky.social ran a LOT of focus groups, across groups with eating disorders, gastric disorders and neither, to understand how people experience the sensations from their GI system. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

"I feel full with shame": A qualitative perspective on gastric interoceptive sensibility

“Am I hungry? Did I overeat at lunch?” Gastric interoception - the sensing, interpretation, and regulation of signals from the gastrointestinal system…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by David Watson

J. Brendan Ritchie @jbrendanritchie.bsky.social · Aug 29

Our target discussion article out in Cognitive Neuroscience! It will be followed by peer commentary and our responses. If you would like to write a commentary, please reach out to the journal! 1/18 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... @cibaker.bsky.social @susanwardle.bsky.social

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Reposted by David Watson

Emma James @emljames.bsky.social · Jul 17

📣 New job alert! I'm looking for a 2-year research assistant for a project on word learning from childhood to adulthood. Come and join us in lovely York! Please RT 🙏 @yorkpsychology.bsky.social jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...

Jobs - The University of York

jobs.york.ac.uk

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Reposted by David Watson

University of York Library @uoylibrary.bsky.social · Jun 27

Everyone is talking about this MIT research on how using ChatGPT academically affects the brain.

It's striking how much ongoing impact there is from overreliance on Gen AI.

It goes beyond spoon-feeding; LLMs appear to be dismantling the apparatus we need to use a spoon ourselves in future.

While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.

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Reposted by David Watson

Department of Imaging Neuroscience @imagingneuroucl.bsky.social · Jun 23

Drumroll... The SPM team will announce that SPM is now fully accessible from Python! 🐍 Learn more about SPM-Python at the SPM roundtable event (Friday, 1pm) and poster number 1841 at #OHBM2025. Try the beta for yourself at github.com/spm/spm-python [2/7]

GitHub - spm/spm-python: The Python interface to SPM

The Python interface to SPM. Contribute to spm/spm-python development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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Reposted by David Watson

Iris Groen @irisgroen.bsky.social · Jun 16

In these tumultuous times, still happy to report a scientific achievement: our preprint on affordance perception was just published in PNAS!

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Using behavior, fMRI and deep network analyses, we report two key findings. To recapitulate (preprint 🧵lost on other place):

Representation of locomotive action affordances in human behavior, brains, and deep neural networks | PNAS

To decide how to move around the world, we must determine which locomotive actions (e.g., walking, swimming, or climbing) are afforded by the immed...

www.pnas.org

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Reposted by David Watson

Zejin Lu @zejinlu.bsky.social · Jun 6

Now out in Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com : “End-to-end topographic networks as models of cortical map formation and human visual behaviour”. Please check our NHB link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Reposted by David Watson

Maciek Szul @maciekszul.bsky.social · Jun 2

🚨🚨🚨PREPRINT ALERT🚨🚨🚨
Neural dynamics across cortical layers are key to brain computations - but non-invasively, we’ve been limited to rough "deep vs. superficial" distinctions. What if we told you that it is possible to achieve full (TRUE!) laminar (I, II, III, IV, V, VI) precision with MEG!

Overview of the simulation strategy and analysis. a) Pial and white matter boundaries
surfaces are extracted from anatomical MRI volumes. b) Intermediate equidistant surfaces are
generated between the pial and white matter surfaces (labeled as superficial (S) and deep (D)
respectively). c) Surfaces are downsampled together, maintaining vertex correspondence across
layers. Dipole orientations are constrained using vectors linking corresponding vertices (link vectors).
d) The thickness of cortical laminae varies across the cortical depth (70–72), which is evenly sampled
by the equidistant source surface layers. e) Each colored line represents the model evidence (relative
to the worst model, ΔF) over source layer models, for a signal simulated at a particular layer (the
simulated layer is indicated by the line color). The source layer model with the maximal ΔF is
indicated by “˄”. f) Result matrix summarizing ΔF across simulated source locations, with peak
relative model evidence marked with “˄”. g) Error is calculated from the result matrix as the absolute
distance in mm or layers from the simulated source (*) to the peak ΔF (˄). h) Bias is calculated as the
relative position of a peak ΔF(˄) to a simulated source (*) in layers or mm.

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Reposted by David Watson

Scott Cairney @sacairney.bsky.social · May 13

I’m looking for a postdoc and RA for an ERC-funded project “SLEEPAWAY: Forgetting unwanted memories in sleep”. You’ll use MEG/EEG and fMRI to understand how the sleeping brain remembers and forgets. PLEASE REPOST 😊

Postdoc: tinyurl.com/vr5thp7s
RA: tinyurl.com/ycyzkatc

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Reposted by David Watson

University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · Apr 30

✊ Dundee Uni backs down from plans to cut 700 jobs after pressure from unions and the community.

Now they must take compulsory redundancies off the table.

Solidarity works.

UCU Scotland @ucuscotland.bsky.social · Apr 29

It’s a relief to see Dundee University backtrack on 700 job cuts. We now need the employer to take compulsory redundancies off the table #StopTheCuts @ducuuo.bsky.social
www.ucu.org.uk/article/1399...

UCU comment on University of Dundee alternative recovery plan

www.ucu.org.uk

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Reposted by David Watson

Trends in Cognitive Sciences @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social · Apr 29

Beyond binding: from modular to natural vision

Opinion by H. Steven Scholte & Edward de Haan
Open Access: tinyurl.com/4b5myz68

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Reposted by David Watson

Steven Scholte @neurosteven.bsky.social · Apr 14

I am so happy—this is the first 1st author paper I have written, since the cancer diagnosis of my late wife seven years ago.
📑 PAPER ALERT: "Beyond binding: from modular to natural vision" in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2025) sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Reposted by David Watson

The Experimental Psychology Society @exppsychsoc.bsky.social · Apr 7

The portals are now open!

EPS Meeting: University of Dundee. 8th – 11th July 2025.

A joint meeting with the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS).

Portals for this meeting opened at 10am (UK Time) on April 7th for a minimum of 24 hours.

eps.ac.uk/next-meeting/

Next Meeting

EPS Meeting: University of Dundee. 8th – 11th July 2025. This will be a joint meeting with the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS), and will include the 53rd B…

eps.ac.uk

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Reposted by David Watson

Imaging Neuroscience @imagingneurosci.bsky.social · Mar 30

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Xiaoli Chen, Ziwei Wei, and Thomas Wolbers:

Representational similarity analysis reveals cue-independent spatial representations for landmarks and self-motion cues in human retrosplenial cortex

doi.org/10.1162/imag...

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Reposted by David Watson

Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · Mar 26

This article by Sussex university’s vice chancellor about how the Office for Students seemingly oversaw its investigation into worries about free speech at Sussex is… quite something.

www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

The Kafkaesque investigation into our university looks like political scapegoating

The Office for Students' so-called investigation into the University I represent was flawed and politically motivated. The implications for the hig...

www.politicshome.com

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Reposted by David Watson

Imaging Neuroscience @imagingneurosci.bsky.social · Mar 25

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Catriona L. Scrivener and Edward H. Silson:

Opponent visuospatial coding structures responses during memory recall and visual perception in medial parietal cortex

doi.org/10.1162/imag...

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Reposted by David Watson

Michelle Greene @mgreenephd.bsky.social · Mar 23

🚨New publication alert!🚨 Our latest paper explores socioeconomic biases in AI—but this time, it's not about people directly. It's about homes. Consider these images: it's clear to us that they're all bathrooms. 1/

Bathrooms from several international locations.

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Reposted by David Watson

Emily Kubota @emilykubota.bsky.social · Mar 17

The latest paper from my PhD is now out in Nature Human Behavior! rdcu.be/edRwQ

White matter connections of human ventral temporal cortex are organized by cytoarchitecture, eccentricity and category-selectivity from birth

Nature Human Behaviour - Kubota et al. find that white matter connections of ventral temporal cortex are innately organized by cytoarchitecture, category and eccentricity from birth, and also...

rdcu.be

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Reposted by David Watson

Imaging Neuroscience @imagingneurosci.bsky.social · Mar 10

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Nicholas M. Blauch, Marlene Behrmann, et al:

Individual variation in the functional lateralization of human ventral temporal cortex: Local competition and long-range coupling

doi.org/10.1162/imag...

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Reposted by David Watson

Martin Hebart @martinhebart.bsky.social · Mar 6

People talk a lot about objects, but what about the softness of a cushion, the greenness of an emerald, or the viscosity of oil? In our work just published @pnas.org, we shed light on how we make sense of the hundreds of materials around us.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Reposted by David Watson

Imaging Neuroscience @imagingneurosci.bsky.social · Feb 26

New paper in Imaging Neuroscience by Jayson Jeganathan, Michael Breakspear, et al:

Spurious correlations in surface-based functional brain imaging

doi.org/10.1162/imag...

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Reposted by David Watson

Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · Feb 21

Read this: it really captures the reality of mass redundancies in the university sector, which will only snowball from here.
voice.cymru/two-weeks-in...

Two Weeks In The Death Spiral Of Cardiff University -

Reading Time: 4 minutesBy an anonymous academic. Cover image by Adwitiya Pal On the second day of classes…

voice.cymru

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